Two events occurred which I must outline before I dive further into the crux of this post

1. I watched “The Social Network” – a movie that I had procrastinated long enough to watch and also thanks to the persistence of someone who decided it was a shame that I hadn’t watched it yet and rented it out for me (Thank you!)
2. During my aimless loitering of the Internets, I noticed that a friend of mine had TYPED the status message “Unavailable”

Over the past few days I have had a sudden influx of  Twitter followers and I must admit I was excited for more than a few minutes. But then while attempting to re-follow those that followed me, I stumbled upon a couple of things

• 2 of the so called followers had the same profile picture but totally different names and followed me within a span of minutes
• Now that would just be a coincidence until I started taking a closer look at the tweets in their feed. Every single one of them were quotes
• I then looked at some of the other new followers and they were all just quotes too

Quotes are the new spam

When you are not walking the city in San Francisco you need a taxi. But then again you, just in the other major cities that have taxies, are bound by The Taxi Law.

There are a few things that you must keep in mind before you read on and I am pretty sure you face this almost regularly.

• When you don’t require a taxi, you will find all of the city’s taxies go right past you
• When you need a taxi, you are likely to never find one
• In the off chance that you do find a taxi, it is unlikely that your taxi driver will want to take you where you want to go (not even for extra money coz all he/she is looking for is to have nothing to do with the traffic)

These two combined, gives you The Taxi Law

The chances of you getting a taxi in your city is indirectly proportional to your desperation (to find a taxi)

I will fight anyone who denies the existence of this law. How else can you explain how this applies to me every single time?

I used to love the game of cricket (clearly the better version of baseball {i kid, i kid}) back in the day. I remember we used to all huddle around the little 21″ television set and watch cricket matches – chores,dinner, studies and work were all secondary. Now while all cricket matches have their own levels of intensity, there is none like that of one between India and Pakistan.

You see, India and Pakistan have a lot of history going way back . They are two great nations separated at inception by political wrangling and religion but have more in common than a pair of conjoined twins. Even the biggest things that occupy mind-share are similar: politics and cricket. When these two nations butt heads together in cricket, there is so much more at stake than just a game – there is the pride of scores of people hanging in the balance. When they get together no really gives a sh*t about the trophy, man of the match or how many records Sachin Tendulkar managed to break yet again. It about who comes out the other end a winner – everything else is just background noise.

13 years ago, in 1998, India and Pakistan got together on the big stage in quite similar a way like they are about to in a few hours today. I remember I had an exam the next day and even though I tried a whole lot of begging, I wasn’t allowed within 5 feet of the television (even though it was switched off). However, there was so much going on in the match and the intensity and excitement was so much that my curfew was lifted a few moments after it was instated. So much for exams and studying – where I’m from, cricket came before all else. That was the most intense match I have ever seen: great atmosphere, great nail bitting finish.

Like I said before I hardly watch cricket anymore but there is so much excitement and intensity for this match that I am coming out of retirement just for one more match (who cares about the final with Sri Lanka anyways?THIS IS the mothergame)The last time I did this properly there were about 200 of us in a big hall yelling, pounding the tables and screaming cheers and even though the outcome wasn’t favorable we enjoyed the bloody hell out of it.

I’m sure Indians everywhere are hoping their team can hand deliver a royal trashing the likes of which they have not seen in recent times. At the very least I’m sure they are hoping for a repeat of that day from 13 years ago and I, for one, am siding with them today. No matter how this game turns out in the end, its sure to be an amazing time so if you have friends from either nation grab a hold of them and go watch this one even if you don’t know the game or its rules. Forget the finals, this is the mothergame!

The past few days I have heard at least 3 different dates to celebrate Mother’s Day. There is today, March 21st, celebrating Mother’s Day in the Arab Nations. Then there is April 3 as Hallmark says in the pic below. And there is a date during the second week of May for the United States. Apparently Canada doesn’t like to celebrate the same day. And Greece has a totally different day. And these are all just the dates that I have heard of from my friends. Only God knows, what other dates are out there. As we progress towards a world where boundaries are constantly shattered by globalization and the Internets we need to do something about this mess. Can’t we all just pick one date and celebrate it all over the world?

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Yesterday while loitering around a local mall with a few friends, I happened to see this little marketing gimmick placed at well known mall electronics store.

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• What I don’t get with absolute clarity is if Motorola is trying to promote one particular model from their cellphone lineup. Viewers of advertisements should be able to tell with pristine clarity what the product is all about. While I do agree that for some products ads could be intellectually challenging, when it comes to products like cellphones one has limited time to convince a buyer

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• When you are doing some marketing gimmick such as this, please stop assuming everyone is an idiot! It was evident from the moment I laid eyes on it, that the “cellphones” were fake. If you are going to try to convince me to buy your phones, please show me that your phones can actually do what you claim it can. Now, I personally dont find the ruggedness to be a major buying point but even if it were, I would never consider buying this product unless you be honest and upfront with me

Next time, please think about doing it right.

A couple of days ago I was exiting the Dubai Mall metro station, when something interesting caught my eye. There were 2 gentlemen standing a few feet away from the entrance with billboards strapped on their back. I vaguely remember the billboard being something about a cellphone data plan of some kind but I was more intrigued since this was something I hadn’t seen here in Dubai yet.

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I have seen similar concepts in the United States where you have people on street corners flipping boards usually saying something like “XYZ Apartments. 2 months rent free” or something similar. But those are plain board and the appeal is the people, flipping and turning it around for a level of showmanship. Here in Dubai, however, it was just these gentlemen standing around, no acrobatics – just a lighted billboard backpack.

Imagine if this could be miniaturized further. Imagine laptop bags and school bags all bearing some sort of advertisements. In the age of flexible displays I don’t see this being a problem at all. Shall we give it 3 years? People should be able to advertise their favorite brands. For example, I should be allowed to sign up with Apple to be able to advertise their products and logo on my bag/clothing. By making the sign-up process voluntary, you tend to get people who really care about your product as advertisers. Of course, there has to be some sort of benefits for me advertising – perhaps monetary compensation, or credits towards buying the next Apple product. The only question then becomes how do we gauge the effectiveness of these mobile, human advertisements.

Indians love their cricket and the day after any match involving India and any other team for that matter, there is a barrage of opinions on what went right and what went wrong. It’s always fantastic when a game invokes such a level of devotion from its fans. But in the 21st century, when we have the resources, isn’t it time we brought the people into the game in addition to having them spectate from the stadium seats and their homes? So heres the idea.

Why don’t we start a website that allows for crowdsourcing of options for team captains. For example we open the website for ideas 10 minutes before the 45th over (when the powerplay is set to begin) and people all over the world can send in their ideas on what needs to be done in order to win the game – they could send in ideas for field positions, who needs to bowl the last over amongst other things. Now I know what some of you are saying “This is a horrible idea since too many ideas are bound to come in and its not right to meddle in the way captains run their ship”. Fair enough! In order to resolve this, I propose an options clause – the captain DOES NOT HAVE TO implement the ideas but reserves the right to implement his strategy based on his discretion. Furthermore, as an incentive to those participating, the person to first submit and idea that gets implemented by the captain gets a reward – maybe some time in the locker room with the players or a free ticket to the next game.

With this idea we have the following gains:

1. People are now more involved with the game itself rather than screaming at the television sets or directly at the players beyond earshot in the field. Furthermore, there is now increased interaction between the fans themselves pitting ideas and options against each other. Remember, these are people who have spent countless hours daily playing the game so the options generated are bound to be good.
2. Players (including the captain) now have the help of their people during the match and do not have to be petrified by lack of experience or too much thereof
3. Cricket benefits from the infusion of technology and involvement of its fans and patrons

In the age of mass personalization, it is inevitable that such strategies will eventually find its way into the world of sports. While some of us are not blessed with the talent of actually playing sports, somehow we think that we are capable of making decisions that affect the outcome of the sport we love. And thus, today we give birth to backseat sporting!

#NewRule: Anyone who intends on augmenting their speech/sermon/conversation with alternate languages should first explain the purpose of doing so.

It was inevitable not to be introduced to a Hebrew root word every Sunday – to what purpose I still don’t understand. In a gathering where English was the primary mode of communication and furthermore, Hebrew not being a language any of us in the group even remotely understood, how is telling me what the Hebrew root word of any help? Am I supposed to be making a list of these words and report back to you? Am I supposed to be learning these words so the next time you mention it, I can raise my hands eagerly to exhibit my clearly new found Hebrew vocabulary?

For those of you who still have no idea what I am talking about, heres an example. Someone is explaining to you , in English, how rains work.

“..and that’s how clouds are formed. The root word for clouds in Hebrew is ‘Anan’. These clouds then…”

Now can anyone, who has no association with the Hebrew language or has a genuine interest in it, honestly tell me what benefit that one sentence about the root word does for you? Nothing!

This is precisely why you should know your audience before you say something – be it a sermon or even a conversation with another person. Just because a few years ago, some wise guy thought he could wow a few feeble minds by his extended language capabilities does not mean you have to do it too.

If you are someone who wants to get connected in the professional world, the first platform that comes to mind is LinkedIn. While statistics are quite varied, about 80% of recruiters are said to use LinkedIn for their sourcing needs. Not too bad eh?

I, for one, was not particularly please with LinkedIn over the past few months. Don’t get me wrong, a LinkedIn account is a must have for everyone but it was more towards the admin side of things that LinkedIn clearly wasn’t up to par.

• Slightly over a month ago, I had to work on LinkedIn to reinvigorate a LinkedIn group. First step, get details of members. Second step, cross verify with another database to see whose missing etc etc. The convoluted process aside, even the simple task of getting details of members in the group was impossible. For starters, LinkedIn’s policy of not allowing even group founders/admins to not have any level of control over membership list (a list where anyone joins by choice) is just ludicrous. Then there was the whole issue of pagination, where i could only see 25 pages (each with 20 members or so if I recall correctly) – that is only 500 members at max! My group was 838 members and counting. So much for that!
• Customer service was slated to be nonexistent (which I personally found was quite untrue). As search on Google for LinkedIn customer service leads you down a path of horror stories and communication silence. With this trepidation, I thought I’d try reaching out to LinkedIn using their “Contact Us” form. And lo and behold, I did get a reply from the LinkedIn team, albeit an answer I was hoping not to hear but that’s besides the point.
• Now the LinkedIn mobile apps page isn’t the best in my personal opinion. There are clearly marked sections for the iPhone and the Blackberry but none for Android. Android, being this huge new upcoming platform and all, I reckoned they might give it a separate section (Yes I am slightly Android biased at this stage in my life). Now I admit, I didn’t spend a lot of time meticulously reading everything on the page but I was fairly certain there was not even a single mention of the word Android on that page. They even had a separate section for Palm-Pre (sorry, no disrespect intended). So I tweeted about this apparent lack of love towards Android and within minutes I got a response telling me I could download a beta version of the app. Now, pray, tell me why couldn’t you have put that info on the website, so we could save eachother’s time? Nevertheless, they did respond and acknowledged my suggestion to include it on their webpage. Fair enough, kudos for listening. The only line for the other platforms was

“And for all other phones, just visit m.linkedin.com from any mobile browser to find all your LinkedIn basics in English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese (simplified and traditional)”

• And then there is today, when LinkedIn released LinkedIn Today – an attempt to keep you informed on stories from industries (customizable to your preferences of course). While I haven’t spent a whole lot of time playing around with the system, I must admit that if its any good, this might be a reason why I might stop by LinkedIn more than when i have to update my profile.

On the whole, I think LinkedIn is a marvelous platform/service and I’m certain to use it for years to come (unless something better emerges). Sure, there are those of you out there who read this and say “Why are you complaining, you ain’t paying a dime to use it”. Agreed, but sadly in this age of the Internet freemium / subsidized model, I don’t think that’s even a valid excuse anymore.