E-waste: A problem that will haunt us in future

Where does your discarded music system, iPod, PC, laptop and other such gadgets and electronic white consumer goods end up, after it has ended its built-in lifespan? In a landfill. This is where the rag pickers and garbage sorters scavenge for those motherboards and other assorted components, for that little precious amount of gold that they can pry out of them. Since no one has kept accurate count, it is estimated that globally, eWaste amounts to 40 million tonnes annually.

That is a lot of waste to sift through for meagre quantities of gold and other valuable metals such as palladium, silver and copper. But to separate them from the junked heaps of metal is a cumbersome task at the best of times. In India, this is done in a crude manner – by either burning or leaching the component. Needless to say, that such an ad-hoc process leaves toxins behind in the environment, and noxious smoke comprising elements from harmful metals like cadmium, lead and mercury within human lungs.

In Japan, this process is done in a more clinical, safer and cost-effective manner and it is being called ‘urban mining’. This fancy term explains what Japan is trying to mine from eWaste – some of it that they actually import to meet recycling costs – rare earths or rare minerals, which they have been importing from China so far. Their recent political tussle with China and with China holding back rare earth exports, has made the Japanese realize their vulnerable position. So they have reopened mining plants for recycling purposes.

There is an imperative to get a National eWaste Strategy in place that works without fear or favour, for the good of the environment and the people involved in the recycling ecosphere. Such a policy needs to be put in place by the Ministry of Environment, which is seeing a proactive incumbent in the shape of Jairam Ramesh. This IIT-MIT educated minister is leading the charge and pulling up delinquent companies, like Vedanta. Putting together a hefty penalizing system, will help India Inc realize that their e-waste can not be left for other people and generations to pick up after them.

This can be done broadly with the relevant industry heads sitting down with a government authority, and hammering out the issues of legislation, studying data, skills and technology needed to dispose of this e-waste in a holistic and clean manner. The awareness campaigns need to reach down to the grassroot workers, who actually power most of this informal recycling industry in India. There are websites and NGOs like Greenpeace that bring up the problem of eWaste regularly through their ‘Guide to Greener Electronics’, which does a good job of castigating and praising the top global electronic brands, whose products end up as electronic waste.

In India, eWaste management is a nascent concern at best and if any move is being made to make this into a full-fledged, skillful, license-based activity, then it’s so far shrouded in secrecy. There are no programmes, except one-off initiatives such as an online eWaste Guide, which is an Indian-Swiss-German joint effort to tackle this problem. What words of wisdom from this Guide, has percolated down to the local junk-dealer, garbage sorter and indigenous recycler is debatable.

So, this is where electronic manufacturers should step in and start spreading the word through their own corporate communications team, advertising agencies and via tie-ups with retailers who stock their merchandise. Any steps taken should involve the man/woman-on-the-street who actually do the work of going door-to-door to pick up the used stuff. Incentives offered to them should look at what would really benefit them.

The urbanised population can look to alternatives like trading-in or selling stuff through seconds websites. The better the condition of the product, the better resale value it is likely to fetch, and this fact should act like an incentive to get retailers to encourage people to use such sites as well. The reason is simple – Old stuff out the door means people will go to the retailers to buy new stuff. This is the very rationale behind e-cycle – which is US retail chain Best Buy’s strategy. They look competent and eco-conscious while getting people to send in their old electronics…and hopefully buy that new iPad or iPhone 4 from them.

Electrolux has gone one step further and created a line of vacuum cleaners that have debris from the oceans incorporated into their product design, as a style statement. These vacuum cleaners are called ‘Vac from the Sea’, and they are such wonderful looking conversation pieces. What’s more, there is a customized one for each ocean and major seas!

India’s manufacturers and retailers need to play catch up – both, on the product innovation front and the recycling front – and taking things easy is not a luxury they can enjoy because climate change concerns are rapidly becoming an everyday talking point. What is a talking point today will soon become finger pointing tomorrow, and eWaste producers better have some answers, if not solutions, ready by then.

Written for The Viewspaper

Being happy trumps making money and babies!

What are people looking for in their lives? Well, the short and sweet answer is happiness. This state of being has been long sought after, since the time human beings were able to sense, feel and think about things that earlier was considered beyond their abilities.

With increased abilities come doubts and more questions. Happiness is one subject that both men and women seek in equal measure but it was always assumed that men were happiest making money and women were happiest making babies. But this report done by Euro RSCG called 'Gender Shift: Are Women the New Men?' has stated that, "When we look at love and friendship combined, those selections tower over the percentages that chose the options of “freedom,” “money,” and “power.” That’s an important shift: It appears men and women are moving away from what have long been considered the coveted prizes at the end of the rat race – namely, money and power – in favor of love and friendship, which perhaps earlier generations took for granted."

This report is based on a survey done with 600 adults in China, France, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The sample in each market was made up of 500 millennials (aged 18 to 25) and 100 Gen Xers/baby boomers (aged 40 to 55), for a total of 3,000 respondents. (This report only covers responses from the west. India and China will be done in a separate report. I'll upload a link to that report as well at the end of this post, if I get my hands on it.)

Ironically, in a reversal of priorities, the millennials, who despite all the social networking are the ones who want love and friendship more than ever, which is something their mothers took for granted, as the very fabric of their life - not something to be yearned for. They were also less likely to feel the pinch of work, societal or cultural restrictions than their mothers' generation did. The result is that they are 'less' likely to take up causes as a group but protest loudly for themselves alone.

Both male and female millennials had one great fear - that of being alone. The report says, "By far the greatest fear afflicting both males and females is being alone. That fear trumped being sick, poor, homeless, unsuccessful, or bored." But these fears have always been there and now men have to really gear up to face a new reality - that women employees will be preferred in the future and men may not have jobs.

The report explains why: "In most of the Western world, the Great Recession has served to further exacerbate men’s decline. Of the 11 million U.S. jobs destroyed since December 2007, 66 percent were held by men. Moreover, men dominate just two of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most over the next decade. In all likelihood, a growing number of men will be obliged to stay at home and count on their wives to support them and their children.

To some extent, women have become the new men – and vice versa. In an article in The Atlantic entitled “The End of Men,” journalist Hanna Rosin reminds us that “man has been the dominant sex since the dawn of mankind,” before adding that “for the first time in human history, that is changing – and with shocking speed.” The primary reason? “The global economy is evolving in a way that is eroding the historical preference for male children, worldwide.

Rosin posits that women’s increased economic power has led many would-be parents to believe a daughter would have a better life than a son. When couples look at society, they see a virtuous circle for girls (more successful education, more stable employment, more opportunities, staying closer to parents/family), while, for boys, they see a vicious circle marked by lesser academic and career achievement, more drugs and/or alcoholism, and perhaps even criminal activity.

As a consequence, more parents, if allowed to choose the sex of their child, would choose a girl. This shift (in attitude) is now beginning in other rapidly industrializing countries, including China and India."

As a woman - I can only say that it's about time that this happened. But how are you men going to deal with this? The prefabricated existence that made you so happy - at a great cost to women sometimes - is about to unravel. So are you prepared for this tectonic change in the balance between the sexes, that will occur in the future? If your ego gets in the way of acceptance of this cultural shift, then happiness is not going to be available as and when you want it.

You have to anyway seek it within yourselves - and women can only help you with this fulfilling search, if you continue to be meaningful to us, in our lives.


PS: Graphics are taken from the report. To read the entire report, click here - http://www.prosumer-report.com/gender/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/GenderShift_Final.pdf

Smart consumers double as brand advertisers

Brands are fighting harder than ever for customers cash and even more importantly, their loyalty. They do this by offering club memberships and various other loyalty card schemes. But if customers have to be hooked, they need to fall in love with the brand, so that they can rave about it to others.

There is a category of customers who do that really well these days, over social media platforms and they are called by different names - like mavens (by Malcolm Gladwell in his book 'Tipping Point') and prosumers (an amalgam of proactive consumers) in a report done by Euro RSCG.

In an earlier report 'The Empowered Consumer in the Age of Globalization' that was published in 2002, they highlighted the following points:

– Prosumers pass it on. The urge to pass on information and opinions to others is the absolute defining core of Prosumerism. No wonder Prosumers become hubs of information and opinions.

– People consult Prosumers. They are much more likely than average consumers to be
consulted for tips and recommendations.

– Prosumers don’t forgive and forget. Nobody likes a poor product or service
experience, but Prosumers dislike them more than most.

– Prosumers consult widely, then make up their own mind. They typically gather information widely for the material they need to decide on their own; they experiment even if they sometimes make mainstream conclusions.

PS: Graphics are from the 'Prosumer Report - The Second Decade of Prosumerism'

Causes celebres and celeb endorsers

Celebrity is a double-edged sword. One becomes a household name because of fame and then your every word and action is up for public scrutiny. Well, there is a saying that, if you can’t take the heat, then you should step out of the kitchen. So, it must be assumed that celebrities can put up with the heat and the glare of the spotlight.

But what celebs say and do are two different things – as is with every one of us. We rarely follow up on our convictions if they prove to be too inconvenient, and celebs are no different. In fact, they have the advantage of using their celebrity factor to spread a good word, or endorse a product or even tout a social cause. Some of them do it with a genuineness of purpose, while others do it for the publicity. And this thin line is blurring fast. People like Angelina Jolie and Madonna even adopt babies from poor countries, and put their feelings and money, where their mouth is.

In India though, not all celebrities are like actress Asha Parekh who built a hospital for everyone’s benefit, or like Salman Khan who built an old age home. And except for Sushmita Sen and Raveena Tandon, no one has adopted kids. But a number of celebs in India and abroad have gone into the business of feeding us, by starting restaurants. Some of their ventures have gone bankrupt as well – like enterprises started by Amisha Patel and recently Eva Longoria. These endeavours are for-profit but what about the non-profit causes which need donations of money and time?

This is where celebs usually donate time. So we have Pamela Andersen, Aditi Gowitrikar, Celina Jaitley etc taking up a stance for PETA. We have Gwyneth Paltrow talking about veganism. A whole lot of them will sport red ribbons for World AIDS Day and pink ribbons to raise breast cancer awareness. This trend is only just beaten by all those LIVESTRONG rubber bracelets that all of us – mere public – get to buy, to feel we have done our bit for cancer. The only difference is, we put down cash for it, while most celebrities are looking for freebies in lieu of their time.

The irony is that whether Aamir Khan promotes tourism in India for the Tourism Board or Amitabh Bachchan does it for Gujarat, the fact is that they are urging and cajoling us to spend our hard-earned money. So, when causes are being espoused by celebs, I think it is fair to ask them how much of their money is invested in this charity/NGO? I see film stars who promote causes that closely gell with the plots of their films. Someone who does this really well is actor Aamir Khan. He talked on behalf of Kashmiri Pandits only around the release of ‘Fanaa’. A fact that didn’t go unnoticed by a Kashmiri Pandit activist and filmmaker Ashok Pandit, who actually asked the very valid question that where had Aamir Khan been all the while, when they were being displaced by militants.

He has been the more visible face of campaigns like Earth India, Teach India, Lead India and Incredible India, and more power to him for this, but staying out of politically and emotionally charged issues that you may have had personal opinions about but don’t really know much about, may be in his best interest. The reasons are simple – as a celebrity, his word may be taken as the gospel truth by many and then twisted out of context by others. This happens to Salman Khan a lot.

Salman Khan has started a ‘Being Human’ social cause, which seems to be a smart move for an actor always caught on the other end of the spectrum from the boringly proper Aamir Khan and the even more media savvy Shahrukh Khan.

While some actors do their bit, what have been our actresses up to? Well they seem to be lagging behind their male peers. A whole bunch of them – Sushmita Sen, Bipasha Basu, Priyanka Chopra, Katrina Kaif, Kareena Kapoor, Preity Zinta, Rani Mukherjee and Karisma Kapoor – walked the ramp to raise funds for the ‘Being Human’ cause. But on their own, they seem to do precious little. May be, they have written that anonymous donation cheque or two – as do the rest of us.

But except for Shilpa Shetty, who did an AIDS awareness campaign with Richard Gere and helped raise £63,000 for a London charity – the Silver Star Appeal – which runs mobile diabetes assessment units, there is a surprising lack of news on what causes and initiatives our Bollywood beauties stand up for.

The two exceptions are actress and model Gul Panag, and model and tennis ace Mahesh Bhupathi’s ex-wife, Shwetha Jaishankar. Gul Panag, a former Miss India and an actress who is carving a niche for herself in off-beat films like Nandita Das, is the public face of a family foundation, which has been set up in honour of her grandfather Colonel Shamsher Singh. This foundation gives out micro-loans to people in rural India, to give them an economically sustainable livelihood. It also has programmes in the areas of gender equality, the environment, education and disaster management. Go here to learn more – http://www.colshamshersingh.org/

Shwetha Jaishankar has started an initiative called – A lot of Dreams- where anyone can go and bid for celebrity collectibles across categories like sports, literature and lifestyle and the proceeds go to NGOs like Deepam and the Association for India’s Development. Go here for more details – http://alotofdreams.com/

The above examples feel like fulfilling ways of giving back to society, rather than just walking the ramp for this or that designer, who just happen to have a tie-up with an NGO, like CRY, Shiksha, World Vision etc. This is what most of our actresses associate with – merging fashion with a needy cause. How enduring such a match is, is anyone’s guess. After all, I do remember getting Greenpeace videos in my e-mail starring Mini Mathur, Kunal Kapoor and Cyrus Broacha – all of them advising me to do my bit for global warming. I got their message but I want to know how they contribute beyond mouthing pithy warnings to the rest of us?

What is well known is the number of brands most of the celebs endorse. Now when the two merge conveniently – brands and causes – more of India’s heroines may rush to be noticed for their social work, even if it is just for publicity.

Written for The Viewspaper

A site that lets you test drive a dream job

iReboot helps make your transition to a fresh start easy by connecting you with the right professionals and actualizing that dream occupation.

Did you have a dream that you tucked away in a closet? A very good poem by Langston Hughes called ‘A Dream Deferred’ is worth a read because it tells you that deferred dreams could rot, stink, fester and become a load. So, what if there is someone who lets you connect with your passion and convert it into a career? Such a person can be your mentor at work or a business personality who is your role model.

But now there is an enterprise called iReboot set up by Mukta Darera in April 2008, to allow people to get a feel of their dream job and drive away those Monday morning blues. iReboot enables those who have not yet discovered their passion to discover themselves. As for those who know what they would love to do but are not sure about how to take the first step, it helps them take a weekend test drive of the career with experienced professionals from the industry.

This career reorientation idea was a bootstrap venture started by Mukta to “enable people to explore their dream careers.” This software engineer, who worked at Intel before she started iReboot, explained that her desire to help other people achieve their dreams was what motivated her to start this venture. “I wanted to start a company to enable people to explore their dream careers. My initial market study showed that a majority of the Indian workforce was unhappy with their jobs. I envisioned a “reboot” process to support people in actualizing a dream job. I think somewhere it was my own experience and realization of unfulfilling jobs that I converted into a career opportunity,” she says. “I started iReboot from a shared living room. Two years down, I have three employees and 20 consultants who run 18 different reboot experiences that enable people to explore hobbies, career options and make career switches. It has been exhilarating and humbling.”

This ‘humbling’ rush began with an early set of experiences in doing her own thing. She created and sold a newsletter called ‘Pickwick Papers’ while still in school. She recalled, “We shut down in three months. Years later, just prior to iReboot, I started a walking tour company which also closed shop soon. So technically, iReboot is my third startup, but the first serious one.”

When some people get serious about their endeavors, it usually is good news for society as a whole because a life-changing process has been set in motion, or a marvelous invention is in the works that will help humankind as a whole. One individual’s ideas could revolutionize the lives of so many people. Think Alexander Fleming and penicillin, Jonas Salk and the polio vaccine, Thomas Alva Edison and the light bulb, a not-as-famous Robert Gair and his production of cardboard boxes, which has made the lives of millions around the world easier.

Today, ventures with a social heart are called social enterprises, and iReboot fits the definition. Mukta explained how it works, “We cater to three segments: working professionals, students and corporates. iReboot lets you try your hand at what you have been dreaming about - whether it is being a wildlife photographer or a restaurant owner. My proudest moment was when I got an e-mail from one of my participants. He was from North India and had come to us when he was in class 9 and failing in most of his exams. His family recognized that he loved music and sent him to us, to see what he could do for the rest of his life. He underwent DJing sessions and today has a promising future. To make a difference in a person’s life by connecting him with his passion and helping him give it a fair chance - that is what we are all about.”

“We are venturing into the corporate segment to reboot employees in their workplaces. We have collaborated and created shared marketing models with other businesses, and have had over 1,000 participants ranging from fresh graduates to executives.” She acknowledges the challenges she faces to keep iReboot running, and that is getting the right people on board. She says, “On hindsight, I should have started on a larger scale and scaled up a little more.”

But at the end of the day, she’s thrilled to see her dream take shape and become a reality because as she puts it “the concept of iReboot was so abstract to begin with, and giving it form and shape has been an amazing journey.” A journey truly well begun.

Written for Accenture's microsite - Vaahini - a network that empowers women.

An intricate web: Live, Work, Spend online

The world is increasingly shrinking because of the internet and its reach. More people are being caught in its web, and across all countries and demographics. As these two Pew Research Center's tables show that a lot of the generations are now online for more services than ever before.

There is even a lot of overlapping happening between what grandparents are browsing and what their grandchildren are doing online. Such is the power of the web. With a lot of our work being conducted via this medium, our shopping is also going online and ofcourse our personal life history is already being displayed on forums like Facebook, Orkut and Myspace anyway.

Whether it is about being in a well 'networked' organisation or networking well with your customers - it is all happening in real-time, and people/organisations who don't realise this are going to be left far behind.

A McKinsey report states that "our data show that fully networked enterprises are not only more likely to be market leaders or to be gaining market share but also use management practices that lead to margins higher than those of companies using the Web in more limited ways."

Even a Bazaarvoice report called 'Social Commerce Trends' says that companies should play three main roles to facilitate conversations, and use the feedback to improve on their products. Here are those three roles:
1. Be like a parent. Parents have commitment, perspective and give guidance. Try new things, learn, and realize that today is just one step in your evolution. Look at results as a moment in time. Focus on gathering data and content from your users.

2. Be a good host. Make it easy for your “guests” (consumers) to share their opinions and meet others like them. Keep them engaged, which will bring more people to the “party” (your site). When you facilitate conversations online, you’ll help people make good purchase decisions, creating an asset that builds over time. This is different than what most traditional marketing does; you’re engaging people to help themselves and others.

3. Be a prospector. Look for gold. Start with the basic, business-driving metrics such as number of site visits driven by user-generated content, sales conversion, and average order value. Then use customer participation to go beyond your site – ask for customer stories via Facebook, or put ratings information on in-store fact tags. Spread this content to shoppers wherever they are, to help them regardless of where and how they shop. This is where true transformation occurs – beyond the walls of your online community.

The report quotes Sameer Samat, Google's Product Management Director as saying "that brands should also experiment with mobile to let consumers search for and find specific information, whether they’re in a store or on the road. Google has seen an exponential jump in Google shopping queries from mobile devices."

Social media has made it possible for people to come closer to the brands that they care for - not only to the front-end salespeople but also the designers of products, who now often incorporate suggestions and feedback into their new range - like Best Buy and Dell does.

Google's finger is very much on the technology pulse and in most cases, it sets the trend of what's cool and what's not. Samat has said that the three industry trends that defines Google's strategy are: online-to-store shopping, mobile and social. So watch out for more exciting platforms and social tools that will come our way, to make working, spending and living our lives on the internet, more enticing.

For details, see the reports mentioned in the post:
1.http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Generations-2010.aspx
2.http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Organization/Strategic_Organization/The_rise_of_the_networked_enterprise_Web_20_finds_its_payday_2716
3.http://www.bazaarvoice.com/resources/research/social-commerce-trends-report-key-takeaways-2010-social-commerce-summit

When two attention seeking professions clash for publicity

Aamir Khan has become proactive of late and has taken up the Narmada Bachao Andolan's, NBA, cause - thus taking away the limelight from Arundhati Roy and Medha Patkar. It's great that the actor, who makes obscene amounts of money for the one film he does per year, has decided to speak up for the rights of people who stand to be harmed, in the name of progress and the country's development.

His previous movie 'Rang De Basanti', about a bunch of youngsters who take on a corrupt system and become martyrs to a cause was a resounding hit. This movie got the defence department's clearance as well as on Maneka Gandhi's insistence, some scenes where animals were used, were edited out. The buzz generated about the movie was enough to pique people's interest and it went on to become a success. It helped that the plot-line was fresh and not your average triangular melodrama, that Karan Johar specialises in.

Now, he's in the news for lending support to a good cause but the timing is perfect too. His new film 'Fanaa' has been released and this time, it's got him playing a terrorist, who has the time to sing songs to Kajol, in her comeback role. The result is that the BJP has banned the movie from being screened in Gujarat. That hasn't stopped some of the actor's fans from travelling over to Mumbai to see Fanaa.

Why are the political parties catering to the lowest common denominator? And if you don't support these bans, then why don't you come out and say so? President, UPCC of the Congress party, Salman Khurshid explains to CNBC-TV18. "The Prime Minister has said that there is no question of accepting what the National Students Union of India, NSUOI, of Gujarat may be saying, but if they are saying something, we will have to listen to them and find out why they are saying it."

But he adds, "The government has a right to ban especially if something comes from a community saying that this is challenging our fundamental belief. The government believes that this is something they should intervene in."

But if the minority community in question has not asked for a ban in a particular state, is it still alright for the state government to arbitrarily decide what's good or bad for people. This is what the Punjab state government has done. It has banned the Da Vinci Code there.

Khurshid says, "There is a difference between what happened in Gujarat and what has happened here. It is a decision taken after having considered what is the right thing to do and what is the wrong thing to do. Finally, it is the will of the leadership at the centre that will prevail and we should wait for that."

All the same, BJP youth morcha has pressurized cinema hall owners not to show Fanaa in Gujarat and are now now even threatening to seek a ban by cable operators and video libraries. Is this the correct step to take in a democracy?

BJP's former Narmada Development minister, Jaynarayan Vyas says, "It is too much to assign everything to the BJP yuva morcha. In the first instance, this is the decision taken by the video libraries association and they do not make decisions under pressure from anybody. It was wrong for both the political parties that they lend their name to this movement. This is not politicisation of the movement, it's anger that is being expressed by the people of Gujarat."

Apparently, Aamir Khan's comments on the NBA has come at a very critical juncture, just when the case was about to come up with the Supreme Court. So Vyas feels, that the people of Gujarat are frustrated at Khan because he has chosen to take sides. But that's just the point, isn't an actor entitled to his opinion about national issues? So, what has driven the BJP yuva morcha into such a frenzy and the national spokesperson Prakash Javdekar to ask for an apology?

Vyas explains that, it's not necessary that just because Aamir Khan is a celebrity, everything he says must be respected and that he can get away with anything that he is says. He says, "Have you or any of these gentleman who are so much up in arms for Aamir Khan, seen the plight of the people - ladies walking 10-12 kms in the summer heat for getting one-day's water supply. Have they seen the plight of the children, waiting in the sun for four hours to just get one bucket full of water?"

Nonetheless, democracy thrives on debate and dissent, so why is the BJP stifling it? Vyas explains, "I fully endorse your view that the democracy thrives on the differences of opinion. Let us understand, why we are so much over-focused on this fundamental right to freedom of expression. Why don't you want to consider the way Aamir Khan preferred to express himself, the time he selected for his expression and the forum he selected to do it?"

"In fact, he selected a path of activism. When you are becoming an activist and going and sitting on a dharna for a day with the NBA, you are taking the path of andolan (protest). Then you are paid back in the same manner."

There is another dimension to this argument that everyone is skirting but which may be uppermost in their minds is that, Aamir Khan could be targeted because he's Muslim. There is the case of Arundhati Roy who has made her opinions known, for much longer, about the NBA rehabilitation issue, but her books and articles are not banned and I can’t see the Gujarat government raising the same hue and cry. Is that because she's not a Muslim?

Editor of Outlook, Vinod Mehta says, "I do not want to comment on this aspect but I suppose you could argue it like that. So many people have criticized Narendra Modi, do they get banned? I would not be surprised if people draw this conclusion, that Aamir Khan is also been targeted not because of what he said about NBA, but he also added something after that - he criticized Narendra Modi's role during the riots. I see a combination of the two factors. And the last thing that I want to say is that, this campaign against Aamir Khan is not a campaign of the yuva morcha in Gujarat, it's Narendra Modi's campaign."

Even movie director, Mahesh Bhatt echoes this viewpoint and says, "First of all the government of Gujarat should not be confused with the people of Gujarat. The people of Gujarat consist a diverse number of people, with all kinds of attitudes and mindsets. So the government of Gujarat does not entirely represent for me, the people of Gujarat."

But Mahesh Bhatt is one of the few from the film industry, whose known to express his views fearlessly and articulately. The rest of Aamir Khan's colleagues and friends have kept silent, unless it means showing up for a photo opportunity. Why is this the case?

Bhatt refutes this and explains, "The fact is that the movie industry has rallied behind Aamir from day one, but unfortunately, the media chose to use his solitary force as a more attractive product to market. The truth is that, everyone as far I know, has pledged support in action. I have personally toiled with the idea of filing a public interest litigation, PIL, against the government, because that is something which will stop them in their tracks."

He also feels that the situation is being badly handled. He feels that instead of banning his movies, people in the know about these issues, should "convert Aamir Khan to your point of view instead of banning him. You have an opportunity here. Educate the people about your point of view. This is not how you go about conducting your affairs. You cannot gang up against somebody, who is perhaps ill-informed or not educated enough. This is a great opportunity for you to step in and use your might to inform them about the reality."

Written for moneycontrol in 2006 but still makes for a good read.

Indian Women get a raw deal in India Inc

Want to know how many women occupy top positions in corporate India? According to a Catalyst report, 4.9% are board directors, 3%-6% are in senior management. This is out of the 22.6 % women who are employed by organizations. We make a grand total of 36% in the overall labour force. This is all set to change because India Inc. is expanding and looking to hire more women this year, especially in the retail, telecom, hospitality, banking, energy, outsourcing, and infrastructure sectors.

Among many reasons why there is this gender inequality, one of the main ones is that women are labeled as “less assertive,” “less competitive,” and “less aggressive” in meeting the demands of a business situation. This quote from the study resonates with me because a male colleague once said I was aggressive, and so I told him that when men are aggressive, they are considered ambitious and when women are aggressive, they are considered bitches! This very dichotomy has been highlighted in this report.

If you scan the statistics on Page 8 of the report, they are an eye-opener, as they clearly show that as women age, get married and have kids, they progressively drop out of the job market. Also, there are fewer women in the ranks, working in the 5-10 plus years timeline, while prior to that – women who had worked for less than 5 years ranked at 92.9% while men were at 86.1%. What’s more, 64.6% women had a masters degree as compared to 59.2% of men. The dropout rate is high despite the fact that more women leaders in India (51.2%) were likely to have prioritized work compared to their female counterparts in the United States (24.9%) and Europe (28.1%).

Women in India (along with those in the US and Europe) stated that these barriers hampered their career advancement:
•Lack of key relationships: not having a sponsor, mentor, or champion; being excluded from important networks of key decision-makers
•Not receiving tough, honest feedback on performance
•Not understanding the unspoken company politics well enough
•Not having access to important or special job assignments that are highly valued by higher level managers

What was surprising was that more single/widowed/married Indian women were working than was the case in the US and Europe, across the same parameters.

The report sums up the key issues really well. Here is part of it...“respondents
wished they had known that “just” working hard is not enough to succeed or that they had been more aware of organizational politics and about the advantages of self-promotion. Regardless of gender and ethnicity, unwritten rules play a major role in career advancement. Career strategies involving communication and feedback, performance, career planning, increasing visibility, and relationship building were particularly important to career advancement. The most effective strategies to learn the unwritten rules for advancement in the workplace were observation, seeking out mentors,and soliciting feedback.”

“Talented employees expect their work to add value to the business, and they will not work to the exclusion of the other priorities in their lives. They want to work smart and be recognized for their contributions.”

Read more from this report here - http://catalyst.org/file/408/leadership_gender_gap_in_india-final.pdf

Hot-n-Not Social Media and their Impact on Biz

A Social Media Marketing report highlights the trends of 2010, and is based on survey responses elicited from 1898 respondents who covered the entire spectrum – from unemployed people to those who own their own business. Respondents were people who worked at large corporations, or those who were in B2Bs, as well as those who were trying to close leads with customers.

Almost 57% of survey participants were focused primarily on attracting businesses (B2B)and 43% primarily targeted consumers(B2C). Most survey participants (75.1%) were between the ages of 30 and 59 and 60% were female.

The hot area getting a lot of talk-time is mobile marketing but this report says that, currently, only the bigger businesses (60%) are primarily looking to leverage mobile apps. The biggest percentage (73%) were seeking to optimize their websites for mobile browsing. Around 59% wanted to use mobile apps to network with fans, 57% wanted to create custom apps and 52% were interested in mobile advertising. B2C companies were much more interested in interacting with mobile fans (65.4% of B2C versus 54.6% of B2B).

All in all, 75% of businesses claimed to be using mobile apps to interact with ‘fans’ but paradoxically, with only 18% saying they were interested in advertising to them.

On whether, firms were outsourcing their social marketing efforts – a huge 86% were not doing it. But among those who were, 25.7% of large businesses and 25% of mid-sized businesses are currently outsourcing, compared to only 10.6% of sole proprietors.

All of these business owners reported benefits like marketing costs had dropped significantly, especially for sole proprietors, 85% said more business was generated and 56% said it helped develop new partnerships.

Search engine rankings increased for 73% of the businesses polled – with more B2Bs connecting than B2C engagement. The majority of marketers (56%) are using social media for 6 hours or more each week, and nearly one in three invest 11 or more hours weekly.

Here is what marketing personnel in most firms were looking at mastering on social networks.

-Tools marketers want to learn more about for those just getting started - For those just getting underway, understanding Twitter tops the list, followed by Facebook, blogs and LinkedIn. Though, in 2009, Facebook was in fourth place at 77% and blogs were in second place at 79%. This year, the order has reversed with Facebook at 87% and blogs at 70%.
-Tools marketers want to learn more about for those who've been using social media for a few months - Social bookmarking sites top the interest list for these professionals. Mastering Twitter also remains important for marketers who've been doing social media marketing for a few months.
-Tools marketers want to learn more about for those who've been using social media for years - These pros are most interested in understanding Twitter and Ning sites.
-Social bookmarking sites edged out Twitter – with 61% of people saying they wanted to know more about sites like Del.icio.us, which ironically despite a 5 million user base is going to be shut down by Yahoo, which acquired it in 2005, and then failed to properly optimize it.
-The report also states, small businesses owners were more interested in understanding social bookmarking sites than other groups. In addition, those over age 50 were much more interested in learning about Twitter than their younger marketing cohorts.
-Males were most interested in learning how to use Facebook and females were most interested in learning about social bookmarking.
-B2C most want to learn about Twitter. B2B are most interested in social bookmarking.

What’s really telling is that sites like Ning, Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, MySpace have got reams of publicity but this survey shows that a huge 72% have no wish to utilize it. Only 11.1% of B2C businesses are planning on increasing their MySpace activities. Similarly, with Ning – a platform that allows people to create their very own social media network (as if we needed anymore of them!) – only 21% of the existing users plan to increase their involvement but 57% will not utilize it at all. Meanwhile, social news sites like Digg etc will 36% looking to increase usage as opposed to 38% who don’t want to use it at all. Around 39% of B2B plan on increasing their social news site use versus just
32.9% of B2C.

LinkedIn emerges as a clear frontrunner - with 67% planning increased use of this service and just 8% saying they won’t be using it at all. B2B are significantly more likely to plan on increasing their use of LinkedIn (72.1% of B2B versus 59.1% of B2C). There is more B2B participation here at 83%.Other winners are Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

-Facebook – 76% said they would increase usage – out of which 80.1% of B2C plan on increasing their efforts. 85.4% of large businesses will also increase their Facebook activities. More B2C participation here at 92%. Those just starting to use social networks, want to begin with Facebook, followed by Twitter and LinkedIn.
-YouTube/Video - A significant 73% of marketers plan on increasing their YouTube and/or video marketing. B2C are more likely to employ video (75.6%) than B2B (70.8%). Those who've been using social media for years picked this as the top area in which they will be increasing their efforts, with 81% responding affirmatively. Marketers with less time to spare but who have been long-time users of social media, use YouTube (or other video services) more. Also 51.2% of all men compared to only 42.6% of women use videos.
-Twitter - 93% of marketers are using Twitter and 71% plan on increasing their use of the network to further their marketing objectives. 85% of large businesses will be increasing their Twitter activities. This medium is being used by 96% of long term users followed by Facebook.
-Blogs - 81% said blogging activity will be increased, 5% said they won’t do anything and only 1% said they will decrease this activity.

Overall, at least 67% of marketers plan on increasing their use of blogs, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn. Beginners were there for 1 hour a week on an average, as compared to their more experienced counterparts, who are online for 10 hours a week. Also sole ownership enterprises used social media a lot more than big businesses and also saw substantial improvement in lead generation and creating a buzz.

These numbers are really interesting to note because it really shows that a huge chunk of people are just not that engaged with all these 'lesser' sites, that have cropped up and crowded mind-space so much. People would rather have fewer choices. Fewer and credible sites, that will be around, like the e-mail services each of us uses today, and which is the most vital social link connecting everyone, that was ever created.

The rest, with the exception of LinkedIn and Twitter, are looking to create utility value for their services, by adding frills and thrills. How long people choose to be dazzled, with even more flashy apps and tweaks built into some of these social mediums, is anyone's guess.

PS – If you want Qs like these answered: # How do I measure social media return on investment? # What are the social media marketing best practices? # How do I best manage my time with social media? # How do I reach my target markets with social media? # How do I generate traffic and leads using social media? and more - then download this great looking report for more details here - http://marketingwhitepapers.s3.amazonaws.com/SocialMediaMarketingReport2010.pdf

Do your employees have a voice & feel valued?

If you have ever felt disheartened because at work you have noticed that people don’t pull their weight and still the management seems to do nothing about it, then you shouldn’t be surprised at this Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) report findings which states that "84% of survey respondents say that “disengaged employees” are one of the three biggest threats facing their business. Yet it appears that little is done to identify, support or even “weed out” unengaged staff. For example, only 12% of respondents report that their companies “regularly and often” tackle staff with “continually low engagement”. Even according to C-suite executives alone, engagement is discussed “occasionally”, “rarely” or “never” at board level in 43% of companies."

This and many other facts cropped up in a survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in July-September 2010. The survey researched 331 senior level executives in Europe and the Middle East. Almost half (162) of executives surveyed were board level or C-suite; the rest were senior directors. They also surveyed 80 managers and other executives for a more detailed comparative analysis.

According to the report, respondents came from a wide range of functions, covering 19 industries. Over half (54%) worked in companies with annual global revenues below $1bn and 22% in companies above $10bn. In addition, in-depth interviews with 5 company executives, academics and consultants with expertise in the field was also done. So, what has been distilled from them has been summed up in this report.

Most of it is not earth shattering news anyway, as it is what has been suspected by people all along. Though, it is good to know that it’s all on paper now, thereby giving ‘suspicions’ and ‘assumptions’ some heft.

The fact that higher management does not seem to be so clued in on employee engagement is not surprising. The top-most layer seems to view the situation through "rose tinted glasses" even as compared to their immediate subordinates. The report states, "47% of C-suite executives believe that they themselves have determined levels of employee engagement, a view shared by only 16% of senior directors outside the C-suite. More than one in five in the C-suite believe that employees are “much more engaged” than those in rival firms, compared with only 7% of respondents outside the C-suite." What’s more, only 13% of these top honchos felt that the line manager was responsible for staff engagement.

Well, if that is the case, then why have these big bosses let unproductive employees clog the system, when the decision to axe them was entirely in their hands?

The irony is that, the ones who most seem disinterested are older employees who have worked at their jobs longer. Though this fact was noted by mid-level management, the higher ups tended to have a distorted view of this issue. According to this study, "only 27% of CEOs believe that this group presents the greatest challenge in raising engagement levels, as opposed to 57% of senior vice-presidents, heads of departments or business units. The C-suite is more likely than others to say that the under-25s represent the most problematic group of employees, in line with the current management orthodoxy surrounding Generation Y."

The report has people in the upper echelon thinking they are responsible for keeping employees engaged – even more than their human resources division. It’s this blinkered view of reality that is probably causing the problem in the first place. When you can’t spot the hard workers from the hardly working types, it does look like the big boss is actually endorsing this laidback attitude.

But this study also points out that "a number of high-profile workplace surveys play down the influence of senior managers on engagement, with grass-roots workers asserting that their relationship with their immediate supervisor is the key to how engaged they feel. The tendency of so many surveyed C-suite executives to sideline the role played by other functions in engagement may reflect a trend in management literature that trumpets the power of “leadership” over everyday people-management. “We have seen a reduction in management training and a growth in leadership training”, says Chris Bones, professor of creativity and leadership at Manchester Business School. “If you were being cynical, you could say that this is because training providers can charge twice as much by using the word ‘leadership’.”

The report states, "But even if “leadership” coaching and consulting costs more, it is always going to be less expensive and time-consuming to focus attention on getting a few people to act better, than to identify and invest in training an entire tier of middle managers. Well intended or otherwise, the research indicates that too many in the C-suite may be drawn to the “leadership” explanation for employee engagement. Its appeal is bolstered because such an approach involves lower expenditure and less hassle, while helping to maintain central control. ”

"When asked to name the main methods that senior management currently use to improve staff engagement, 65% of the non-C-suite respondents answered “company-wide communication (through email or group meetings) about strategy”, whereas only 26% replied with “ensuring that middle managers are capable of good people management”

Here are some of the other ways that C-suite people said they would deal with morale problems - 65% would send out e-mails around the company or hold meetings that explains strategy. 32% would institute training and learning programmes, 28% would send out motivational e-mails, 26% would go down to the ‘shop floor’ to be more visible, 26% would ensure that people management is taken care of by middle managers more efficiently, 23% would look to conveying company philosophy and culture (shouldn’t long-term employees be familiar with this?), 16% would put emphasis on internal promotions, 11% would assess their staff on targets achieved, 11% would advance junior staff over seniors, 10% would improve work conditions and 5% said they would try other strategies.

What is compelling is that board level staff (87%) seem to be aware of this problem and believes that “disengaged employees are one of the three biggest threats facing our business. Identifying, supporting, or even weeding out, disengaged staff might seem an obvious action point. However, only 9% of ‘Managers’, the group closest to the grass-roots of the company, agree that their companies regularly and often tackle staff with “continually low engagement.” One could argue that the organisation is simply not carrying out the instructions of senior leaders, except that only 14% of the C-suite themselves agree with this statement.”

The report also states, ”It is also striking that only 6% of the largest companies, with annual revenue in excess of US$5bn, ever take the harshest approach in tackling disengagement and “regularly and often weed out” disengaged staff, despite presumably tending to have the highest number of employees, and who can more easily get lost in the cracks of the largest organisations. Such ambivalence is consistent with the fact that almost one-half of the C-suite respondents (43%) say that employee engagement is “occasionally”, “rarely” or “never” discussed at board level. Outside the boardroom, 69% doubt that regular discussions on engagement take place at board level, and only 3% agree that it is “a consistent agenda point for all major meetings.” Thus, a substantial proportion of company boards do not discuss engagement regularly, and of those that do, many do not take decisions sufficiently meaningful at their meetings to attract the attention even of those immediately below them in the hierarchy.”

Also, 33% of the C-suite occupants tend to think of their ‘under 25’ employees as being difficult to motivate, whereas only 13% of line managers – who are the people in-the-know - feel the same.

This glaringly inequitable way of perceiving which person makes any contribution to a business, almost seems to endorse the slackers way of working and taking home a paycheque. What’s more, since the top management thinks they have all the solutions, they might think sacking non-performers is not required because a pep-up speech just might help…or even a guest appearance on the ‘shop floor’ might do the trick.

But in reality, this survey pointed out that 39% of managers felt that their motivational skills mattered the most, 38% credited a friendly workplace as being important, 36% said values from senior management mattered, 33% felt clear vision from the management team was important, 27% said the immediate line manager’s competence mattered, 24% said brand reputation of the company mattered, 20% said profitability counted, 19% said the line manager’s enthusiasm at work mattered, 16% said senior management’s charisma charmed and motivated employees, 13% felt personal interaction with the top people mattered, while 4% felt staff diversity was the key.

This report comes to the conclusion that “it would appear that sufficient understanding or action by corporate leaders is lacking. Indeed, many leaders may well be grossly overestimating their own influence on engagement vis-à-vis that of middle managers. It is one thing to identify disengagement as a serious commercial threat, but seemingly another to take the logical next step to tackle continually disengaged employees and their negative influence. Many, though certainly not all, top executives professing to worry about engagement don’t even see fit to discuss the issue in board meetings, a finding that prompts the question as to whether the C-suite genuinely believe the issue is as serious as they claim it to be.”

Damn shame really – many C-suites may have a serious disengagement problem within, itself!

Read the full report here - http://www.businessresearch.eiu.com/sites/businessresearch.eiu.com/files/LON%20-%20PL%20-%20Hay%20report_WEB.pdf

People are more mindful consumers now: Report

In an Euro RSCG report called ‘The New Consumers’, some interesting takeaways were that the economic downturn in the West, has made people more mindful consumers. They are “savvier, more empowered, and more demanding than of old, and they have a veritable laundry list of things they take into consideration when shopping. 

These days, they are paying attention to everything from the economic and social impacts of the products they buy to their safety, design, and provenance. They are more risk aware, so they feel the need to be more vigilant, but they are also more cognizant of their capacity to influence the world—for good or ill—with their consumption choices.” 

Here are some statistics from the report: 

-72% are shopping more carefully and mindfully than they used to. 

-69% claim to be smarter shoppers than they were a few years ago, while 63% say they are more demanding. 

-54% are paying more attention to the environmental and/or social impact of the products they buy. -62% do lots of consumer research online. 

-51% are more interested today in how and where products are made. 

-57% say it makes them feel good to support local producers, artisans, and manufacturers,and 45% say it’s important to them to buy locally produced goods. 

-43% pay more attention to the color, feel, and overall design of products than they used to. 

-64% say making environmentally friendly choices makes them feel good (versus only 30% who say the same about buying luxury items). 

-54% are making an effort to buy fewer disposable goods, and 72% feel good about reducing the amount of waste they create. 

-39% have started or thought about starting a home vegetable or fruit garden— a sign not only of their longing to reconnect with nature, but also of their desire for self-sufficiency and competence. 

-67% believe most people would be better off if they lived more simply. 

-46% wish their homes were less cluttered, and 50% have thrown out or thought about throwing out lots of stuff to declutter their lives and homes in recent years. 

There are lessons to be learnt here because we are fast moving into hyper-consumerism mode in India as well. So it is a good idea to not pick up other people's bad habits! 

For details click here: http://www.thenewconsumer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Prosumer_Report-_The_New_Consumer_lores.pdf

African land grabbed for agrofuels. Will India be next?

I’ve just read a report by an NGO called ‘Friends of Europe’, which has looked into the problem of European and Chinese companies acquiring – legally or otherwise – huge tracts of land in many African countries to grow crops for agrofuels.

The report explains the term “agrofuels” as the liquid fuels derived from food and oil crops produced in large-scale plantation-style industrial production systems. These agrofuels are blended with petrol and diesel for use primarily as transport fuel. Biofuels on the other hand, refer to the small-scale use of local biomass for fuel.

These crops are being grown at the cost of food crops, which that continent needs because dying of starvation and hunger is still a horrible reality for them. Here are a few salient points from that report. For more details, click here - http://www.foeeurope.org/agrofuels/FoEE_Africa_up_for_grabs_2010.pdf

- The agrofuel crops that these countries are increasingly growing are sugarcane, castor bean, castor, sugar beet, palm oil, jatropha, sweet sorghum (for ethanol) – all of this for fuels and food crops like maize are rotting or not being cultivated.

- The reason for this is the need for foreign investment and economic development is driving a number of African countries to welcome agrofuel developers onto their land. Most of these developers are European companies, looking to grow agrofuel crops to meet EU targets for agrofuel use in transport fuel.

- Concerns about energy supply appear to be a key driver behind the demand for agrofuel crops - with the EU aiming for 10 per cent of transport fuel to come from “renewable” sources by 2010.

- This demand for agrofuels threatens food supplies away from consumers in the case of crops such as cassava, peanuts, sweet sorghum and maize. A study for the World Bank found that crops being used for agrofuels was a major factor in the rising price of food. Non-edible agrofuel crops such as jatropha are competing directly with food crops for fertile land. The result threatens food supplies in poor communities and pushes up the cost of available food. Farmers who switch to agrofuel crops run the risk of being unable to feed their families.

- While foreign companies pay lip service to the need for “sustainable development”, agrofuel production and demand for land is resulting in the loss of pasture and forests, destroying natural habitat and probably causing an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.



- Just as African economies have seen fossil fuels and other natural resources exploited for the benefit of other countries, there is a risk that agrofuels will be exported abroad with minimal benefit for local communities and national economies. Countries will be left with depleted soils, rivers that have been drained and forests that have been destroyed.

- Biofuels have been described as “one of the most thirsty products on the planet” because of the amount of water need to produce the fuel. To grow the soya needed to produce one litre of biodiesel requires 9,100 litres of water. A litre of bioethanol produced from corn takes 4,000 litres of water and a litre of bioethanol produced from sugarcane can also use as much as 4,000 litres of water.

- Researchers at Pennsylvania State University in US are looking at improved strains of jatropha, including GM jatropha and the Gates Foundation is also promoting biotech solutions for African agriculture. Shell is involved in research in GM cassava.

- A study by the United Nations Environment Programme warned of the risks to “high value natural ecosystems” of cropland expansion. It concluded that “Global resources do not allow simply shifting from fossil resources to biomass while maintaining the current patterns of consumption”

- Ironically, 15 African nations joined forces to set up what has been described as a “Green OPEC” and a number of national governments have also introduced domestic targets and strategies for agrofuel use at home. The hot targets are Angola, Congo, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Ghana. Countries not specifically mentioned but known to be targets of land grabbers are Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Sudan.

This report defines the significance of land in Africa as “To the vast majority of societies in Africa land is regarded not simply as an economic or environmental asset, but as a social, cultural and ontological resource. Land remains an important factor in the construction of social identity, the organisation of religious life and the production and reproduction of culture. The link across generations is ultimately defined by the complement of land resources which families, lineages and communities share and control. Indeed land is fully embodied in the very spirituality of society.”

The emotional connect with land sounds exactly like how it is in India. So, do Indian farmers also need to be aware of any possibility of illicit/underhand land grabbing that could happen here? I think they do. Our government should work with them on this issue, if it ever cropped up – pun intended – rather than work against their interests.

The Great Job Hunt

Since I dropped out of the job market in 2007 for health reasons and also because I wanted to do something of my own for a bit, I had been inundated with some great job offers and some not-so exciting ones. Three years later, I'm back in a full-time job but I've also had a fair share of experiences that I thought I should share.



They are meant to highlight hypocrisy, evasiveness and that slippery-floor feeling, where you can feel the person is doing a bad job of trying to pull the rug from under your feet and hopefully pull it over your eyes! Well, it didn't work with me and so I thought I should tell everyone else about it. We've all heard of job-seekers fudging resumes but job-givers are not beyond acting weird either. So here goes...

1. This is a website that used to take stories I had written for my ex-employer - moneycontrol - because we had a content sharing arrangement with them. The site is affiliated to the CII and showcases India in a positive light to foreign investors through articles and research powerpoints put up online. I got in touch with them to offer working part-time on their content. In my e-mail I mentioned I live in Mumbai and that I would like to work at their office here, if they had one. After two weeks of silence - a lot of people don't know the art of acknowledgement - I sent a reminder and then heard from someone there, who asked me if I was willing to come out to Gurgaon as they had a vacancy there, which I was not willing to do. She then told me she would discuss the matter with people at her end and then do a con-call with me to take this further. The con-call happened where she again asked me to come out to Gurgaon and when I said no yet again, she told me that she would send across some PPTs for me to edit, and see how I did it. She also left it to me to quote a figure, in terms of time spent on doing the PPTs. They were on the food processing industry in India and Assam. She sent it to me on Friday evening and I sent one back on Monday morning and the other bigger one back on Wednesday. After all this, she realised that she would not be able to make out where and if I had done any work on those PPTs and hence she didn't want to give me any more of them to do.

I e-mailed her back and pointed out to her that she should have thought about this 'before' sending me the PPTs in the first place. After all, she had discussed this move with her colleagues and then done a con-call with me..hadn't she? What followed were e-mails which were in typical cover-your-ass mode because how else can you back out of a situation where you want to get work done, but for peanuts or for free.

2. This little magazine was hiring a features editor and both - a headhunter and a friend got in touch with me about it. I decided to go ahead and pursue it and see what it was all about. I didn't hear from them for months and so I took to calling up and finding out what had happened. They hemmed and hawed and I was told the editor was never in. It's amazing how the magazine gets published every month without him. Anyway, when I was finally called in to meet him, he told me they had hired for the position already - this was in March this year - and that he was looking out for someone to help with any contract publishing projects they got. The fact is, this magazine does not do much of contract publishing and I was just shown a couple of tiny booklets put out for a pharmaceutical company every other month or so. I didn't think they had the means to hire me for insignificant amount of work that may or may not come in every month. I was right because after all the due process was done, I never heard from them except to tell me, I was not acceptable to them.

So, why call me in the first place for a position that was not there to begin with, and which does not justify hiring anyone? As of today, this magazine's masthead does not even have the name of the 'new' features editor they had told me they had hired. If anything, since this magazine has gone bankrupt in the US, the names on their masthead have dropped to just the bare minimum, so it's possible that even the position that had been advertised, has not been filled as a cost-cutting measure. What's more, the previous issues even had the ex-editor still on the masthead and possibly on the payroll, as a consultant. That's not the case anymore, as his name has been removed lately. With two editors around - it's no wonder the current incumbent never felt the need to be in his office much! In fact, when I was called over for my interview and I was doing my written test, he kept getting his Facebook profile updated by a staff member, with his latest holiday pictures.

3. This is a newspaper that had a vacancy which seemed like 2000 redux - meaning like the first job I had when I began working in 2000. So I turned down the job but asked if I could write for them. A senior editor talked to me and told me how things worked and what the deadlines were. All said and done, I finally asked her about payment and she said she needed to 'check' on that and would let me know. Well, for a major newspaper that claims to take freelance content, she didn't know how much they were paying their freelancers - or that's the impression she wanted me to get. So, I waited for a week to hear from her and sent her a reminder. Guess what..she's still checking up on this after all this time.

4. This is a brokerage firm's online magazine that is difficult to spot on their own site unless you know where to look. They got in touch with me to write for them. I was told by the editor that they did not give bylines but paid between Rs 2- Rs 4 per word, depending on the content and the seniority of the writer. I was told by her that quotes were sourced by them and I would have to give a written sample - this is after they had looked up this very blog and got in touch with me.

The sample was submitted on 'Power Trading in India' and the worldly wise editor saw two paragraphs on carbon emissions in the entire article, and said she couldn't accept it. Again, I emailed her gofer - the editor got this person to answer e-mails on her behalf and she edits a 27-30 pager PDF and not even an actual magazine - and told her that this was supposed to be a test to decide on future payments and was not to be published. Well, that girl had the decency to apologise for a very abrupt and in my opinion a non-transparent experience. That writeup I did for them has been posted by me on this blog, last month. Take a look and see if you don't find it worth reading, considering the topic is as exciting as watching paint dry.



Moral of the story - Willingness to work should not be confused as willing to be snubbed.

Power trading could energise investment options

Power trading in India is a nascent industry and one with huge potential. Apart from Power Grid Corporation and PTC India which are public sector undertakings, there are private sector players ranging from the established Tata Power, JSW Energy and the new player Adani Group, also entering the market. Then there is the ‘alternative’ power generator like Suzlon, which is in the wind power generation business.

These companies’ stocks are traded because balance sheets reflect the profits made on selling electricity to layusers but what about the actual commodity that they sell? What’s the market for energy trading like? PTC India has already been selling surplus power to Bhutan and is looking to do business with Nepal as well soon, as transmission lines are being built and operationalised for the same.

But according to the power trading consultant Feedback Ventures’ website, the volume of exchanges in India that trade in power is low - at about 2.5% of the total energy generated. So, there are businesses - like the above-mentioned website – who are stepping into the breach and helping some big names setup trading desks and also put together a business plan and structure a transaction system into place.

Power Exchange India Ltd lets you list with them as a member to start trading on the NSE and the National Commodities & Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX). Their membership list is not publicly available, so it is not clear how many institutional and retail investors are registered with them. Thought the site maintains watch by mentioning firms who are ‘inactive’ members.

Globally, all the environmentally-conscious economies are looking to tap and develop sources of power, that is about moving away from fossil fuels like coal and crude to cleaner power like wind, water, biomass and nuclear energy. Published sources state that in India, wind power is likely to hit 6,000 MW but it is below the actual target of 10,500 MW, that has been set by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy for 2012.

As of now, the only ‘energy’ that is being traded is carbon emissions and it is not something that most retail investors look to trade in or even understand. Since, the industry is a new one even globally, in India, even fewer people are in the business of carbon emission trading. In the US, despite the downturn, it is a $144 billion industry. So, saving on pollutant emitting carbon is making some firms rich despite what is actually happening to their economy at a macro level.

So, just what is carbon emission trading? This is buying and selling of carbon credits. ‘Credits’ being literally awarded by how much a company has saved the environment from being polluted by its own factories or plants. There is a limit specified by a central authority for each firm/business, beyond which they cannot pollute and if it does so, it has to buy ‘credits’ from less polluting businesses, or countries as the case may be. So polluters pay a penalty while the good guys get rewarded. This is incentive at its best because it is money gained for being the good, cost effective and cleanly efficient business at work.

At the moment, even nuclear power which is at the centre of so much policy debate in India and the US, provides only 2.83% of power generation from 17 operational nuclear plants across the country. All of this is under-utilisation of the installed capacity to actually generate 1,45,588 MW of power. What really comes out is a meagre 4,120 MW. Nonetheless, India is looking to push this target even further - to 20,000 MW by 2020 at a cost of Rs 80,000 crore.

So, with figures like these, it’s easy to see that when this sector really gets going, an entire new roller coaster of a ride is in store for people, who invest in power futures or trade in energy, like they trade in other natural resources like gold and commodities, at the moment.

At least One Indian Supermart Encourages Recycling

At least one Indian supermarket is thinking of all those juice cartons people buy from them, and what they could do with it, to keep our environment a little more clean and green.

In Mumbai, a supermarket called Sahakari Bhandar has an 'How to dispose Tetra Paks' initiative that encourages consumers to bring back their empty juice cartons and they are offering recycled gifts on the spot.

• For 5 cartons returned, you get a recycled pen.
  
  
• For 7 cartons returned, you get recycled tissues.
  
  
• For 12 cartons returned, you get a recycled notebook.
  
  
• Before chucking a carton into a bin - cut it open and wash it.

A pamphlet on recycling also educates consumers on disposing off these cartons in their dry trash bins and not a wet garbage bin because then ragpickers get a better price for it. 

Want to know what can be made out of your juice   carton? Check out this cool bookmark. It feels like   it is made out of expensive hand-made paper   instead of a used tetra pack.

A 250-years old legacy sails into the modern era

They are heirs to a 250-years old legacy. The family started in shipbuilding and, one of the ships that they built has history written all over it because on this ship, the American national anthem was written and the Treaty of Nanking was signed. Since then, the Wadia family have diversified into various businesses. Today, they have got about four businesses, which are listed public companies and which are governed professionally, in terms of transparent corporate governance.

Nusli Wadia and Maureen Wadia's two sons are sure making them proud. Jeh Wadia's plunged into the airline industry with his GoAir and is looking to scale up operations. While Ness Wadia is looking to move the family business into uncharted waters - of retail and real estate. He assures that their plans in these areas would takeoff anytime soon and his objective "is to provide an international mix."

Ness Wadia told CNBC-TV18, "We want to give something different to the Indian consumer. Why does one person always need to be in the office building and why can't one enjoy other things? So we are sort of sensitizing businesses toward customers in small things, like providing a concierge service in a building. So any tenant can go there and get flowers, or dinner reservations etc, we'll provide that assistance. So, again it is moving forward into customization and ensuring that we enthuse and delight customers, which we believe has not happened in India and definitely not in Indian real estate or in Indian retail."

Jeh Wadia adds, "We started as management trainees in our businesses. So we started basically from a very young age. From there, we moved on to say that, maybe we should not be too hands-on - to be less operational driven and more financial driven. Hence the restructuring and the need to look at new sunrise businesses like real estate and retail and the airlines." So, 2004-05 has been when the media really got to know, that the Wadia boys are more than just goodlooking faces with money and a famous surname to their credit. But Jeh explains, "Those (earlier) businesses were not linked to a national presence. For example, GoAir requires a national presence, it needs to be splashed all over the place. So, that the company gets more visibility with people."

"Financially, we came up with the executive summary in 2001. I used to go to Chitrakoot every once in a while, using a private jet. Eventually the person I represent and who is my mentor, Shri Nanaji Deshmukh, said to me, "Don't you think you should come like the common man comes?" and I did go by train many times. I found out that basically going from one village to another - for example going from Bombay to Chitrakoot took 22 hours. This took a lot of our time. So, where is the easiest opportunity today - from putting capacity into connectivity? That is air travel. Is there demand? There are fifteen million people who go by train in a single day. In 2004-05, six-seven million people bought 17 million (GoAir) seats."


With Jeh Wadia looking to snap up and convert the price-sensitive railway travellers to using his airline, he's also looking to move on once a stable team is in place at GoAir. He's going to move into cargo, engineering and all other areas of the aviation industry.

So for these young 'uns, apart from having enterpreneurial blood running through their veins, were there other people, whom they looked up to? Ness Wadia says, "I have always been influenced by people. I believe people are the success to any endeavor. I struggled to find leaders I could look up to in today's world, who are ethical, who support teams and who build from the bottom up. JRD Tata was one good example. Today we have people like Narayan Murthy and Ratan Tata. But more Narayan Murthy because he says very clearly, that 'my goal is to ensure that I can help people to dream and then help them to cross that water'."

Ness's way of helping people achieve their goals and live their dreams may just revolutionise how work gets done in his offices. He explains, "In Bombay Dyeing, we have flexi-time. We did that because we wanted to provide freedom to people. My dream is to have a situation where I can empower people - they can work from where they want. Today we have laptops, connectivity and telephones. Why does a person need to come to an office?"

He adds, "We as managers and leaders are insecure and we want to see people. I do not subscribe to this. Every human being has similar aspirations, to spend time with their children and their family. In Bombay Dyeing, we are looking to start paternal leave. So we are changing with the times."

Written for www.moneycontrol.com