Smart saving-n-earning movement is on

The wave of smart spending and earning habits is spreading across the globe and here are some facts to prove it.

In India, we have a culture of accumulating things just as people in the West do - and we either give it away or prefer to exchange them for newer things at exchange fests. The results of a poll that I requested AZ Research - a marketing research firm - to put up on their Facebook page, gave some fresh answers. The question asked was 'How do you like to sell/dispose of your seconds?

The answers are in the below graphic, but a third option that people are looking to explore now are - selling their seconds through a site. So selling through sites, will bring in money for well maintained possessions - and that is an income stream that has not been explored in depth, nor has its potential been understood as yet.


Click to enlarge the image

But my own preferences apart, abroad as well, people are cutting down on frills since last year. Also more people were going online to find bargain deals - this is in fact their prime reason for being online, as suggested in this Comet Technology Census, done by polling 2,600 Britons.

This poll reveals that "Comet’s technology-centric count found that 84% of people use the net at home to search for deals, pushing online banking into second slot and scouring the news into third place. Social networking, despite the hype, made it only to seventh most popular web activity."

Analytics & consulting services to boom

There is a huge demand domestically for IT applications services as it is the backbone of delivery for any business, says Vertex India CEO Keshav Gaur.

“The right quality focus and access to global expertise aid companies align delivery and support IT solutions that help clients achieve high performance. In these fast-changing times, analytics and consulting services are also becoming essential to develop the predictive capabilities and to achieve operational excellence. These services are now gaining magnitude in utilities, telecom, financial services and the public sectors,” says Gaur.

Vertex is one of the many new-wave business process outsourcing (BPO) entities looking to make a mark in India since 2002, “when the Vertex Group acquired the UK contact centre operator 7C and the shareholding of 7C India”, he asserts.

With Vertex offering a bouquet of services, among them consulting, IT applications and analytics, they are seeing their business grow to a point where in September 2010 they signed a joint venture deal with Shell Transource.

“This joint venture creates one of India’s largest integrated end-to-end solution providers in the customer management outsourcing industry. Today, we have over 5,000 employees in India. We principally provide a range of voice and non-voice services and fulfillment solutions for international and domestic clients and a number of key support services to the Vertex business,” he explains.

With multi-lingual capabilities and in-depth understanding of rural markets and Tier II and Tier III cities, they have customers from over 350 locations in India, especially in these above-mentioned markets.

The joint venture has ensured that Vertex has “a broad client base across financial services (banking & insurance), public sector, aviation, BFSI, telecom, utilities, KPO and media sectors, and our sales pipeline is strong and continues to grow”, assures Gaur.

Vertex also has expertise in delivering advanced analytics and marketing research driven management consulting services to many companies in sectors like banking, telecom, FMCG, energy, transportation, retail, pharma, BPOs and others.

It also delivers IT-enabled business intelligence solutions using advanced state-of-the-art software tools such as SAS, WPS, R, Stata, Qlikview, Cognos, Informatica, and Business Object and applies advanced research methods and state-of-the-art models to meet clients’ strategic and operational decision needs.

What’s more, the organization is also building on its Decision Sciences capability in India. It is looking to leverage all of these business solutions in their portfolio, over a range of sectors - like retail, financial services, travel, utilities, media and telecom, public services and logistics and transportation.

When asked which of these sectors seem more promising to Vertex, Gaur said, "Our industry focus is utilities, public sector, financial services, telecommunications, media & entertainment and retail/distribution industries where we provide rewarding customer experiences and valuable client outcomes in the areas of Customer Management Outsourcing, IT Applications and Services, Consulting and Transformation and Decision Sciences. Sectors with maximum potential and immediate addressable opportunities are banking and insurance, telecom, retail, travel and the public sector."

With their core belief being that they are on the ‘same side of the table’, which means that they share risks and rewards, which in turn gives them a stake in helping their clients’ achieve success, they are well placed to understand their clients’ needs. This insight allows Vertex to shape the development of new strategies, techniques and technologies.

Written for India Syndicate

Antiques: Art & Science of shopping for Timeless Treasures

This is why you should be spotting treasures from other people’s discarded items or having the good sense of collecting them in the first place. Some of them become valuable after a couple of years like rare stamps or first edition comics and books written by the great wordsmiths of our times or even an earlier era.

Here is what a website reported would have happened if you had held on to your first edition Superman comic - you would have made one million dollars today. (Read The-superman-asset-bubble-is-here.) Besides, it’s not only kids who love hanging on to comics, even older people have their quirks and obsessions. One such adult, who is a comic lover and collector, is actor Nicholas Cage. He auctioned off a portion of his collection – about 140 lots for $1.68 million. This might be small change for a Hollywood actor, but put yourself in his shoes – wouldn’t this kind of money mean something to you?

Meanwhile, auction house Christie's is auctioning of an original copy of American writer Edgar Allan Poe's ‘Tamerlane and Other Poems’. It was expected to fetch $500,000 to $700,000. What is surprising is not the amount of money it is expected to fetch but the actual condition of the book. It looks like something rescued from a trash can but that’s precisely the whole point of a seconds market or website – it’s supposed to help people discover hidden gems like this one.

One person who has actually found an alternative hobby while maintaining his model car collection, is now finding fame on the web because he’s done a brilliant job of showcasing his cars against a backdrop of a 1960s fictional town called Elgin Park that he has created. Yes, he’s made scale models of an entire town with such attention to detail that it looks like a real place. This model town flaunts his priced car collection to perfection. (Read about Michael Paul Smith here: Showcase Collectible Cars.)

If you are a Dan Brown fan, then you’ll know that the professorial hero of his three books (The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons and The Lost Symbol) – Robert Langdon - is never caught at the scene of his numerous adventures without his favourite Mickey Mouse collector’s edition watch. Another author named Clive Cussler, who writes such fast-paced thrillers, that his novels' protagonists make James Bond look like he should retire into the sunset gracefully - anyway, this writer is an avid collector of vintage cars and locomotives. Even his fictional alter ego - Dirk Pitt - displays the same taste.

In India as well, there are many vintage car lovers - some well known and the others not so much. They often flaunt their babies at car rallies across the country. But one man in India, has got vintage cars and an entire train parked in his garden, which he has painstakingly restored and now uses to entertain his guests in. (Read more about Tarun Thakral here - http://writtenpath.blogspot.com/2007/07/journey-of-lifetime.html)

Moving on to celebrities, Amitabh Bachchan has a fetish for pens and everyone is aware of Elizabeth Taylor’s love of jewellery. Marilyn Monroe loved Manolo Blahnik shoes. Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino’s movies drip blood and expletives but he’s not the one who collects knives (Angelina Jolie does that) – he collects staid board games. George Clooney collects motorcycles, Jamie Lee Curtis collects photographs, billionaire Malcolm Forbes collected Faberge eggs and toy soldiers, Freddie Mercury collected stamps, Demi Moore collects vintage clothing and dolls and Nicholas Cage also collects European sports cars along with comics. Johnny Depp’s collection ranges from the intellectual to natural - he collects both rare books and insects and even Dolly Parton collects rare butterflies. (For more details, read this: Famous Collectors & their Collections.)

All of these people can afford to indulge their tastes and pursue serious collecting as a hobby but that shouldn’t stop the rest of us to keep looking and cultivating an eye for fascinating, beautiful and tasteful things. Treasures can and are found in unexpected places – an old trunk in your grandparents home may have vintage clothes and dolls that you might be able to sell to Demi Moore some day! What’s more, collections are and can be started with what interests you – so people are collecting Disney memorabilia, Hot Wheels cars, Beanie babies, Barbie dolls and other items like these which you thought you had outgrown. You could possibly find such people online and swap your children or grandchildren’s toys with them.

Abroad, the collecting instinct is well entrenched and there are many stores that people-in-the-know visit to scout for the latest bargains. For instance, the next time you visit the UK, here is a list of great antiques stores, you could browse in: The 50 Best Antiques Shops in Britain. Some of the shops actually stock furniture, which look a lot like what we would find being neglected in our grandparents home in India.

So, once you realise the actual value, you could fly back and take care of it well, if you already own it, or offer to buy it from them before they unwittingly sell it to a neighbour or relatives. Another store in Britain called Deddington Antiques Centre lets you trade in your antiques for something else from their stock! That is such a fun way to keep people interested.

Abroad, collectors have many options as the art of collecting is well and truly alive, as it reflects well on their level of refinement, if they can flaunt beautiful things in their homes. You only have to look at that list of the best antiques stores given above, to see that some of those stores look like upscale country homes, that you would like to holiday in. The fact that those store owners can afford and maintain such properties mean that they are doing very well.

Collectibles come up for sale in odd places like garage sales, thrift stores apart from art and photography galleries and auctions. One such treasure up for sale at a photography gallery in Vienna is a 170-year old wooden sliding box camera, which was made in Paris in 1839 by Alphonse Giroux and designed by Jacques Daguerre – it also has Daguerre’s signature on it - thereby making it an authentic item. This vintage camera is up for sale at a starting price of Rs 1.25 crore – the price of a pricey apartment in Mumbai. In 2007, an ‘unbranded’ old camera was sold at the same venue, for Rs 3.59 crore. So the ‘signed’ model is expected to fetch a much higher price.

In India, at the moment, Saffronart is having an online auction of jewellery that you might want to take a look at. These are specially designed period pieces and they are expecting more than 700 people to flock in, like they did last time, to bid for them. Not everyone can begin hunting with the big game right away, so begin small with some auction websites like Saffronart and AstraGuru and you might in time, build a collection that could drive everyone else green with envy. Other options that you could try is, use a metal detector and comb beaches for coins, trinkets, souvenirs and relics on your next seaside vacation. You might just strike pay dirt.

In India, Christie’s website is a good place to start if you have the inclination to know what’s happening in the collecting business. They have sections like watches, prints, jewellery, glassware, photographs, furniture, porcelain, musical instruments, books and manuscripts, armour, lighting and a host of other things. Take a look at the list and also see how one can customise it to your wallet. Look for the ‘Create your Wishlist’ kind of element on the Christie’s site: http://www.christies.com/

On the other hand, if history and archaeology in particular, is of interest to you, then keep track of what’s happening in that field – sometimes treasures are recovered and not everything makes its way to the museums of a country. There have been cases where things have been smuggled away and, hidden yet again only to surface years later in some billionaire’s private collection. Ironically, sometimes such items that were acquired on the black market is auctioned off in a public manner. If you keep yourself updated on such matters, then some day, you might spot something that you know is valuable in an really unexpected place.

The best method is to keep your eyes open and train it to spot treasures. So begin a collection and try and spot your diamonds in other people’s coal bins!

I contacted Christie’s India Representative and Vice President, Menaka Kumari Shah and asked her a few questions on the art of collecting.

1. Have you had any private collections come up for auction in India?
A: Christie's does not hold auctions in India, but we do hold auctions of art from South Asia in New York, London and Hong Kong. Many international private collections are offered in a wide range of categories, for instance contemporary art (film director Michael Crichton's collection) or Impressionist/Modern art (the collection of Mrs Sidney Brody) etc.

2. How do you start the collecting habit? I mean apart from having the money to do it and the taste for say, collecting vintage wine bottles...how do you know what one is collecting will turn out to be valuable some day?
A: We suggest would-be collectors do their homework - study auction categories, auction results, visit galleries, museums, read journals etc. Auction houses - large and small - cover a myriad of categories, but it is up to the person on what is of interest to him/her. We always advice people to start collecting what they are passionate about.

3. Are there some categories that are going to be hot from a collectors viewpoint? How do these collections do as against other investments in terms of capital gain?
A: There is indeed a lot of cash looking for a home at the moment. Fear of inflation but also very low interest rates have driven many individuals to diversify their assets and acquire works of art.
·On Jewellery: High quality diamonds will get more and more difficult to locate due to the scarcity of rough material as will important rubies and natural pearls. The market will gain strength from a buyer's perspective due to the emergence of new markets in China, Russia and India and as seen through the ages, jewellery will continue to be an alternative form of investment when money fluctuates a lot. Buying activity will be governed by the exceptional demand for important diamonds, gemstones, and vintage jewels, which are keenly sought after by private clients and the trade who buy for stock and, on some occasions, on behalf of a client.
·On Wine: When considering a bottle to add to your collection, one must consider rarity, provenance, condition and its source of creation. Typically, the best-produced wines from Bordeaux and Burgundy are among the most exclusive in the world and among the most established fields for collection. Other important collectible areas in France include Champagne and Rhone wines. Beyond France, the wines from Spain, Italy, California and Australia regularly appear at auctions. We encourage buyers to bid on wine to enjoy them and not primarily to buy to invest. Although it is true that returns on some blue-chip wines over the past few years have been very positive, we encourage any buyer who is interested in wine investment to seek professional advice, and of course Christie's specialists are on hand to answer questions.
·On Art: Statistics track a fast growing segment of affluent Asians, including Indians. We can foresee this trend continuing to gain momentum over the next decade. I think that after houses, cars and education, people look to art as a celebration of their status and as an expression of pride in cultural heritage.

Collectors from this region have a wide range of tastes and collecting habits. Usually our specialists always advise our clients or would-be collectors to start with what they like or are passionate about - this should take precedent over pure investment value. Of course there have been many instances where art acquired many years back is now being sold many times its original price, as we can see from works by Indian artists such as Souza, Raza, Hussain, Kallat and others.

4. Who are the famous collectors in India and what do they collect? If you have an idea of how much their collection is valued at, then do add that information here even as an approx figure.
A: Christie's does not comment on clients.

Places to buy antiques in Mumbai

Philips Antiques
Indian Mercantile Mansion,
Opposite Regal Cinema,
Madame Cama Road,
Colaba – 400001
Mumbai
Tel no – 022 22885115
Site: http://www.phillipsantiques.com/

White Rose
F-72, Oberoi Towers,
Nariman Point - 400021
Mumbai
Tel no – 022 22025757

Natesan’s Antiquarts Pvt Ltd
Jehangir Art Gallery,
Kala Ghoda, MG Road,
Mumbai – 400023
Tel no – 022 22852700

E.A. Merchant
Hasham Building,
Mohammed Ali Road,
Mumbai – 400003
Tel no – 022 23424610

Chor Bazaar
Near Nal Bazaar,
Close to JJ Hospital,
Opposite Mirza Ghalib Market,
Mumbai - 400003

Outside Maharashtra, Jew Town in Kochi, Kerala and Karaikudi in Tamil Nadu are good places to shop for antiques.

Celeb Seconds: When Used Stuff is Valuable

Want to know when the odds turn even with used seconds? When they belong to celebrities and the goodies are being auctioned off at twice or thrice their value, especially if the celebrity is dead. Recently, some old photographs of Marilyn Monroe surfaced and people (who can afford to buy it) went crazy bidding for it. This has been the case for every dead celebrity – and pretty soon you’ll see something belonging to Michael Jackson being sold at Christie’s or Sotheby – may be his mask or his trademark glove.

An Indian connection is that Mahatma Gandhi’s belongings were auctioned recently in New York - 248 art items, 2,947 letters, 1,583 pictures, 31 cartoons, 407 documents and 513 publications - and some of it was acquired by Vijay Mallya.

He also recently acquired Tipu Sultan’s sword, which was a very patriotic gesture on his part to keep some of India’s artifacts within the country itself, instead of it all being bought for some private collection abroad.

Abroad celebrity auctions are much more common and a huge industry. Some of the people are so celeb obsessed and who constantly monitor them via their blogs and the various social networking websites, are now hawking their discarded clothes, shoes, jewellery and other assorted items like autographed bottles of wine etc on websites.

Sometimes, movie stars and sports stars hawk off stuff to benefit their favourite charities or when there is a crisis of some sort on a national or international scale like hurricane relief or war relief work. Then they volunteer to give their time at shelters and man the helplines but this kind of stuff rarely brings the recipients of their charity anything more substantial than their good cheer and goodwill. They certainly won’t be auctioning of their used stuff at a time like this.

But stars have auctioned off more than old things that they have used. They have auctioned off kisses – George Clooney did this and Charlize Theron kissed a woman who bid the highest, for this privilege. Actor Will Ferrell auctioned off a role in a movie! In India, Sachin Tendulkar auctioned off a cricket bat for a charity called Apnalaya. When Michael Jackson came to India during his ‘Dangerous’ tour and stayed at the Oberoi Towers in Mumbai, he left behind a pillowcase on which he had scribbled a few lines and a lot of people were eager to get their hands on it.

Sometimes, things that are up for sale are just bizarre items, such as Scarlett Johansson’s used tissue! Why would even a wealthy lunatic be interested in something like this is beyond reasoning.

On the other hand, there are some celebrities whose worldly goods were auctioned off when they were alive and the proceeds were given to charity. Princess Diana gave away some of her gorgeous clothes at her elder son Prince William’s suggestion, when she was alive. I’ve read her butler Paul Burrell’s memoir ‘A Royal Duty’, where he claims that she wanted to sell her wedding dress as well but after her death, her brother Earl Charles Spencer has not honoured this wish. Instead, that famous gown is in a museum (dedicated to her) on their ancestral estate, Althorp. Since she’s buried there, the place gets a lot of tourist traffic who drop by to pay their homage to her, so Burrell alleged that the Earl has made money out of displaying it there. Anyway, such is the power of celebrity seconds!

In fact, her clothes (the ones that were not sold) have even travelled about as a moving exhibit around the US, where people have viewed them. A portion of the proceeds of the exhibit went directly to her foundation, which services the individual charities she worked for.

Other well known celebrities whose belongings were auctioned after their death were Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and her first husband President John F. Kennedy. This couple's belongings have been put on sale by their daughter, Caroline, and even the most mundane things are grabbed by souvenir hunters for surreal prices. Read more details on the sale here - The Kennedy Tag Sale

In fact, anyone who watched ‘Seinfeld’, must have seen that episode where Elaine Benice goes to the auction and bids for Kennedy’s golf clubs on behalf of her boss…and pays twice the amount he actually suggests he wants to pay. What’s more, she leaves it in Jerry Seinfeld’s car, which in turn gets ‘stolen’ by his irate garage mechanic! You’ve got to see this episode if you haven’t but mainly because such an expensive old and used merchandise is taken around for a joyride – in this case literally.

Actress and diva Elizabeth Taylor is famous for her violet eyes, eight marriages and her fabulous jewellery collection, which she got from her husbands, especially Richard Burton. One pear shaped 68.09 carat Cartier diamond called the Burton-Taylor diamond was auctioned off by her, to help build a hospital in Botswana. After her death, she wants her remaining jewellery to be sold off to people, who will love it and care for it as much as she did.

Yet another category of celebrity is the one who may be facing a temporary financial crunch and wants to tide over it by selling jewellery. In this case, actress Ellen Barkin may have just been getting rid of some heavyweight baggage from a failed marriage to billionaire Ronald Perelman – he owns Revlon and Marvel Comics among other things. She sold over 100 pieces of jewellery he had gifted her when she was going through a messy divorce. She has been considered astute for doing this because she netted a nice sum of money (over and above her alimony or prenup) for all that blinky stuff, that she was probably anyway tired of flaunting, in the first place. Besides she can always buy herself new stuff.

Here is an excerpt about her jewellery from the prospectus put out by Christie’s:

Among the highlights are four “thread” rings set with magnificent diamonds. Leading this group is a ring set with an elegant elongated D color (the best), oval-cut diamond of 22.76 carats, within a pavé-set diamond two-tiered threadwork gallery (estimate: $800,000-1,200,000) and a thread ring set with a cushion-shaped fancy deep orangey-brown “apricot” diamond of 31.85 carats (estimate: $600,000-800,000).

A pair of oriental pearl and diamond ear pendants each suspending a drop-shaped natural pearl, capped with an antique Indian bead cluster, is an example of the jeweler’s taste for lavish and subtle detail (image left, estimate: $350,000-500,000).

Other highlights include a spectacular diamond “Gardenia” ring sculpted as a natural flower blossom, made of diamonds (estimate: $100,000-150,000), a pair of charming cushion-cut faint pink and D color Golconda diamond bangles of 5.15 and 4.46 carats, respectively (estimate: $350,000-500,000), and a colored diamond “bonnet” ring centering upon a pear-shaped brownish pink diamond of 2.94 carats (estimate: $70,000-100,000). Read more here: Celeb seconds: Ellen Barkin's bling & baubles.

Just judging from the ‘estimated’ price, one can imagine what the value of this collection must have been. So, who said seconds were boring? If you’ve got the money, then you can actually buy a piece of history and glamour. What’s more, such second hand items make for great deals for your descendants. They will be just sitting on a goldmine of sorts. Ofcourse, not everyone can buy such second hand products, but those who can afford it, should go out and find such deals.

Move over art and gold. Here is another great form of investment.

'Buyology' reveals all the tricks of the ad biz

I have just read Martin Lindstrom's book 'Buyology' with a tagline that says 'How Everything we Believe about Why we Buy is Wrong'. The book is a fascinating read about how much our emotions are blackmailed and our intelligence is manipulated by 'subliminal messaging' and 'neuromarketing.' The book gives a wonderful peak at what canny advertisers do to lure us into spending more than we intend to.

It also has interesting research and mentions experiments that were conducted into what excites, motivates and hooks people into splurging. One such experiment involved 600 women, who were invited into a room. He hooked them up to monitors and then brought out a bunch of the famous blue colour Tiffany jewellery boxes. That's all it took for the women’s heart rates to immediately jump by 20%!

As an anti-climax, those boxes were all empty. But that didn’t matter because Tiffany’s has done such a great job of branding, that women immediately associate a Tiffany box with engagement, marriage and family.


This is true of all the major brands as well, which have word associations that go hand-in-hand with their products. For eg. Johnson & Johnson and Pampers will make people instantly think of happy new moms and their adorable plump babies.

This book is worth reading because it has been endorsed by another marketing guru, Paco Underhill, who admits to having "a fundamental distrust of the twentieth-century fascination with branding." He says, "I don't own shirts with alligators or polo players on them and I rip the labels off the outside of my jeans. In fact, I think companies should pay me for the privilege of putting their logo on my chest and not the other way around!"

Underhill goes on to praise this book because he knows Lindstrom is passionate about advertising being a "virtuous endeavor and not just a necessary evil." The one thing they both have in common is "the belief that the tools for understanding why we do what we do, whether it is in hotels, airports, or online, need to be reinvented. This book is about the new confluence of medical knowledge and technology and marketing, where we add the ability to scan the brain as a way of understanding brain stimulations", and how it makes us do things - like shop till we drop - without knowing why we are doing it.

Grab this book now and get enlightened.

A second hand home fits old is gold adage

When you hear the words ‘second hand’, the first thing that comes to mind is that it’s been used and/or owned by someone else before, so how can I buy it? This is, however, not a consideration at all for many looking to buy a resale property rather than a brand new construction. Here the rules change when it comes to a second sale and many actually seek it. Sometimes old homes/properties have been given a new lease of life giving the concept of second hand a twist, when it comes to real estate.

A lot of old properties – palaces and havelis - have been restored around India and converted into hotels. The Neemrana Hotels Group has been at the forefront of this movement and have won awards and appreciation for restoring these defunct and in some cases, decrepit buildings to their former glory and also putting it to good use. The Taj Group and the Oberoi Group of hotels have also been putting the same principle to work for years now - of using princely properties to lure in business. These business houses have taken over larger properties while Neemrana has taken over the smaller ones.

In Kerala, the CGH Earth Group has restored old therawads or family homes for the enjoyment of the contemporary traveller. I’ve stayed at their properties called Coconut Lagoon as well as Brunton Boatyard and the experience was wonderful. They have plucked the essence of rural Kerala by recreating the cottages in the very manner of those you would see if you sail down the backwaters in a houseboat or in a hotel launch. The carved wood furniture and the Corinthian pillars with embellishment near the eaves and at the base, which have been picked up intact in some cases, from some home about to be torn down, and reused on their property.

All this was done with help from the local craftspeople who “were invited to restore the work of their forefathers and create an experience of ecological living that was shot through with the spirit of ancient Malabar”, as their website eloquently and aptly puts it.

Brunton Boatyard, another CGH property is actually a 750 year old boatyard, once owned by a Dutchman called Paul Brunton (hence the name) is located at a prime seafront location. This hotel also has kept a lot of the look-n-feel of a boatyard intact while managing to give visitors a five-star experience to savour.

But there are others who have used old-world homes as a showcase of our heritage - like DakshinaChitra. The concept for DakshinaChitra was created by the green-architect Laurie Baker. Deborah Thiagarajan who founded the Madras Craft Foundation which includes DakshinaChitra said, “The implementation was done by Laurie Baker in the beginning and then by his erstwhile student, Benny Kuriakose."

She adds, "The traditional buildings were constructed by teams of craftspeople from the region, from which they were procured. The costs are difficult to give but a ballpark figure for the entire center, all costs included, would be about Rs 5 - Rs 6 crore at the actual prices - from the days (when it was constructed) between 1991 -1999.”

Another really good example of a heritage property being acquired and used as a home is actor Shahrukh Khan’s sea-facing home, Mannat, which he has had to restore keeping in mind the fact that he has bought a piece of Mumbai’s brick and mortar history.

The actor has not done many interior modifications to the house because he can not tear down walls at will but the interiors - which consists large four-bedrooms - reflects the best that a lot of money can buy – Italian marble, Spanish furniture, the large bathrooms have jacuzzis installed et all. This reputedly cost him in the range of Rs 5-Rs 7.5 crore over and above the cost of acquiring the property. In 2007, this property was valued between Rs 70-Rs 100 crore, according to a real estate website www.indiaproperty.com.

Celina Jaitley is another star who has a quaint 150 years-old bungalow in Moira village in Goa called Casa de Francis Celina. Another celebrity who is said to have acquired a heritage property in Mumbai is cricketer Sachin Tendulkar. He’s only just acquired the property in 2009 and renovation work has yet to begin.

Some wealthy people who are not in the public eye have also restored crumbling old mansions set in their own gardens, which in itself is quite a luxury these days, where every available square feet of space is converted into parking space or space to be rented out for commercial business. So, some family friends of mine who have the Mercedes and Ford dealerships in Pune and the Porsche and Audi one in Mumbai (so can afford to) live in a heritage home in Pune, which once belonged to a Parsi family.

They took pains to rebuild this property keeping in mind the original architecture and décor of the house. So, even though all the art and showpieces that are so painstakingly bought and lovingly arranged around the home belongs to them - the façade, the intricate mosaic tiles, the plaster-of-paris false ceiling and the trellis-work windows have all been kept the same as the original. Everything obviously needed to be spruced up and that cost them quite a lot of pennies! In fact, their architect went to the original source for more of the mosaic tiles because many of them were cracked and chipped and had to be removed. He went all the way to Iran for this! Not surprising since Parsis originate from that country – from a location called Paras in southern Iran, so it’s possible that the original owners had quite a lot of stuff imported to build their home away from home.

Yet another decrepit property that I saw years ago in Pune called the Jeejeebhoy Mansion, was ripe for the picking because it was also a big old house set in a huge garden but I think, it might have been under dispute back then. Such properties are worth crores today and Parsis had the foresight to buy real estate in some plumb locations all across India at a time when such properties were neither valued or hoarded. In Mumbai, they have housing societies in places like Colaba, Dadar, Hughes Road etc which is today prime commercial and residential space with ease of access to schools, hospitals, shopping, recreation and the entertainment district.

Anyway, what real caught my eye when I went to look at the Jeejeebhoy property years ago was the beautiful replica of a Rodin sculpture in marble, of the ‘Wrestler’ also called 'Nude Balzac' because its muse was apparently the French writer Honore Balzac. (The Greeks have an assortment of such sculptures, but I'm assuming this is by Rodin because of it's similarity in form and grace to his more famous 'The Kiss' sculpture.) This abandoned sculpture reflected the despair, over the neglect of what at one time must have been a vibrant and wealthy home. The overgrown garden added to the Neverland-like atmosphere of the place.

It is true that the rest of us can’t hope to step into such expensive homes – heritage or not – but sometimes the saying ‘old is gold’ holds good. In this case, second hand is very uber cool.

QUESTION THE EXPERTS

Here are the most common questions on most people's mind regarding owning an old or heritage home. I asked architect Brinda Gaitonde, who conducts heritage walks around Mumbai with fellow architect Abha Bahl, to clarify these issues. She has experienced the thrill of restoring vintage homes and explains what goes into making them liveable again. To know more about the heritage walks, click here: http://www.bombayheritagewalks.com/index.php

1. Are old homes bought and restored frequently or is the cost so prohibitive that it's not feasible?
A: It is not common for old homes to be bought and restored frequently. Usually they are bought up to be redeveloped and not necessarily for restoration. Yes the actual cost might make it out of reach, plus the added cost of repairs, which most of these old houses need.

2. If done...how much does it cost to do such projects?
A: It varies on the condition of the house, the location etc.

3. How close to the original do you aim to keep the restoration keeping modern utilities etc in mind?
A: Restoring an old house to the original, contrary to popular belief, can offer a lot of flexibility for planning and incorporation of utlitilies. It would require adept organisation and understanding of the construction methodology of the property.

4. Have you had difficulty in sourcing any material to restore such properties?
A: Not really, there is no major difficulty in sourcing information. Sometimes we do run across some problems to source material such as for e.g. encaustic tiles, stained glass etc. But these can be incorporated within modern materials to give a period, and at the same time contemporary look.

5. Have you done any work like this and would you like to share some anecdotes.
A: When I worked with ANL Associates at Botawala building, one of the eight buildings at Horniman Circle (in Mumbai), we wanted to restore some of the replaced modern aluminum sliding windows back to the original. So at a general body meeting an old gentleman came up and said he had managed to salvage some window frames from demolished historic homes. Cannot forget the day that I went to his workshop to see these original frames as I was literally window-shopping! He had about 20 different kind!

A wireless headphone that makes me sing!

Since I've signed up with mGinger - the SMS marketing service - for quite some time now and they usually have offers up on their website, that can be used if you want to redeem any points you have accumulated. 

Recently though, they have taken to sending me e-mailers with deals in them. Like the recent one that I took advantage of - a Mitashi wireless headphone and transmitter for Rs 549 only. I checked out this offer on other sites and everywhere else it was priced much higher.

Even Mitashi's own site was selling it for Rs 699 (marked down from Rs 799), and the lowest price offered was Rs 595 on another site that I scanned while surfing. In comparison, the Sony and Philips ones were over Rs 1,000. When I finally bought it - the price on the box was Rs 775. 

What's more, the online reviews praised the acoustics and so far, I agree with them. I get all the FM stations, and the clarity is great once the signals catch, which they do easily. I've worn this headphone around the house, and even when I'm nowhere near the transmitter, the sound quality remains good.

The quality of the product is great as well - especially the two-tone effect of black and a deep burgundy finish to it. So, if you still think that cheap equals bad quality, then you may have to reconsider that attitude. This headphone makes me sing aloud - and for all the right reasons!

Corp sites should aim for this honour list

Ever wanted to know which corporate websites make the cut? The main criteria is whether it sends across a positive message about the company through the design, construction, functionality built into it, or not. But it's also a lot about attracting the attention of investors, customers, the media and jobseekers - or else why put up a website in the first place?

Bowen Craggs, are UK-based web effectiveness experts - with a classy but a tad spare looking site of their own. They have compiled a list of 75 companies' sites that are worth looking at, from around the globe. Their initial parameter was just taking into consideration the market capitalisation of the firm but they have ranked these sites under other categories as well, such as: site construction, on whether it is serving the media, serving investors, serving jobseekers, serving society, serving customers etc.

For instance: The top sites that improved their construction were BP, Procter & Gamble, Sanofi-Aventis, Royal Dutch Shell, Unilever, Intel, Novartis, WalMart Stores, British American Tobacco and GlaxoSmithKline. (See table below)

The Top 10 sites according to some of the Bowen Craggs metrics


Click on the image to enlarge it

On whether these sites have embraced social media in a big way, this is what the report said: "We classified 22 of the Index’s 75 sites as ‘social media friendly’. IT companies have a natural community of experts, so can easily exploit the social side –see Cisco’s Newsroom for how far that can go. Elsewhere, most companies limit themselves to displays of networking and bookmarking icons plus, perhaps, some Twitter feeds.

Deeper integration of site and social media is concentrated in careers, where Facebook’s demographic makes it a no-brainer. Otherwise, spot Siemens’ brave decision to show how many social media comments have been posted about its home page videos and Walmart Stores’ coverage of social media channels by its search engine. This last may be the most significant sign of all – let’s see if others follow."

So, does your business site send out the right message, and does it reflect well on your skills - social media and otherwise? The sad fact is that, the only Indian site to get on this list is Reliance Industries - and it is dragging along in the bottom five of the list, on all the criteria taken into consideration.

Besides Reliance Industries, there are any number of Indian corporates whose websites could do with a makeover. Read this report to begin to know how to do it right.

Click here for the entire list in detail: http://www.bowencraggs.com/ftindex/indices

Read the full report here: http://bowencraggs.com/downloads/ft/BC_FTIndex_2011_booklet.pdf

Corporate lobbying: To do or not to do?

Corporate lobbying has got so much face-time because of the Niira Radia tapes that people were talking about it on the street, along with the price of vegetables and the ‘Munni’ and ‘Sheila ki Jawani’ item numbers. For the people in the know, it always existed in the shadows, and was never really brought up for public scrutiny. That is the real difference this time around – i.e. the public has caught them at it.

Since the tapes were leaked and uploaded on Outlook’s site and portions of them were transcribed and published in both Outlook and Open magazines, the furore has been about the big names being bandied about, by a non-entity whom no one had heard of in the past. What was meant to be an investigation into her tax evasion affair has turned into a full-blown circus.

Radia calls and talks a lot – to a lot of people. I actually heard three of the tapes and didn’t have the curiosity to listen to the entire lot put up on Outlook’s site. The ones which I heard were – Vir Sanghvi calling her up and actually telling her of how he slanted the tone of one of his columns to suit her convenience.

The other is of Barkha Dutt talking to her about political give-n-take, which Dutt has gone on air at NDTV and defended furiously, by saying that it is part of journalism to follow up on tips but she acknowledged that in hindsight, she should have been more careful of dealing with Niira Radia. She did not answer Open editor, Manu Joseph’s question, to his satisfaction, over why NDTV had not reported the fact that a corporate lobbyist had so many of her fingers in so many pies. All Dutt had to say was that, it was a judgment call made by NDTV, not to do this aspect as a story by itself.

The third tape was of her talking to Ratan Tata, where she goes on and on, while he listens to her and asks her a question here or there. Honestly, everyone should hear this tape and not read it – you get the impression that she really is trying hard to impress and swing deals for her clients. So, why is any of this so surprising? Were we Indians, really so incredulous that we did not know that lobbying happens when huge amounts of money is involved, or favours are required to be done?

The big reason why people have objections to Niira Radia’s profession/tapes, is that the social media ecosphere just exploded over her phone conversations. But these are conversations that could be had by any two people discussing deals and current affairs of the day, with no repercussions, if the conversations were private and both parties are not making use of any information to further an agenda. That is precisely what Radia was doing – pursuing goals – but isn’t that precisely what she was hired to do by Ratan Tata and Mukesh Ambani?

Ironically, this woman has been brought down by hubris, even though she did do her corporate PR-lobbying job very well. She may have assumed that having access to all those big-shots would protect her, when she was evading tax payments, and that was her undoing.

In the process, she has taken everyone else down with her as well. Don’t blame lobbying, which is considered a legitimate way to do business these days in the US, where corporates lobby to put a favoured senator or judge in the right position of power.

Google, RIM and Microsoft, among others, have dedicated lobbyists who espouse their causes in Washington DC. Why else would Hillary Clinton try to sweet-talk to Saudi Arabia and the UAE on behalf of RIM, when these two countries were threatening to ban BlackBerry usage? It was hardly a matter of state, but it was a matter of business interests for sure. After all, politicians are meant to look out for the best interests of their citizens and their country’s corporate enterprises.

India’s first public taste of corporate lobbying has been unseemly to say the least, but now keeping things in some sort of perspective is important. These tapes have made everyone wary, with people like Deepak Parikh, chairman of HDFC, going on record to say that leaking of private conversations has hurt industry morale. Notice that he is not pointing fingers at any of the people involved or even the conversations per se, but just the fact that, one person’s tapped phone entrapped so many others needlessly.

Meanwhile, in a more proactive and sensible manner, Corporate Affairs minister, Salman Khurshid has said on the sidelines of a FICCI seminar ‘Corporate Sustainability and Driver of Innovation’, that the government is looking for a way to regulate corporate lobbying. This is the right way forward, since the cat is anyway out of the bag.

Written for The Viewspaper

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.