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Last week, I had the good fortune of spending four days at the TEDIndia conference in Mysore as a TEDIndia fellow. The talks weren’t consistently inspiring, but the people definitely were, and I especially enjoyed bonding with the 100 other TEDIndia fellows.

TEDIndia reinforced three ideas in my mind: live many parallel lives, tell stories to inspire others, and stay open to inspiration in unlikely places.

In this post, I’ll talk about the importance of storytelling for individuals, organizations and cultures.

Let me start with some of my favorite stories from TEDIndia:

- Hans Rosling kicked off TEDIndia by using his Gapminder graphs to tell the story of the rise and fall of civilizations and predicted that India will catch up with the US in terms of per capita GDP by 2048.

- Devdutt Pattnaik gave a fascinating talk on how a culture’s mythology shapes the beliefs and behaviors of its businesses.

- Tony Hseih told the story of how pursuing happiness, not selling shoes, is the corporate mission for Zappos.  Read More

I was quoted yesterday in a story in The Pioneer on Indian celebrities using Twitter. Earlier, I was quoted in a Mail Today story on celebrities using Twitter.

I think Twitter is ideal for celebrities because of a few reasons –

- It’s simple. You have 140 letters to say what you want to.
- It is essentially one-to-many. You don’t need to follow the fans who follow you. They will be delighted if you just reply to their @username messages.
- It is built to be used with mobile, via SMS, mobile web or a mobile app.
- It has an evolved app ecosystem, so you can directly upload photos to it via TwitPic etc., and find an app that is perfect for your device.
- It is hot, so if you are a celeb using Twitter, you are bound to attract lots of media attention.

Here is the full text of the story –

What are celebs doing now?
…. If you want to know it, log on to Twitter that is now fast catching the fancy of desi star, says ASRP Mukesh
Friday, July 24, 2009  Read More

I was quoted today in Indian daily Mail Today in a story on the increasing popularity of Twitter in India.

The story talks about how an engaged Twitter community has emerged in India since I organized India’s first tweetup two years back. A case in point in the tweetup with writer, UN diplomat, and member of parliament Shashi Tharoor organized by Twilight Fairy.

The article also chronicles the use of Twitter by Indian celebrities like Shashi Tharoor, Rahul Gandhi, Gul Panang and Mallika Sherawat.

Here’s the ful text of the story –

If you don’t tweet you haven’t arrived

By Neha Tara Mehta in New Delhi

Not only the geeks but glitterati too are hooked to the micro- blogging networking site

IT TOOK just 140 characters to change the way our celebrities talk to us. You no longer need Page 3 to know who Mallika Sherawat is flirting with, when Shashi Tharoor gets a haircut, and the kind of music that helps Rahul Gandhi unwind.

All you need is to follow their ‘ tweets’ — 140- character- long updates on what they think of life, the universe and everything.  Read More

The world’s biggest election is underway in India and, as India’s 714 million voters cast their ballots in the month-long elections, they are witness to a range of digital initiatives from political parties, civil society organizations, media houses and even corporates. It’s not surprising, then, that the Indian internet community is abuzz with discussions related to various aspects of the elections.

It’s not only a big election in terms of numbers, it’s a big election for India in terms of timing. Last November, the terrorist attack in Mumbai shook up India’s politically apathetic youngsters and brought them out into the streets. Since then, a series of digital civil society initiatives have sought to channel this newfound sense of civic engagement in the Indian youth into meaningful participation in the political process.

In the run up to the elections, online conversations in India have been charged with this civic consciousness. Transparency campaigns like No Criminals in Politics and Vote Report India and voter registration campaigns like Tata Tea’s Jaago Re have caught the imagination of urban India’s web-savvy youngsters, with their effective use of social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube.  Read More

I’m starting off the Global Voices special coverage on the 2009 Indian general elections by analyzing how internet and mobile technologies are transforming election campaigning in India.

Politics in India is essentially local and India’s voters elect their representatives based on small local and regional issues, instead of the big national issues. As a result, election rallies and door-to-door canvassing, supplemented by local hoardings and print ads in the vernacular languages have traditionally been at the core of election campaigning in India.

In 2004, the incumbent BJP broke away from this pattern with its aggressive nation-wide ‘India Shining’ campaign. It recruited advertising and PR agencies to manage its campaign, focused on the urban first time voter, advertised heavily on print and television, and allocated 5% of its campaign budget to an e-campaign, for revamping its campaign website, pushing out text messages, pre-recorded voice clips and emails to its database of 20 million email users and 20 million phone users, and offering campaign-related mobile ringtones for download (BBC/ BBC/ Rediff/ Hindu). The ‘India Shining’ campaign didn’t work eventually, and Sonia Gandhi led Congress to a surprise victory, once again reaffirming the almost magical appeal of the Nehru-Gandhi family amongst India’s voters. Many observers even attributed BJP’s loss to its “elitist” ‘India Shining’ campaign (Live Mint).  Read More