The article appeared today in Hartford Courant. It’s my first interview for a newspaper outside India and there are one or two more in the pipelines.
Here’s the full text of the story –
The Graceful Way To Build Business Contacts
By MILDRED CULP
September 29, 2008
People often talk about the importance of contacts, but they rarely use creative, non-manipulative methods to build them. They glad-hand around a room, giving elevator pitches just long enough to grab a business card, or they offer to refer business when they have none to refer. Effective contact-building requires grace and sensitivity. This column will give you some ideas about how to do that.
It’s Friday, an hour before closing. Sifting through the events of the week, you identify people who stand out because of the help they gave you. Lynne Waymon, managing partner of the training and consulting firm Contacts Count in Silver Spring, Md., suggests that you show your gratitude through “a quick phone call, a funny Hallmark card, an invitation to an event, a handwritten note — not an e-mail, because it’s too routine.”
A Global Microbrand is a small, tiny brand, that “sells” all over the world.
With the internet, of course, a global microbrand is easier to create than ever before… And with the advent of blogs this was no longer just limited to people who made products. We saw that any service professional with a bit of talent and something to say could spread their message far and wide beyond their immediate client base and local market, without needing a high-profile name or the goodwill of the mainstream media… But it’s not just limited to cottage industries. The great Tom Peters talks about “Brand You”, a personal brand that transcends your organisation or job description.
(After) I created my own fledgling global microbrand (i.e. via this weblog), I now live in a small cottage in the English boonies, and careerwise I’m getting a lot more done than when I lived in a large apartment in New York or London, for a fifth of the overheads. For one fiftieth of the stress levels.
This week, I’m looking at a few new station launches in India, including India’s first real NGO-run community radio station, Q2 results from the RAB in the US and iWorldspace, as well as a UK study on podcasting and what the numbers mean for radio listenership.
After more than a decade in the US, Chhavi returned to India last year to seed the idea of meaningful talk radio in India. Before she started Sonologue, she was a partner in News Radio India where she produced content for Radio Netherlands and WBUR. Chhavi is very involved in the community radio scene in India and has some fascinating ideas about the state of radio in India.
I have been prodding Chhavi into doing a podcast for a few months now, and I’m delighted that she has taken the plunge at a moment when she is struggling with putting together the rest of the Sonologue website. Chhavi’s podcast is another lesson for me that we need fewer resources than we think we do to do something we really want to do.
I haven’t done a vidcast so far because I didn’t have the right camera, the right microphone, the right editing software, the right studioesque setting. It’s a little ironic, then, that I’m finally doing my vidcast when I don’t even have a laptop, or a room I don’t have to share with someone.
I record my vidcast on my Nokia E71 mobile phone, during the few moments I have the room to myself either at my office, or my hostel. Then I upload it to YouTube from my mobile phone itself, whenever I have access to a fast enough wi-fi connection.
I see my vidcast as a lesson. To do something we really want to do — write a book, make a movie, start a business, travel the world — we need fewer resources — time, money, energy, gadgets — than we think we do.
So, what is it that you really want to do? What is stopping you from doing it? Think about it. Maybe, you already have everything that you need.
I like to find (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems (c) that actually need to be solved, and (d) deliver them as informally as possible, (e) starting with a very crude version 1, then (f) iterating rapidly.
When I first laid out these principles explicitly, I noticed something striking: this is practically a recipe for generating a contemptuous initial reaction. Though simple solutions are better, they don’t seem as impressive as complex ones. Overlooked problems are by definition problems that most people think don’t matter. Delivering solutions in an informal way means that instead of judging something by the way it’s presented, people have to actually understand it, which is more work. And starting with a crude version 1 means your initial effort is always small and incomplete.
I’d noticed, of course, that people never seemed to grasp new ideas at first. I thought it was just because most people were stupid. Now I see there’s more to it than that. Like a contrarian investment fund, someone following this strategy will almost always be doing things that seem wrong to the average person.
Why would a twenty-something, single, eligible, IIM-educated, upwardly mobile marketer on the corporate fast-track in India’s business capital decide to go ‘off consumption’ for a year?
Will a year off consumption, not buying anything that isn’t a necessity, leave him ill-equipped to handle life and work in Mumbai?
Or, will it leave him with invaluable insights into what drives us to consume, or not, into the nature of consumption, into human nature itself?
We derive our identity (and our happiness) basically in four ways — from the things we own, from the experiences we have, from the people we relate to, and from the meaning we create. These four elements are arranged in a “hierarchy of identities” that is not only different for each one of us, but also changes for each one of us over time.
Quick Summary: I’m totally delighted to announce that I have been selected as the Yahoo! Fellow in International Values, Communications, Technology, and Global Internet for 2008-09 at Georgetown University.
The Yahoo! Fellow is chosen from applicants drawn from the government, corporate, non-profit and academic sectors with interest in BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). Two graduate students from the Master of Science in Foreign Service (MSFS) program at the SFS are also selected to as Junior Yahoo! Fellows to engage in research associated with the Yahoo! Fellow. Part of the research done by the Yahoo! Fellow is also incorporated into the MSFS program as guest lectures, special seminars, case studies and/ or course modules.
Quick Summary: I was recently profiled in Indian daily Mid-Day for a story on how online and offline relationships have merged for young people in India.
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I was recently profiled in a Mid Day story on how online and offline relationships have merged for some of us.
Ever since I started blogging three years back, my blog has been at the core of my social life. I have met some of the most fascinating people I know through my blog, or, in the last year, through Twitter. Some of my closest friends, including my last three girlfriends, are bloggers and some of my most important professional connections were made online.
The other day, I was talking to my girlfriend about how the center of gravity of my social life has further shifted online since I started my off-consumption experiment.
“Sometimes, I ask myself: what would I have done without my blog this year?”, I said.
“The question you should ask yourself is: who would you have been without your blog?”, she reminded me gently.
