Ice Bucket Challenge and the power of gaming

My first reaction to ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE (IBC) was “well here is another silly stuff to feed the social media”.  It comes out as a gimmick.  Then when I was confronted with a simple question “tell me how they feel about the ice bucket challenge irrespective of whether you did it or not. this is not about judging anyone….” it got me thinking. 

What is the challenge?

It’s an effort to raise awareness of ALS where participants must dump a bucket of ice cold water and then dare someone to do the same. If they can’t, the alternative is to donate $100 to the ALS association.

So the challenge is simple.  You either bear the stinging chill of Ice water on your body or you write a cheque for $100 to the ALS Association. Most of the challenges we would want to handle provide us either with a reward or a penalty. Thats what a challenge is all about  you either win or lose. The IBC is different its either a lose lose or a win win option depends entirely on how you take it. 

You have the stinging cold water dumped on your head trickling down to your body thereby you put yourself into a bit of distress or your part with $100.  It sure is a lose lose situation particularly in the real world.  But then in the  social media firmament it becomes a win win thing.  When you take a video of yourself taking on the IBC and when you share it on Facebook you automatically get into the league of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Lady Gaga but should you chicken out you end up donating $100 to ALS foundation which by now has become a sexy charity (dislodging AIDS) and thereby end up adding some CSR brownies to your personal brand. So its WIN WIN in the Social media world. 

Who ever conceived of this has either done it after a lot of thought and has understood human behaviour in the brick & mortar world and the social media world.  Facebook is a huge game bin. Its got rewards embedded in the form of like button. Every time a like button is hit for a post the author of the post gets a trickle of the feel good chemical (dopamine) release. Over a period of time the the participant gets used to this reward chemicals and would want more of it, thereby ends up with more posts or shares on the wall.  To Facebook it is content. This reward loop is vital for content generation in social media. In the real world there is either reward or reproach scenario while in social media there is either rewards or no rewards. (No reward is your posts not getting the likes). 

So in this game bin called Facebook the IBC is one activity that can give a person the Dopamine shower not just a trickle. Simple it may seem but it requires balls  to take up the challenge. Trust me its not easy. It certainly not for those who are cynical or for the analytical minds. 

Waste of water seems to be one huge criticism for this activity.  A valid one at that.  But remember social media is different its a place where you can make eczema flakes look like  snake tattoos. 

Advertising in Twitter..

Interesting tweet from my friend and then I noticed an even more interesting stuff below the picture.. I thought I must share  it. At the bottom of this picture you see two logos.. I have circled it.One of them linked me to Reditt Ads twitter page and other to the twitter page of Ashish Dimri.  May be its been there for long but I got to see it for the first time. 

M SALIM was an innovative advt.. though the resin on the sticker may not be a favorite dish for the plant. 

NOW HERE IS THE BIG IDEA

If Twitter can allow links to advertisers pages based the keyword of the tweet they can open up a huge advertising opportunity.  They have the space for 8 such logos.  Just like how FB allows targeting and advertising Twitter mush allow people to do just that.  This way twitter will open up a huge opportunity for generating ad revenue without being intrusive. TRY IT TWITTER we love you. 

But don’t forget me I am trying to make a living out of social media so need your support 🙂

 

 

 

HYGIENE IS NOT DETTOL .. ITS BEYOND SALARY AND PERKS ..

Nothing inspires like embarrassment. Iam sure the guys who create Dilbert are actually those ordinary people who take the tube to work and spend the time interacting with a whole lot of people who have grey matter that is still  travelling towards its place of residence.  

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There was a time, like mere mortals, we sat in open spaces and worked together.  The cabin did seem attractive for its enclosure value but certainly not for what it contained within.  So when the open space mortal aspires for the cabin one cant attribute it his/her proclivity to seek comfort, certainly not.

What would you do if you find a picture of a pig in a  Svarovski picture frame  ?  would you just stay quiet?  The aesthetic side in you will revolt and the more you suppress it the more it will spring within you and eventually you will be constrained to throw the pic of the  pig out and may be have your own pic inside.  That’s the feeling the ordinary mortals get when they want to occupy a cabin. Its just the rush of   Aesthetic blood.

The new  kid, who has moved into a glass box from an open space, in his privacy starts grunting at people and grows a stiff neck and stubborn fat all over him that sooner or later the picture of the PIG returns to Svarovski frame.. such is corporate life you see.  So were did the pigs go??? Does that question linger ?

I remember this lovely book called Animal Farm _ a classic by George Orwell.  The book will give you an insight into the life of the pigs.   The classic line ‘ALL PIGS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME PIGS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN THE OTHERS” who can forget.

Lording over the farm and the shelters, they go around allocating the rightful place for everybody.  They say “Now you .. hey Iam talking to you … go there, and you come her sit in this place…. “  they go on.  They work on space allocation theories that are linked to productivity and its often combined with far more sophisticated ‘science’  like Vaasthu.  

It stinks,it sucks.   Dont we know that a  salary has 3 broad components. Its the BASIC PAY, the PERKS and the HYGIENE factors.  The new generation knowledge workers look for HYGIENE first… They just want a good picture frame and sparkling one … they dont need the picture.  Organizations that cannot understand this simple truth are wiring themselves to disaster.

Why is EMPLOYER BRANDING SO IMPORTANT in a RPO game plan?  (That will be my next blog)

GE

Understand the future and prepare

Apart from complex social interactions the ability to see the future is probably the stand out feature of a human being.  Its important to make sure what is likely to happen and prepare yourself for it.

Here are the predictions.  I will probably have to go through this and summarise it .  These are market predictions done by JWT

I read the following predictions, interesting too, far more serious than the one about and worth a closer look. LINK

Painting in lovely pastel shades

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Of Twitter & Attention span

It some how feels like a crime to log in 2 hours on a event or an occassion. Why do these small chunks of time suddenly look so huge?  There were times when for days one did nothing and never cared about it.  Well, may be doing is nothing compared to being in a place or doing something that one is not willing to do or hate to do.

Then we have this Twitter the one that makes you write as easy as winking.   Its short formated stuff gives one a feeling that you can communicate much to the whole world at ease, so sitting in a room doing nothing with a crowd of perhaps 20 people does not make sense, the time seems too stretched.

That’s the Twitter or the Thirukural generation for you

TED.com's 5 Word Speech at the 14th Annual Webby Awards

The script of success

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Now I sometimes find myself trying to pick up wild flowers on the edge of a slippery cliff.  Risking my life to learn and script my future.  Iam an Indian, who understands that the complicated maze of life cannot be understood, and I scorn at any endeavor that draws out  a process for success and to life.  I am of the opinion that if you are able to take in the complexity of life with good cheer the processes within have this amazing ability of working through the maze to produce order within the disorder.  If you ask  my friend Deepti Zac she will probably endorse me.  As a designer she would find well defined and ordered design to be no design at all.  She would probably find this papaya thread (see pic) to be rich on design.

So you try scripting success to me you are French fries in Hell.

When gayness was out in open

When gayness was out in open, not a matter of guilt

Devdutt Pattanaik

In his Navagraha Kirti, the great 19th century Carnatic music composer, Muthuswami Dikshitar describes Budh (the planet mercury) as Napumsakam or one who is not quite male or female. He alludes to a story in the Puranas where Brihaspati (the planet Jupiter) discovers that his wife Tara (the goddess of stars) is pregnant with the child of her lover, Chandra (the Moon-god). He curses the love child to be born neuter. Budh later marries Ila, a man who becomes a woman when he accidentally trespasses an enchanted grove. From that union springs the Chandra-vamsa, or the lunar dynasty of kings. So says the Mahabharata.

As in the story of Ila, Indian lore is full of tales where men turn into women and women turn into men. Narada falls into a pond, becomes a woman, discovers the meaning of worldly delusion or maya. Shiva bathes in the Yamuna, becomes a gopi, a milkmaid, so that he can dance the raas-leela with Krishna — an idea that has inspired the temple of Gopeshwarji in Vrindavan. At a short distance from Ahmedabad, is the temple of Bahucharji, the rooster-riding goddess, once where it is said there was a pond that turned a woman into a man, a mare into a horse and a bitch into a dog. The pond has dried up, but women still visit this shrine seeking a male child. They seek the blessings of bhagats (some call them hijras) who though men believe they are women and choose to live their life wearing a sari.

Near Pondicherry, in the village of Koovagam, every year the transgendered alis dance and sing in memory of an event that took place during mythic times. Aravan, the son of Arjuna and his serpent wife, Ulupi, had to be sacrificed to ensure victory of the Pandavas at Kurukshetra. But he refused to die without a taste of marriage. As no woman was willing to marry a man doomed to die, Krishna took a female form, Mohini, became Aravan’s wife, spent a night with him and then wailed for him as widow when he was beheaded.

In the Valmiki Ramayana, there are descriptions of Rakshasa women who kiss women on Ravana’s bed on whose lips lingers the taste of their master. Krittivasa Ramayana is the story of two widows who drink a magic potion and, in the absence of their husband, make love to each other and end up bearing a child without bones (traditionally believed to be the contribution of semen).

How does one interpret these stories? Are they gay stories? They certainly shatter the conventional confines of gender and sexuality. Ancient Indian authors and poets without doubt imagined a state where the lines separating masculinity and femininity often blurred and even collapsed. Though awkward, these were not stray references. Such tales were consistent and recurring, narrated matter-of-factly, without guilt or shame. Such outpouring has its roots in Indian metaphysics.

As the wheel of rebirth turns, Indians have always believed, the soul keeps casting off old flesh and wrapping itself anew. Depending on one’s karma, one can be reborn as a tree, as a rock, as a bird, a beast, a man, a woman, a man with a woman’s heart, a woman with a man’s heart, even as a god or demon…endless possibilities exist in the infinite cosmos. The wise see masculinity and femininity as ephemeral robes that wrap the sexless genderless soul. The point is not to get attached to the flesh, but to celebrate its capabilities, discover its limitations, and finally transcend it.

The question before us is: does the human mind have the empathy to include gender and sexual ambiguity in civil human society? It does. In every Yuga new rules come into being that redefine world order. Mahabharata mentions a Yuga when there was no marriage — women were free to go with any man they chose. This changed when Shvetaketu instituted the marriage laws. We have lived through a Yuga where we left unchallenged laws of old imperial masters that dehumanised and invalidated sexual minorities. This has to…

On resolutions

Eleanor Valentina J writing on New Year Resolutions for Chennai Insights talks about resolutions made but seldom kept. Its a joke now, it is also said “Resolutions are made to be broken”. I have made many a new year resolutions, short or writing them with blood I have tried every bleedy thing. End of it all, I come out weaker and my pursuit of overcoming an issue has always resulted in being enslaved, resulting in the failure to keep the resolutions. So I just gave up.

But resolutions are good.

I have been living a life with some patterns, some are good and some are terrible. So when a resolution is made it often focuses on resolving the terrible ones, ‘I want to quit drinking/smoking’ may be one of them. The mess starts over here. How do I quit a habit? A habit is woven within my being it has wrapped around my goodness too and has become part of me. Its like trying to untie a tangled up wire or thread. Can I handle it separately? How do I handle it?

Prayer,they say, can change things. It sure changes the one who prays, by strengthening the strong and weakening the weak. But then the weakness, or the thorn can also become a strength in its weakest form for it said ‘let the weak say I am strong’. So why should anyone try to shed the weaknesses and become strong? Ain’t it better to work the weakness through the strength and vice versa. And in prayer understand to operate the thorns creatively.

I believe resolutions must be pushed to a much higher level. It must factor the strengths and weakness within each of us to embark on something that is far more far reaching and impact driving. In other words it must be outward force or a centrifugal force, a power that radiates to the uttermost corners of the world. Only such resolutions are meaningful.

Mere mortals who prefer to engage with the sandcastles on the beach side the real ones either take upon themselves to handle the rough seas or build on a rock solid foundation.