I've never held a hockey stick in my life, I'm not interested in the game. But on the strength of exactly 2 tweets last year ('Good luck India!' types), Klout - an online influence measurement tool - made me a hockey 'Influencer'. Brands are getting very interested in Klout scores - while it's a good beginning, I would urge some caution - I can't yet see a foolproof connect between what 'listening tools' say you are and what you really are. It's 40, 50% correct at best. Which brings me to where I think the problem really is: An undefined and/or unrealistic social media strategy usually not linked with business objectives. If you don't get that right, you will be forever dependent on the tyranny of 'Likes'. And Klout scores.

Why do we love to hate Arindam Chaudhuri, Chetan Bhagat and Suhel Seth on social media?
The 1st runs a B-grade management school, the 2nd writes B-grade novels, the 3rd gives B-grade soundbites. 
But then many others do too, with varying degrees of success and failure. There are some who are probably even more successful. 

The antipathy is perhaps born out of them not conforming to our socialist framing of 'how' this success should be achieved, and more importantly, how successful people should 'behave'. 
I keep hearing the word 'unethical', but strangely our opinions on what is unethical do not usually extend to local govt's, or companies (the real estate sector for example). 
So, oh come on. These are average, even mediocre individuals who worked hard and got lucky. (If you dig deeper, you'll find a lot of successful people are average guys who got lucky at some point.)
So do take your potshots on Twitter, but don't take them - or your opinions on them - too seriously.

This page is run by a guy from Calcutta. He runs many similar pages, the total fan base runs into 000000s. (I tracked down his mobile no and called him with a fake 'offer' - he got greedy, blurted out everything.) So the way he operates is very simple: He 'likes' big brand pages, says good things about the brand for a month (thus winning the trust of the community manager), then quietly starts posting links to *his* pages, stealing fans. The final goal is to sell his fan collection to unethical brands. There is only one way to deal w these guys: Don't ban them, let them stay, but delete every link they post... after a point they shut up. Difficult job but a social media manager has to roll up his/her sleeves and do some manual labour too.

If you're starting out in the social media business, get off Facebook and get on these cheap train compartments.
Listen closely to how strangers talk to each other, warm up, explore common points of interest, share food, sing songs together.
Listen closer and you'll figure out the content creators, the influencers, the happy observers, the loners, the drifters.
Keep your mouth shut, don't interrupt, just listen.

Take some imaginary LSD, you can see the conversations in different colours, flowing from one guy to the other, changing shape, colour, density. Observe patterns, cycles.
(Am dead against drugs and alcohol, just illustrating.)
Do this before you start using fancy 'online listening tools' - they are good for 'looking' but not 'seeing', they were made by bureaucrats.
And remember, you'll never be an expert, when you reach your destination you just get on another train.

For a few years after college, I worked at some small 'establishments', off and on, just for the money (I didn't want a full-time job, I wanted to take a break after all that studying). I was blessed to have some very interesting bosses who taught me a little about life. They were very progressive guys who lived off their wits, off the street. 

 

‘You can always tell a rich customer in this shop. He doesn’t look at other customers, only the products on the shelves. Pay attention to him, not the others.’ – A small-time electronics shop owner.

 

'People who marry early are always looking around for a more well-paying job the first few years, even if it gives them Rs 100 more.' – Hindi comicbook publisher.

 

‘To understand how good or bad a hotel is, walk into the kitchen first. You can’t hide anything in a kitchen.’ – A restaurant manager.

 

‘Never trust people who talk about values or principles.’ – A pharmacy owner.

 

‘If you are bribing a policeman, ask about his family’s good health first.’ – A seller of pirated VHS cassettes.

 

‘Hang out with people different from you. Stick to them like glue.’ – A computer furniture maker.

 

‘Read the Gita well, use quotes from it to prove your point in difficult situations.’ – A smalltime hoodlum-turned-loyalty card co. owner.

 

‘Always let students steal books, they are the ones who will read them, the others will just display it in their living rooms.’ – A bookfair bookstall fabricator.

 

‘The best place to pitch personal insurance is the loo, while the other guy is pissing – he can’t run away.’ – An insurance salesman.

 

‘Always give small personal loans to union guys who work under you, never ask for the money back. They will never create trouble.’ – A machinery spare parts manufacturer.  

 

Disclaimer: I don’t necessarily subscribe to the above views. 

 

 

I didn’t understand the US Debt Crisis very well, so looked around a bit, this is an analogy I cooked up (with a little help from mostly wsj.com, huffingtonpost.com, etc.):

Pinkiiii Sharma had been borrowing money to keep her beauty parlour afloat for many years.

On the surface, her beauty parlour business is rocking; behind the scenes, she’s been taking small and big loans from everyone, to keep the business going, over the years.

Who’s ‘everyone’, and why are they giving her money?
It’s mostly her smaller but richer neighbours and relatives; she’s been selling shares in her beauty parlour. Since she has a steady stream of customers, and is very well-known, with ambitious expansion plans, the neighbours keep investing.

So why does she need so much money to run one beauty parlour?
Pinkiiii has problems, big problems. She supports her brother’s family in Iraq (her brother has a business there, it’s bleeding money);  her sons Doodmindar and Koolmindar have successful auto parts businesses in Crawl Bug, but never contribute to the family; also, she pays her staff triple the market salary rate.

What’s the future like?
The neighbours have been making noises; at the RWA picnic, they grumbled if Pinkiiii couldn’t get her act together, they would stop payments, take her to court.

And…?
Frankly, Pinky’s good for another two years. Her neighbours will keep supporting her, though the interest rate will go up. But the day they stop financing her, the Sharma’s will crash badly – they might have to move out of New Friends’ Colony to Govindpuri.
The investors will take a big hit too, some of them might end up worse than the Sharmas.

What’s Pinkiii’s CA saying?
Pinkiiiji’s CA says no problem madamji, cut Mediclaim for your staff and stop contributing to the local mandir ka charity which feeds poor people.

What’s the best Pinkiiii can do, really?
It’s common sense, ji. Get her brother back, give him a job in the parlour; ask her sons to start contributing to the home; and cut staff salaries for three years (those who stay on will get big bonuses after she’s out of the red). Pinkiiii needs to stop her expensive foreign tours too.

 

The advertising legend Neil French's 'experiences' (he's been called the greatest copywriter alive). For the time being, you can only buy it directly from this site: http://www.neilfrench.com/index3.html. 
Interesting anecdote: A friend put this link up on his page, I unwisely shot off a 'out of touch with the times' comment (re: digital advertising), Mr French commented on my comment (he was very gracious and very funny as usual), and so did another advertising legend, Indra Sinha (very gracious and funny again; Mr Sinha asked for a digital brief to prove his creds). The conversation ended with me agreeing to brief the two at the earliest. 
There's always something to learn from the masters, no matter how brief the interaction, and thank you Satbir Singh for texting me to get the hell back and explain my comment.   

Yesterday's tragedy brought the R word out of our middle-class closets, dusted it, let it out in the sun. Waking up the next morning, pretending nothing's happened, going off to work is not resilience, it's denial.

For a frantic hour last night, I was trying to call my nephews (they live in S Bombay), couldn't get through, and it wasn't resilience that I felt. They are safe - unfortunately many children their age were not, yesterday at 6.50pm.

Perhaps the truth is we are a soft, corrupt state; Mumbai epitomises the near-total breakdown of the rule of law, the knifed-open belly of democracy where flies crawl and dogs defecate, dotted with little Antillas we all aspire to. 

What is the difference between the policemen in the photograph (who resiliently claim they have nothing to do with corrupt builders), our former Telecom minister (who resiliently claims he was framed by jealous rivals) and Ajmal Kasab (who resiliently claims he is a tourist)? 

We live in a country which could be attacked by two goat-herders from Balochistan, the India Gate blown to smithereens, but all we can do is talk about resilience. When we're not getting our panties in a twist about Anna Hazare's Lokpal Bill vs the Govt's Lokpal Bill. 

India's anti-terrorism policy opens with this paragraph: 'A genuine and well-functioning democracy, good governance, responsiveness to public grievances, effective policing and economic development are the best antidotes to terrorism.'

I am increasingly getting the feeling Narendra Modi could be the only Indian who believes this, or at least attempts to. 

It's sad there are no options, but that is what it is. 

 

Here's my understanding of what happened, from a digital communications point of view. The figures are my estimate, feel free to correct. 

Brief: Get the govt. to accept the Jan Lokpal Bill.