Sachi and Lee LeFever spent a couple of days in Mumbai on their world tour. It was fun spending time with them - I felt like I was on holiday myself :). We didn't do many 'touristy' things - chatted a lot about India, Mumbai, lifestyles and people, about Web 2.0 and how excited we are about social media and building online communities. We ate, drank, ate again, went all over the city - saw many sides of Bombay, even attended a panel discussion at Crosswords on New Media!

Sachi and Lee really wanted to experience what it means when people say Bombay is bursting at its seams, so I took them to Dadar station at 6 pm on a working day - Lee says it was the highlight of his trip. Check out what he saw here. And this is neat too - looking in on their dog who's back in Seattle through a webcam set up with Skype!

They're blogging their trip around the world - and have lots of great posts and photos there. I like the set up at The World is Not Flat - Lee tells me he designed it on Drupal and it has some neat features. And they have have visiting cards that simply have the logo of the blog - no names, no address, no email id, no tel numbers. Nice!

My blog is 3 years oldtoday. On my first anniversary I had written:

Myfirst day blogging .... it's not what I know but whom I know! So why am Iblogging? To learn and find out what the fuss is all about.

What is the fuss all about ?It seems simple enough ... once you get that first kick on your butt to just gotry it ! Many chaotic rambles coming up from a regular girl inIndia ........

The chaoticrambles continue.Creative chaos. And I now knowwhat the fuss is all about ... it is creative friction through chance conversations.

Conversations that become more meaningful with time.
Conversations not limited by time and space.
Conversations that raise the bar for all involved.
Conversations around which communities are formed.
Conversations that can potentially change the world.
My world, yourworld, our world. And I do believe it works."

On the second anniversary, I said ... Old Lady Blogging!

In so many ways, it is my identity. And my social network - it's given me so much through readers and my communities of friendsaround it in work and play, in new interests and communities, in recognitionand money, in ideas and encouragement.

Thank you blog. Thank you readers.

Thought I'd share some great blog posts and papers I had bookmarked and finally got down to reading:
 
Rashmi Sinha has some really good essays on Tagging.  She has a whole category dedicated to this area, and I found the following posts particularly useful:
-  A cognitive analysis of tagging (or how the lower cognitive cost of tagging makes it popular)
-  A Social Analysis of Tagging (or how tagging transforms the solitary browsing experience into a social one)
- "Tagging: From Personal to Social" - a powerpoint presentation here.

Some good tips in An Adoption Strategy for Social Software in Enterprise by Suw Charman.  She suggests that its key to identify users "who would clearlybenefit from the new software, helping them to understand how it couldhelp, and progressing their usage so that they can realise thosebenefits". I still struggle with tryig to figure out how we can enable the lowering of perceived risks in using such technologies. 

Doc Searls introduces the concept of the Intention Economy turning on its head the Attention Economy conversation that focusses more on the 'seller'.  He says:

"The Intention Economy grows around buyers, not sellers. It leveragesthe simple fact that buyers are the first source of money, and thatthey come ready-made. You don't need advertising to make them.

The Intention Economy is about markets, not marketing. You don't need marketing to make Intention Markets.

TheIntention Economy is built around truly open markets, not a collectionof silos. In The Intention Economy, customers don't have to fly fromsilo to silo, like a bees from flower to flower, collecting deal info(and unavoidable hype) like so much pollen. In The Intention Economy,the buyer notifies the market of the intent to buy, and sellers competefor the buyer's purchase. Simple as that.

The IntentionEconomy is built around more than transactions. Conversations matter.So do relationships. So do reputation, authority and respect. Thosevirtues, however, are earned by sellers (as well as buyers) andnot just "branded" by sellers on the minds of buyers like the symbolsof ranchers burned on the hides of cattle.

InThe Intention Economy, a car rental customer should be able to say tothe car rental market, "I'll be skiing in Park City from March 20-25. Iwant to rent a 4-wheel drive SUV. I belong to Avis Wizard, BudgetFastBreak and Hertz 1 Club. I don't want to pay up front for gas or getany insurance. What can any of you companies do for me?" — and have thesellers compete for the buyer's business."

Notable quotes on youth lives online :

"My generation draws the Internet as a cloud that connects everyone;the younger generation experiences it as oxygen that supports theirdigital lives." [Kevin Marks, epeus epigone blog, via Susan Mernit]

"The young will read anything on theinternet. More so, they get their information from their peers ratherthan from the press. That means from blogs. These blogs may not beobjective bastions of news reportage, but they do speak to the youth ina way few mediums ever do. It’s like learning about the world or thecountry from one’s buddies."[Sushila Ravindranath, Newindpress, link via Sambharmafia]

"Many teens are frustrated by the press' account of their behavior, butthey have no voice. They are frustrated by their parents' fear, butthey have no power. Parents are scared, and their fear is misguided.There are more actions against minors in San Francisco on a daily basisthan there have ever been in the 3-year history of MySpace. More andmore cases are failing to pan out. Yet, there are more kids on MySpacethan in any single state. I wish i knew how to reach out to parents andsay, "It's OK... your kids will be OK... just teach them trust andlove." In statistical terms, MySpace is safer than going to school. Itis safer than being in a car with your parents. It is safer than goingto the mall. And yet, we are more scared because we don't understand itand we're afraid. This makes me so sad because this kind of fear isanxiety producing and culturally dangerous. :-(" [danah boyd in an insighful post about the recent controversy around the disappearance of two young girls, being linked wrongly to MySpace]

I'm guestblogging for a couple of weeks at the HUMlab blog ... as I told Stephanie, I've been awfully bad about blogging lately, I'm hoping this spurs me out of the inertia into approaching some posts with greater thought. And I hope we have some good conversations around the posts. I'll be cross-blogging at Humlab and here during these two weeks.

One more for the Blank Noise Project Blog-a-thon 2006 :

Late last year, I did a study in Delhi among young college girls ... here are some of the things they had to say about their concerns around harrassment.

"It is not safe, we can't go out of the house after 8 o clock. You have to be covered from head to legs.It is a big problem for college girls"

"If you are wearing cut sleeves that is a problem, eyes are seeing you ...that is so pathetic, they pass comments"

"You can't come in auto, DTC bus. I had gone for tuitions and I had worn a skirt. I was in a rickshaw and the comments were so bad, 'wah chikni'... I never wore a skirt outside again"

"Can't go out for parties, brothers or cousins accompany us.Even at a disc, we girls are in the center and the cousins and brothers friends are surrounding us"

"If a girl goes to a normal disc there is a whole category of Jat males, if they hit upon her and if she refuses, they will bash her"

"In a disc if a girl goes alone and someone acts smart, we feel it is by mistake they have touched you, but they do it purposely, and if you say something they slap you"

"Its everywhere - and they don’t stop at anything - if the girl is continuously arguing with them, they will pick her up from home. So we keep quiet."

And this is a page from a Living Diary I had them fill up ... talking about activities that reflect who they are ... just look at the stress on the need to be tough ... fearless ... confident.

Being in Delhi as a woman, is a whole different feeling. Even now, as I approach the age of 40, I feel so uneasy about being out on the streets in Delhi or travelling alone by autorickshaw after 9 pm ... and even now, I hesitate to wear sleeveless tops or kurtas in Delhi. I don't drive in Delhi either ... although I'm so comfortable driving alone in Bombay even at 2 am. If my flight in to Delhi is delayed, I ask for a car to pick me up at the airport ... if for some reason I haveto use a cab late night, I keep one hand on a full deo spray I carry with me in my handbag.

I do many of these things because I don't want to attract attention to myself. I fear it won't stop at comments. I fear I will react .. and I fear the consequences of that reaction .... the young girls in my groups felt real fear too. My sister who lives in Delhi always asks me to call her up when I am leaving for home ... and gives me a call en route to her place too. ... "just checking you aren't being your sassy Bombay self, Dina".

I know I shouldn't .. but its just the way it is ... and I do feel real fear in Delhi.

Live-blogged ... for reports on sessions here, here and here.  And there is a stream of pics on Flickr too. I couldn't make it as my trip to Delhi got postponed until the 9th :(.

Kiruba announces BarCampChennai. Check out the Wiki on BarCampChennai for all details.

"BarCamp is an ad-hoc unconferenceborn from the desire for people to share and learn in an openenvironment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos andinteraction. The two day BarCampChennai focusses on Web 2.0 and Next Generation Internet. It takes place on April 8th and 9th (Saturday and Sunday). It's an open, welcoming, once-a-year event for geeks to camp out for a couple days with wifi and smash their brains together."

This time I am going :). I thought I'd bring in a slightly non-geeky perspective and engage in a conversation around how you can build Brand 2.0 on the web. Will share my presentation here when done. Initial thoughts as a starting point for a conversation ...

Howdoes a world of rapidly evolving social media affect yourorganization's brand strategies and values? Organizations large andsmall, public and private - continue to extrapolate this year's brandplan and fail to recognize and adapt quickly enough to market changesimpacting future strategy. Brand strategy tools must be rethought. Fromblogs to podcasting - social networking sites to Google Adsense -participation, economics and structure of media and communication isbeing reinvented.

The brand no longer lives with consumers and marketers alone. In theexperience economy the Brand is the nexus of a new connectivity betweenemployee and customer, organization and stakeholders, evangelists andcommunity. There is a third space that is evolving - the social web. Itis changing how we 'consume' brands and promises.

Jennifer Rice at Brand Mantra has an excellent series of posts on Maslow and Branding. She's looked at 8 core consumer needs: Security, Connection, Esteem, Control, Aesthetic, Cognitive, Self-Actualization and Transcendence. She starts the series with this ....

"Remember back in your Psych 101 class when you learned about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? Bet you never expected to see it again in the business world, but...ta da! Here it is. Personally I think a few are missing like freedom and control. But in general, we can easily see how strong brands relate back to the hierarchy. In the next couple posts, I'll walk through the expanded hierarchy (8 needs instead of 5) and discuss their relation to brand strategy."

For the uninitiated, an explanation of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.  I've culled out, from Jennifer's multiple posts, some of the key points and examples that she makes - they are in italics:

on Security:

"This is the "No one ever got fired for buying IBM" syndrome. There are people everywhere who will only purchase products and services from companies that have proven themselves over time. They stuck with SBC when their more adventurous counterparts were fleeing to try one of the new competitive phone companies."

on Connection:

"Aesthetic used to be a nice-to-have, but it's increasingly becoming foundational. Witness the explosive success of Apple and the iPod, or the gotta-have Razr phone. Target is bringing designer style (Isaac, Oldham) to the masses, along with InStyle magazine and "The Look for Less" show. Starbucks combined coffee with an aesthetic environment. Barnes & Noble did the same for books. There are now 250 bathroom faucets from which to choose. Style is important because it's an external representation of our own self-image. What we wear, drive, carry... they're all badges to demonstrate who we are. It makes me wonder if Aesthetic really is the core need; perhaps it' something much more basic, like 'validation of self-existence.' Perhaps style is our subconscious way of defining who we are, or attracting a mate (like peacocks and bird plumage)."

on Cognitive:

"This is about learning and understanding the world around us. While many people still blindly accept the doctrines of traditional authority (church, state, corporations, media, etc.), others are taking control, asking questions and seeking answers. Brands that knock down barriers to knowledge and provide easy access are delivering on this need. These aren't just the obvious brands like Google; they're also brands that practice transparency and educate customers on the how's and why's of their products, services and business practices. Transparency and openness deliver on customers' desire to know. FedEx tracking is a great example (of both Cognitive and Control). And of course, blogs and forums fit into this category as well."

I'm watching this space .. it's not live yet, but seems to have potential.

"An internet blogging network that lets users create content and express opinion on well-known brands and products, is being supported by Honda (UK). The 2TalkAbout site will provide a trusted community-based environment for users with similar interests and tastes to share unbiased information. Honda is the first major brand to commit to the project.

Visitors to 2TalkAbout can publish their views, respond to what other people are saying on the community and gain unbiased opinion and information about particular products and services. The Honda-sponsored site (www.2TalkAbout.com/honda) is aimed at anyone with an interest in Honda cars - particularly the new Civic. Although the content will be completely independent from Honda, engineers will regularly log-on to contribute and respond to feedback, providing users with direct access to the brand." [More here.]

"The immense popularity of theshow can be gauged from the fact that it helped Zee TV reach the No. 2slot in the general entertainment channel (GEC) rating. In the lastfour-week period (between January 10, 2006 and January 27, 2006) ‘Sa ReGa Ma Pa Challenge 2005’ scored a gross TRP of 3.53, which is higherthan that of Sony’s ‘Indian Idol’ at a gross TRP of 3.31.

Said Kaul, “The reason for sustained growthand popularity is due to the fact that ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005’has its objective very clear and defined in terms of offering aplatform to real, hardcore, top of the line playback voices and notcreating marketing chipmunks. It is only because of this objective that‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’ as a platform and ‘Challenge 2005’ as a series havegiven some of the best singers to the film and entertainment industrythat it has today. ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005’ is and will alwaysremain a platform for nothing but the best playback singers.”

Testing font sizes in posts ... we forget people still use Internet Explorer !

I too want to change my blogging platform. This blog is going to be three in March, and it is really time to move. Although I've really enjoyed blogging here till now, and the support I've got from the Userland forum, it is stagnating as a platform. It's sad that very few of the tools that make blogs so rich and yet easy to do, are possible easily with Radio. Just some examples - I want to use Performancing to blog, I want audio and video blog facilities, I want more control over spam in comments and trackbacks.

Three concerns I have about moving - I'll lose all my comments and trackbacks as there seems to be no way of transferring them from Radio - that's a bummer because a lot of value in my posts actually resides in the conversations they evoke. Second - I'll lose permalinks to lots of my posts that have been quoted elsewhere. But its been done by bloggers everywhere - so what the heck. It just means that I have to keep it blogged ! And three - my readers will have to subscribe to new RSS feeds - which in some ways will tell me something about where my blogging is headed.

Its just too hard and too time-consuming for me to take this on myself and hack templates and iron out design issues. I am looking for someone who can set up and design a website for my company and my blog - am not sure which should lead - my leaning is towards my blog somehow :). I have the urls explore-research.com and dinamehta.com which I'd want to use. I'd like to use Wordpress or Movable Type because both seem to offer great flexibility and allow so many features and plugins. I've been playing a lot with MT and Wordpress - I like them both. Has anyone done a comparison between the two ?

My biggest breakthrough was that I was able to export this Radio Userland blog into an MT space, huge thanks to Bob who has shared a step by step procedure to convert from Radio to Wordpress. Once the posts are in MT, it's easy to transfer them to Wordpress.

If you're interested, and are on-the-ball with these technologies, do write to me, or drop in a comment. I've a rough budget for this but would love to have your views on how much I should expect to pay.

This is cool - Adrants reports that the Amsterdam Tourism Board is leveraging bloggers for promotion - its a neat neat idea I think. Is the Indian Tourism Board listening? [thanks Vamsi, for the link].

"We've pretty much stopped with TV ads or radio ads or branded ads. Itjust wasn't worth it anymore. Online, there are just many morepossibilities." That's a refrain we've hearing more on more over thenext few years as marketers realize traditional advertising ain't allit's cracked up to be anymore. Amsterdam Tourism Board Internet manager Sebastian Paauw uttered that phrase when commenting on the Board's deal with BlogAds under which the Board, in connection with BlogAds, will send 25bloggers to Amsterdam in exchange for ad space on their blogs. Whilethe bloggers are not required to write anything about their trip,bloggers being bloggers, there will, no doubt, be a litany of postscovering their escapades during their five day stay."

The Kala Ghoda Festival in Mumbai goes live tomorrow. Started in 1999, it has evolved into a real cultural feast, covering events in several areas - visual arts, dance, music, theatre, cafe theatre, cinema, literature, seminars, workshops, heritage walks, childrens events, street festivals. Kala Ghoda (transliterated - black horse) is the hub of cultural activity in Bombay (yes ... as opposed to Mumbai !) and has within it the National Gallery ofModern Art, the Prince of Wales Museum, the Jehangir Art Gallery, the BombayNatural History Society, the David Sassoon Library and the University.

A bit of trivia :"The name comes from the old black equestrian statue of King Edward VII whichwas earlier placed at the present car parking zone. The statue was removed tothe Victoria Gardens in Byculla sometime inthe early 1970's. It was replaced by a black equestrian statue of Shivaji,which was also later moved to theGateway of India.The space freed up by the removal of the statue is now a car park."

Then ... (look for the statue that gave the area the name) ...



















and now ...





















Peter, who calls himself a "serial collaborative blogger",(correction - make that 'CollaBlogger') has got together a bunch of Bombay Bloggers to cover the event live. Their Kala Ghoda Gazette is live now. From his 'launch post' , ironically titled "This Blog Will Die" :

Akshay isorganising a blogger meet-up in Mumbai on Jan 31st at 6 pm.  I'llbe there ... no excuses as I live two minutes away :).  

In conjunction with Scott Rafer, WINKsite , Metroblogging and Bloggers everywhere, I’m announcing a meetup on Tuesday, 31st of January at 6 p.m. at the Carter Road - Cafe Coffee Day (Bandra West). So if you live/work in or around Mumbai or you intend to be in Mumbai on the 31st please do drop by.

Here is the full address.

Shop No. 14/15,
Gagangiri Premises Building,
Ground Floor,
Carter Road
Bandra
Mumbai-52

Day 2 - Digital Summit 2006.

Afternoon Sessions - Why Search is Hot, Impact of the Echo Generation.

Search Session - Some mention of blogs and tags. I missed the start of thesessions but got in when Rishi Behl, head of search, Yahoo! India was talking. He spokeof Yahoo! Answers and Yahoo's My Web that has built tags into search. They look interesting, will explore them later.

Ashutosh Srivastava - group M, CEO, South Asia - The Long-Term Market: Impact of the Echo Generation

He talks about 15-25 year olds. onlinetransactions is small compared to markets like Hongking and Taiwan -but it is growing. Dream birthday gifts - mobile phones andlaptop computers. In China, a study revealed that all in the agegroup of 15-25 are mobile savvy, and a lot of them are moblogging aswell. When asked about buying behaviour, almost half had triedout some transaction through mobile. The American teenager isonline too, but they are also simultaneously listening to music,reading, chatting on the phone, watching TV - so implications on how tomarket to those who multi-task.

Two-three broad trends --- looking for affinity groups, collectivemindset, mass customizaton and expression. They are also highlynetworked - it is reflected in why people use networking groups,communities, blogs. They are also interconnected, and thereforeinfluenced by what happens within these communities.

So there is potential for peer targetting ... its not easythough. Who is Superman ? There may be several, in theirfields of expertise or interest. Networks can turn against you,as the Dr. Peppers' Raging Cow controversy. They are growing upin a different world, so we need to understand them. They areconnected 'live' everywhere in the world, in your pocket.Miniaturization and portability are important for them. They arein control and determine what they want to consume. The challengefor marketers is to navigate them to what is 'hot' and what is niche -and drive them to their interest.

Online retailing is social, it is ritualistic, it is obsessive, it isdecadent, it is manipulative, it is impulsive, it is everywhere (that'swhere mobile and wireless will help us). Shopping will not change- it will mutate.

Q&A - what do you think about mobile marketing? A - itcould be spam, but if you want to be successful with them you have todraw them in and give them something of value in return. You alsoneed their permission.

(an aside - i was Googling Ashutosh to find a link and discovered Tagit!)

Digital Summit 2006 Mumbai