Persepolis: A Book Review

This graphic novel is a bittersweet autobiography set against the backdrop of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Swetha Venkatramani shares a review of this visual read.

Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis is a coming of age story that strikes an intimate chord with the reader by being cleverly humorous and blatantly tragic all at once. Satrapi shatters stereotypes of Iran’s radical Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism, by giving the reader an honest insight into modern pre-war life. The author portrays how the West’s schemes for the oil rich country and later, the Islamic Revolution, halted Iran’s progress into a brighter future.

Divided into The Story of a Childhood and The Story of a Return, Persepolis highlights the perplexing discrepancies between home life and public life during and after the war between Iran and Iraq. The protagonist is a free spirited child born into a family of forward thinking Marxists. The 10 year old Satrapi reveals to the reader her surprisingly unconventional ambition of becoming a Prophet to heal her Grandmother’s aching knees. We are introduced to her neighbours, love for Pink Floyd, demin jackets, teachers who force students to cover their heads with scarves and more. She makes the reader connect with her family, friends, school life, neighbours and then takes it all away, making us feel the pain of her broken dreams.

The Story of a Return paints a candid picture of Satrapi’s high school years in Vienna as she navigates life through her teens, peer pressure, smoking and cultural differences. The author returns to Iran and sees people trying to rebuild their life, and attempts to do the same for herself. Whether or not she succeeds in this is what the rest of the plot deals with.

For any person remotely connected to the fields of media, communication or publishing, Persepolis is a shining example of how simple illustrations and a simpler style of writing can easily tackle complex subjects that rock the world even today. This book is a revealing read that effortlessly brings together the two turbulent themes of bildungsroman (coming of age) and religious politics.

 

Tags: bildungsroman, Communications, graphic novel, Iran, Iraq, Islamic Revolution, Marjane Satrapi, media, oil, peer pressure, Persepolis, publishing, religious politics, Satrapi

Radio Brew: Creating Change Through Engagement

Dr Pamela Hartigan, Director, Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship

“Entrepreneurs who start out with a vision of what they think their organisation would be, have actually had to morph that many different times in response to the many triggers or signals that they are getting from multiple stakeholders. They really are almost people who are putting down the tracks as the train is coming. And that ability to be flexible and to have your ear to the different stakeholders and at the same time remain very entrenched in your vision is very key.”

This interview was conducted by Shivraj Parshad for the Khemka Foundation as part of a series leading up to their annual social entrepreneurship forum on Nov 17 and 18, 2011.

Pamela Hartigan of the Skoll Centre is also the founding Managing Director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, and has led the sector to greater visibility across stakeholders. A full transcript of the interview appears on the website of the Khemka Forum, an annual event designed to catalyze the social entrepreneurship ecosystem, and to create triggers for collaboration and innovation in the space.

Tags: catalyst, collaboration, ecoystem, engagement, innovation, Khemka forum, Pamela Hartigan, Skoll Centre, social change, Social Entrepreneurship

When Short is Not Always Simple – An Excerpt from Our Style Guide

We are a nation that thrives on abbreviation. SMB, BHK, DD, BoP, PGT – we love to reduce our words down to key letters and sprinkle them liberally in our speech and writing. Never mind if the listener or reader knows what is being referred to.  From roadside signs to newspapers, we encounter short forms everywhere – some easily decipherable, others not.

There are rules (of course) that apply to the use of abbreviation in writing and our Style Guide clearly explains what these are:

Rule #1

By and large the full form of every common – and certainly every uncommon – abbreviation should be used the first time it appears in the body copy. If it appears more than once the abbreviation should follow the full form within brackets at first usage. Thereafter, only the abbreviation need be employed.

Exceptions: Entities better known by their abbreviations than their expanded forms, provided they consist of more than two words: (For example: HIV, BBC, CIA, DVD, NGO, MP, MLA, km, kg, etc.). They can appear in upper or lower case depending on general usage.

If the full form comprises just one or two words, there need be no exception. For instance, body copy should always use ‘the United States’ or ‘the United Kingdom’, the first time these countries are referred to, not ‘the US’ and ‘the UK’.

Rule#2

Full stops are not to be used between the letters, or at the end of, abbreviations and acronyms. It is PMO and not P.M.O. (Prime Minister’s Office), US Embassy, not U.S. Embassy, UFO and not U.F.O. (Unidentified Flying Object). They are, however, always used after the initials in a proper name: P. Chidambaram, V. S. Naipaul.

Other points to remember:

For an Indian audience, it is acceptable to always use the abbreviated names of national political parties – the BJP, the BSP, the CPI, the CPM as well as the four well known regional parties of Tamil Nadu – the DMK, the AIADMK, the PMK, and the MDMK. All other regional parties, even if they are well known – from the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, to the Telegu Desam Party in Andhra to the Indian Union Muslim League in Kerala – should be spelt out in full at first use.

Political parties of other countries should always be spelt out at first mention in the copy, even if they are well known in India (for example: Pakistan People’s Party – PPP).

The name of a private company, public sector undertaking or any other organisation should be spelt out at first reference, even if it is very well known (Advanced Micro Devices, not AMD; Tata Iron and Steel Co, not TISCO; Bharat Heavy Electrical Ltd, not BHEL; Confederation of Indian Industry; not CII, at first use.) Terms like ‘company’ (Co), ‘limited’ (Ltd), ‘public limited company’ (‘Plc’) ‘incorporated’ (Inc) can be used in their abbreviated forms when they appear at the end of the proper name of an organisation (as in the brackets above), but should always be spelt out in full when they appear all by themselves (for example: ‘X’ is a public limited company).

Ranks, designations, positions of any kind, whether civil or military, should be spelt out at first reference and abbreviated thereafter. (For example: Major-General (Maj Gen), Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Chief Executive Officer (CEO))

Abbreviations, if they are well known, may be used in headlines, but they should be kept to a minimum. Months of the year can be abbreviated in headlines, but never in body copy. More than one abbreviation in a single headline is not permitted.

Acronyms can usually be pronounced as a word by itself (For example: Aids, AIIMS, Nato, Noida, Radar, Unesco) and everything said about abbreviations applies to acronyms as well. If the acronym is better known than the full form – as in the case of all the six instances above, the acronym alone can be used. There is only one difference: unlike with many abbreviations where all the individual letters are in capitals, with acronyms only the first letter is capitalized (Asean, not ASEAN; Unicef, not UNICEF).

Tags: abbreviation, acronyms, common usage, company names, designation, political party names, style guide

Dauntless in Bentota – Team 26 Does Us Proud!

On September 1, a team from The PRactice  packed their bags at short (and we mean short!) notice and flew off to Colombo and from there to Bentota for the annual Royal Challenge Clash-a-thon, a grueling two-day competition that pits corporate teams against each other in a test of physical toughness, mental agility and, most importantly, teamwork!!

We chronicle the team’s journey through the five stages of the competition below:

Round One: A Bears and Bulls stock market exercise where the team had to trade Rs 3000 worth of stock. The trading decisions were based on data gathered from specific information hubs and/or derived from solving puzzles. The team had to aim to grow their original amount of Rs 3000 to Rs 20,000.

Analysis: The team played it safe, making smaller trades of a share or two where the upside was limited. Sandhya and Karan who took on the role of “stockbrokers” were clearly risk averse and this was reflected in some of the decisions. The team was also poorly coordinated at this point and did not approach the challenge in this round with a clear game plan.

Position after Round One: 15^th or 16^th

Round Two:

In this stage the team faced a mix of physical activities combined with light engineering tasks. After every physical hurdle that they cleared, they were given a piece of equipment with which they had to complete three assigned mechanical activities.

Analysis: The team was working better together in this round but strategy was still lacking. Everybody jumped in to contribute wherever and however they could. A more effective approach might have been to assign a specific role to each member.

Position after Round Two: 14^th or 15^th

Round Three:

This was the Scrabble round! The entire team set out in the search for a mission statement and this involved filling in a Scrabble board. The team with the best (most complete) board stood to win.

Analysis: This round found Sandhya in her element as someone who has played a lot of Scrabble in the past! However, to create the perfect scrabble board, she needed every member of the team to run, crack codes and collect bonus tiles. There were bonus rounds that the others completed in order to win better and more tiles that would facilitate the word creation on the board. One bonus round even had Shaifali jumping into the pool to grab some tiles from the bottom! Karan, on the other hand, sprinted four times between two properties on the beach with a flashlight in hand! By now, team members really knew each other’s strengths and each person had a clear role to play.

Position after Round Three: 8^th! (High point of the competition: The team won first place in this round and got special mention for this big move up the rankings on the closing day)

Round Four:

The team tested their gaming luck while playing other teams in a board game of cops and robbers.

Analysis: This round was the team’s undoing. There was a large element of luck involved in this round and it deserted the team during this round.

Position after Round Four: 11 or below

Round Five:

The most physically demanding stage, the final round was a pure endurance challenge involving a combination of kayaking, cycling and running. Astha cycled close to 20 km in this round while Chaitali sprinted down the beach sand despite a bandaged foot! Omesh and Aseem proved to be mean kayakers and came through with a powerful showing! The team had to assign 2-3 people for each activity. After covering a considerable distance on land or water, the team met at a mid-way point where they had to solve puzzles before heading back. They could opt to switch roles at this point. Once back, the team had to head to the beach and solve a case – a whodunit. Finally the team had to tie a set of planks together that they could then walk on to reach the finish line: The team finished fifth in this round!

Analysis: The team was really operating at its optimal best at this point with the members pushing themselves as hard as they could.

Position after Round Five: 9^th!!

A COUPLE OF LESSONS LEARNT: No matter how strong a person is, it is the combined strength of the team that really results in progress and success. And while some teams didn’t win any of the rounds, their performance was consistent throughout. In the final analysis, this consistency may have been more important than see-sawing between brilliance and mediocrity.

TEAM MEMBERS TALK ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCES……

ASTHA:

What was the toughest challenge in the competition for you? And the most satisfying moment?

For me the toughest challenge was the first one, bulls and bears, because none of us really knew too much about the competition and what to expect. The challenge required a lot of team coordination, physical exertion and smart aggressive trading. I think we wasted a lot of time just trying to figure out what to do and in hindsight could have done a lot better if we spent just 10 minutes in the beginning trying to figure out how to crack the challenge, prioritized a little bit and had each team member take on a specific task. We were just so excited and anxious to get going that we ran all over the estate without being too effective. We did however learn a lot from the first challenge and improved immensely over the next 4 stages.

The most satisfying moment was the end of stage 5 or “Tour de Bentota”; it was the perfect end to the clash-a-thon. After biking 15-20 km, solving a murder mystery, walking across the beach on wooden planks and then running the last leg of the race the challenge ended with the perfect sunset on the beach. All the teams were so excited to have completed the challenge that everyone jumped into the sea to cool off.

SANDHYA:

Summarize how the team changed (in the way you worked and gelled together)

from stage 1 to stage 5.

The PRactice team that participated in the Clash-a-thon had absolutely the right mix to potentially win. We had an indifferent start where clearly we had no idea of the expected level of performance. We underestimated the bonus rounds and had absolutely no co-ordination as a team. Not surprisingly we fared badly and placed in the bottom five. Stage two we were better prepared, understood our strengths better and worked better as a team but there was a gap in co-ordination. While we worked as a better unit it wasn’t good enough. Stage three was when we got it bang on, we cracked all the bonus rounds, coordinated better and were more focused. We topped this stage and got a special mention at the end for one of the best scrabble boards the judges had seen. Stage 4 – we were plain unlucky, it was a game that was based purely on luck with little strategy and we didn’t make it past the Round Robin stage- a pity because at this point we were ranked 8^th and looking good enough to end up in the top five. Stage four saw us drop in our ratings. The toughest stage, Stage five involved kayaking/cycling/running/ solving puzzles and the final run to the finish. We rocked as a team and came in fifth – clearly the result of us planning better, coordinating better and working on our strengths and weaknesses.

KARAN:

Was there any time when you felt stretched to your endurance limits – when and why?

Actually I never really felt that I was stretched, simply because my body is conditioned and prepared to take on more. As I am quite regular with my fitness regimen and have been doing it for almost 10 yrs now with different sports backgrounds, I was fine with all the physical challenges, and was willing to do a lot more if needed.

But the task of running around 4 km on the beach in Stage 5 was quite new, interesting and a few new muscles were put to work. I thought every task was great fun and we kept motivating each other, which brought out the extra bit required to push up our ranking to what we ended with.

ASEEM:

How has this competition changed you? And the way you view team work?

I feel more confident about myself. Before we started all the running around, I was not sure if I would be able to keep up with the physical and mental demands of the competition and although I feel I didn’t do as well as my other team mates I did perform better than I expected.

As far as team work goes, Sandhya had outlined one simple rule before we started the competition – “Don’t lose your cool”. And that, I feel, is the most important thing I have learned on this trip. To remain calm and composed under pressure is the key for a team to function smoothly. I feel we were able to identify our shortcomings, work on them and lift ourselves to the level we wanted to be at only because we all took responsibility for our failures and kept egging each other on to aim higher and strive for more.

CHAITALI:

Describe your high and low points from the competition.

Starting off on a positive note, the high point was that throughout this competition, our team functioned as the best team! While we had our share of ups and downs, the way our team stuck together through every stage was awesome! We did not fall prey to the blame game – that was the high point for me at least as I could feel that it kept the team motivated! Ours was the only team with four women, and we still finished ahead of numerous other teams who were more male dominated. And TPR was absolutely fabulous in helping me out with my injured foot.

While there was no really low point in the competition from a personal standpoint, it was stage 4 – a game of cops and robbers that hit us hardest. We didn’t do too well with that game and this kind of changed the stand for us. While we didn’t perform too well and it was a low point in that sense, it definitely helped us to plan better and to optimize our team resources for the final stage

Note: Chaitali hurt her foot on Day Zero and completed all the physical challenges (including a lot of running) with a painful, swollen foot.

SHAIFALI:

Was there any point when you were scared or anxious? How did you overcome this?

Before I answer your question, I just want to highlight that I’ve been a National Level Swimmer, broken and made a couple of records at both State and National events during 13 years of my professional swimming career. As a sportsman, the concept of being scared doesn’t exist as we are trained to meet challenges head on and to give more than 100% of ourselves to each task. At this event, each stage was different and exciting. The strategy was to excel in each task so as to achieve a higher overall rank and bigger lead.  The only times I felt anxious was when we were waiting to find out our ranks after each round and our final position at the end.

This event has been life changing for me, as it’s not only about team building and team spirit but also about developing smart goals and going after them at each stage in your life.

OMESH:

Did you find out anything about yourself that surprised you? Or about your team members?

We were a team of 7 out of which I only knew Sandhya, Astha and Karan (over the phone). For such a new team, to stick together without ego clashes and frustration was amazing to me. At no point was anyone blowing their fuse.  We knew we were one player down even before the event started (with Chaitali’s foot injury). Still that never slowed us down at any point as we worked to our strengths. Something that surprised me about myself was the fact that although I am bad in board games when playing my friends, I could play at par with executives from Morgan Stanley, ANZ etc!

There were other things that surprised me about each one of us. Chaitali – for her die hard spirit despite the injured foot, Karan – for his stamina and running, Aseem – for taking up any challenge with a smile, Shaifali – for being a mermaid in water – such a graceful swimmer; Sandhya – a complete motivator and strategist with fabulous vocabulary (Scrabble champ); Astha – for being an awesome cyclist and athlete.

CONGRATULATIONS TEAM 26 !! GREAT JOB DONE!

The Future of News – A Summary of an Economist Report

In its July 9th issue, the Economist (arguably the magazine world’s most thoughtful product) published a 14-page report titled: Bulletins from the Future, an exhaustive analysis of the current state and future shape of the global news industry. Between the tug of traditional news delivery and the pull of new media, this is one industry that needs to get used to the idea of change. The Economist report studies six looming issues or trends in its attempt to predict the course that News will take over the next decade or so….

1) How Newspapers are Faring: The death knell has been sounded for newspapers in many parts of the world, notably in the US, Western Europe, Japan and Australia where circulation has been on a steep decline since 2005. In other parts of the world, however, such as in South Africa, China, Brazil and most definitely India, reports of its death appear exaggerated (to paraphrase Mark Twain). In India, circulation actually went up a whopping 40% in the period from 2005 to 2009 and shows no immediate signs of flagging. The Economist report says: “Thanks to India’s vast population, there is scope for growth in print media for years to come”. Still, there are others who wonder whether “this greater interest in news [will be] a short-term phenomenon that will be undermined by the spread of internet access”.

2) The Search for New Models: When print newspapers were the single main source of news, their advertising-oriented revenue model was simple but hugely effective. That model, the report says, “has come unstuck in the internet era, as readers have shifted their attention to other media, followed by advertisers”. Newspapers – largely in the US and Europe – which have seen their circulation and corresponding advertising revenues drop drastically in recent years are now casting around for new revenue sources. Online advertising is still nascent and has yet to establish its full value. So charging for content has become the route that publications are taking.  Several publications (the Economist included) use metered pay walls that allow readers to read a certain number of articles every month before they are asked to pay.

3) Social Media: No current discussion of news can be complete without factoring in how social media has impacted it in recent times. The Arab Spring, the end of Osama bin Laden…these and other stories are believed to have been first broken or disseminated by independent bloggers and self-styled reporters. A professor of journalism quoted in the report says that the “change began around 1999, when blogging tools first became widely available”. The result, he says was to “shift the tools of production to the people formerly known as the audience”. Where does this leave trained journalists and editors? Actually in as much demand as earlier, the report concludes.  ’By providing more raw material than ever from which to distil the news, social media have both done away with editors and shown up the need for them’. Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, reinforces this view when he says that “as much iformation as there is now available, there still is an editorial function that needs to happen – there still needs to be someone who makes sense of it all.”

4) is it Activism or Journalism?: Wikileaks is leading the charge for complete transparency in governmental and organizational operations. It gives its sources – whistleblowers and other insiders – the full cover of confidentiality by providing an anonymous dropbox in which they can deposit their information. Other news outfits and some non-profits have followed suit. A few non-profits have gone so far as to set up their own news production units - with innovative results - but this has led to questions on whether this is truly journalism or just agenda-driven activism disguised to look like it.

5) Transparency is the New Objectivity: With so many opinion-rich sources of news, is balanced reporting eventually going to go the way of the cuff link (nice, but what’s the point of it?). In the US, news channels with a distinct political voice (Fox News, MSNBC) have raced ahead of rivals with a more neutral reporting tone, such as CNN. Many of India’s news channels, the report says, ‘cater to specific political, religious, regional, linguistic or ethnic groups. Only a few take an objective, pan-India approach’. Still, loosening up on objectivity shouldn’t lead to a journalistic free-for-all. It just means that transparency now becomes the new yardstick of reporting quality. Enabling transparency will mean giving the reader a view into all sources and data – in the case of the web, that means linking to these sources. After all, as a source quoted in the report says: “Objectivity is a trust mechanism when your medium can’t do links. Now our medium can.”

6) The End of Mass Media: News has come full circle, the Economist report says, with a ‘vibrant, free-wheeling and discursive’ quality that it probably had in the pre-industrial 1900s of the Western world. That was the time when news travelled through pamphlets, letters and speeches across marketplaces, taverns and coffee houses. Social media are just New Age forms of those circles where ‘news, gossip, opinion and ideas [spread] with little distinction between producers and consumers of information”. It is still premature to signal the end of mass media in certain parts of the world but the shakeout that has begun in News is sure to spread, sooner or later.

What does this for mean for traditional news organizations? The Economist sums it up: “Successful media organizations will be the ones that accept this new reality. They need to reorient themselves towards serving readers rather than advertisers, embrace social features and collaboration, get off political and moral high horses and stop trying to erect barriers around journalism to protect their position. The digital future of news has much in common with its chaotic, ink-stained past.”

Tags: activism, Arab sping, change, Journalism, new media, new models, newspapers, non-profits, objectivity, Osama bin Laden, social media, the economist, the future of news, transparency, trends, wikileaks

Radio Brew: Taking It Beyond TRPs

Sunit Tandon, Director General, Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC)

 “Without compromising your intellectual integrity, you can run a channel that is self supporting. The very low cost channel which keeps its mind, which gives sane programming, which does not compromise its intellectual honesty; without going into sensationalism and hype – we can have a very viable channel in India, there is space for it.”

At Radio Brew, we want to stay true to our promise of bringing you closer to the leading social commentators of our times; individuals who have earned their place in society and who can weigh in on the issues and trends that dominate the current landscape in India.

This time our guest is Sunit Tandon: former Doordarshan presenter, Head of Lok Sabha TV, and now Director of India’s premier media school. In this chat with Radio Brew, Sunit tells us that you can’t force fit good content and storytelling within the narrow pursuit of Television Rating Points or TRPs.

Sunit speaks from experience. He was given the responsibility to build Lok Sabha TV after taking over from Bhaskar Ghose . The brief was clear: Sunit and his team had to create a space where people could access all the information and perspectives they needed as participants of a parliamentary democracy and, at the same, build a viable entity.

In our first podcast on Radio Brew, we explored the phenomenon of ‘Paid News’ with CNN-IBN’s Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai. Sunit agrees with the idea of implementing a firm code of ethics for media bodies and provides a real test case to show that it is possible. Lok Sabha TV ran good programming, stayed within budget, and within six months seemed to pull ahead of the private English news channels in the TRPs race.

He admits that having public sector backing did provide an edge. Still, there’s no taking away the fact that people were tuning in – to hear the views, watch the alternative documentaries and films, and ultimately provide the audience to sustain the channel beyond parliament sessions and Sunit’s own tenure.

Tags: code of ethics, IIMC, Lok Sabha TV, paid news, storytelling, Sunit Tandon, TRPs, TV channel

Don’t Be a Loner at Work

Sandhya Thukaram, Employee Engagement Maven, shares the story of how a thaw in an initially icy attitude transformed her  interpersonal relations at work. Along the way, she learnt some valuable lessons about giving and gaining respect in the workplace.

So there I was fresh out of an “International” B-School and a snobbish International attitude to match!  I carried this right into my work place and was disdainful of the non-Versace wearing regular people at the new office. Aah well, I thought, I can manage without really hobnobbing with the office folk.

Two months down the line, Versace shirt still in place, I can still see myself in that corner. Lonely, but with the attitude unchanged. The rest of the office was a laugh riot and most people seemed to get on famously. Honestly, they tried and even offered to share their lunch during the break. But it was tough to get off the high horse.

Luckily, into month three, a friend came visiting and realised the ivory tower I’d created for myself. She walked around, introduced herself and chatted away to my “colleagues” like she’d known them forever. “You didn’t have to try” I told her. “I wasn’t” she said. Apparently she found “those” people fun!

 That got me thinking and when I walked into office the next day, I proffered a half hearted smile to the receptionist who I usually breezed past with a vacant expression. She did a double take and smiled back rather sweetly.  Armed with positive feedback, I dropped the attitude and opened up to my colleagues.

Before long, we were watching movies, doing lunches and even exchanging confidences. It was amazing how a shift in attitude changed my work environment almost overnight.  It made me realize that people are people are people. It also makes sense that if one is going to spend the major part of a day at a place, one must remain open to that experience.

 If a colleague is giving you a tough time because he or she senses you are a threat, don’t try too hard. Be pleasant and send out positive vibes but don’t be subservient. When a colleague senses that you are only concerned with doing your job well and not stepping on anybody else’s toes, sooner or later they’ll warm up.

 More important than anything else - to make friends at work, it is crucial to command respect. If people sense that you are going to work as hard as the rest of them and not just curry favour with the boss, they’ll want to be friends!

 

Tags: attitude, International B-school, ivory tower, loner at work, open-minded, respect, shift, Versace, work environment

Polytheism + Information = Consumerism?

How does a daily communion with the Gods in the pooja room affect one’s spending patterns? Vidhyashankar combines logical reasoning with a small leap of faith to arrive at an interesting conclusion on this topic.

It is an undisputed fact that our reality is determined by information, particularly visual images that dominate our senses. The proliferation of a Net society does make the TV era seem regressive (couch potatoes save your souls!). The success of the internet is also a reflection of the success of true democracy where the role of governance and the idea of a government is often at question – the recent revolts in the Middle East are just the tip of the iceberg. The government of India’s “emergency option” to use the ‘kill’ switch to shut down the internet is an example of how even democratic governments perceive it as a threat to their existence.

Some say it is the reality of a ‘Nation-State’ policy that almost all governments are in conflict with advancement – of views and opinions! The irony is that in the most connected state of the world, the importance of privacy and the risk of isolation are the highest… and so one could also argue against being connected. Where’s THE point of balance? I’m excited to be around in these times and will hopefully find some answers soon.

But I digress here…let’s go back to the idea of visual images impacting our lives and state of mind, conditioning us to receive more information and spend more, thus turning us into ‘consumerist beings’.

 This begets an important question: are Indians more prone to consumerism than other cultures? I pose this question simply because with our expansive pantheon of gods, we are very familiar with polytheism and idolatry. In his popular book on mythic cosmology, ‘The Greatness of Saturn’, author Robert Svoboda suggests that the idea of polytheism is not entirely unscientific, given that what we see visually on an everyday basis is what we tend to manifest in our lives. Therefore, worshipping different gods in visual forms brings about ‘a certain reality’. 

That might be enough to conclude that a majority of people who practice polytheism, or are otherwise prone to idolatry, if subjected to commensurate amounts of TV and internet information, could perhaps also have the highest proclivity to spending.

 This is not to exclude or exaggerate the power of any culture or religion, but is only intended to draw a mountain of meaning out of a molehill of interesting evidence. At least you will agree that news and information does spark the imagination.

Tags: conclusion, connected, consumerism, government, idolatry, information, internet, Middle East revolts, news and information, polytheism, privacy, spending, TV era

Nine Pitfalls Brands Should Avoid on Facebook

This guest post is contributed by Prashanth Challapalli who heads Jack in the Box, the content creation arm of international production company, Bang Bang Films.

#1. Buying Fans: Doesn’t work all the time. Quantity will win over quality more often than not. And that’s a disaster waiting to happen.

#2. Poor Language: I don’t mean typos and grammatical errors. Just poor language skills of the hack employed to write inane status posts. Would you do that for a print ad? Your client will skin you alive. Same here.

#3. No Editorial Policy: Yes, you are not running a facebook brand page. I mean, of course you are. But again not really. You are in charge of an online publishing platform which needs an editorial policy. Is someone setting that policy or do you post depending on which side of the bed you wake up on?

#4. Post & Forget: Is someone answering fan queries? Checking the page once in 6 hours just won’t do. Please be more respectful of the people whose time and attention you have asked for.

#5. Talking but Not Conversing: Your job is not just to post but to ensure that it leads to a conversation. Do you have an engagement goal on your posts? If you are taking the time and effort to craft good content, isn’t it a crime to not ensure that it leads to conversations? So ask questions on fan comments. Joke with them. Scold them (Yes, it works if your tone is right. And yes, they can hear your voice behind the text). Cajole them. Answer them. But build that conversation!

#6. Being the Face of ‘We’: Your fans are talking to a brand. Not a group of social media ninjas. In fact, you become a social media ninja only if your fans talk to ‘It/Him/Her’ and not ‘Them’. Get it? No. Too bad. Please visit Skittles on FB.

#7. Pests Posing as Fans: Some fans are not. Fans, that is. They are pests. Their sole reason for existence on Facebook is to win contests & freebies. And if they don’t win, they get abusive. Reason with them. Once. Second time around let the other fans deal with the pest. If you have 50K fans, it means at least half of them are there for genuine reasons. A pest who abuses the brand page is essentially abusing the choice and therefore the intelligence of those 25K fans. So let the fans deal with the pest. If this doesn’t work, announce that you are banning the pest. And then make good on your promise. Pests smell a timid admin a mile away.

#8. Welcome Page: Very important to craft a message for non-fans urging them to click the ‘Like’ button. Equally important to tell them via a picture, a video or a couple of lines of why they should bother becoming a fan of your page. A lot of facebookers visit your page, but might not click the ‘Like’ button. Lost opportunity. Bad mistake.

#9. Informing without Entertaining: There are no customers & consumers on Facebook. And though FB calls them fans, they are actually your audience. And audiences don’t like information. They want entertainment. If you haven’t figured out how to entertain them, well then…they are not entertained. And you are running an expensive multi-starrer to empty seats. Box-office flop.

Now the question is, why list only 9? Why not a wholesome sounding 10 mistakes? Well, if you have read this post so far, then I pat myself and say ‘Mission Accomplished’. The tenth mistake wasn’t really necessary.

Who is Prashanth Challapalli? He is, in his own words: An ex-ad guy. Current new media evangelist. Head of Jack in the Box Worldwide. Accidental painter. Book lover. Movie buff & nosey parker. He also blogs at http://ninjamagic.in/ 

Tags: brands, conversation, editorial policy, entertain, facebook page, fans, like, mistakes, welcome page

So Am I a Spin Doctor?

One of the biggest challenges for a public relations professional is learning to handle the word ‘spin’ and its multi-hued connotations. Shane Jacob expresses his frustration with the term and laments the fact that recent events have only served to lower the image of ‘the image keepers’.

 I hate the term ‘Spin Doctors’. But, more often than not, it is associated with people in the Public Relations profession - people like me. And I really don’t like that!

The corruption debate rages on in the country - on the heels of the media onslaught against the ruling party and, in particular, the Prime Minister. I don’t blame the media. There have been a series of scams and the Prime Minister who was always positioned as an honest politician (clearly an oxymoron these days) has lost credibility and doesn’t seem up to the task of maintaining a clean government.

With all the negative press, the narrative on the PM and his image has shifted in tone. Among the many media stories that questioned his uprightness, this one from the Mirror was especially blunt: “The PM’s Teflon-coated integrity has finally been challenged. Was he really as pure and sacrosanct as he wanted us to believe? The Congress spin doctors may go into overdrive trying to re-establish his image (that’s the only thing left for them now, anyways!) but the perception has surely been damaged.”

Yes, as PR professionals, we do have a job to maintain the image of our clients and I hate the fact that circumstances like this reinforce the impression that PR pros just “spin” information to suit their client. In this case, whoever is counselling the ruling party clearly seems to be trying their best to salvage a sinking ship. In most cases, the advice would be to come clean, acknowledge responsibility, and do the right thing.

With the client being a political party, I doubt that the PR professional here could really make that happen but I wonder if he or she advised them on the way forward. I mean, if the PM’s clean image is hanging in the balance, pleading ignorance and inability to manage one’s team is still negligence and does absolutely nothing for that image.

Coming after the 2G scam and the role a certain PR professional played in manipulating the outcome there, this issue further damages the profession’s image. There is no specific industry body who will defend the profession; no representative for the rest who will stand up and say that these instances were not, by any definition, good PR.

Instead we are labelled as spin doctors. A PR professional in India is just seen as a person who wines and dines the media and gets “good” coverage in the paper. There are not many who really understand the strategic role it can play and not many PR firms who wish to rise up and play that role.

I guess I do come across as jaded and extremely disillusioned about the profession now. I will get over this in time and work on doing the right thing by my clients and my profession.  Hopefully, in the long run, this will help to change the way PR and its practitioners are perceived.

For now, the only bright spot is that I can tell my folks that their dream of me becoming a doctor may have come true!

Tags: clean image, client, corruption, politician, PR advice, Public Relations, spin doctor