I am on SEOMoz

Ok, I am a little busy these days designing the whole new department work. I will get some more time next week (I am very optimistic, as always). I am an alltime WMW member, SEOMoz is doing work these days. I liked some of their articles but most of their articles are too long and less scanable, one need to scan through to the hidden knowledge from most of the articles. I have started reading them. Also I am using their videos and articles for training new guys in the department.

Just wanted to share that I am on SEOMoz, see http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/solving-duplicate-content-issues-with-http-and-https. Don’t forget to register at SEOMoz and add a small comment :). I will appreciate that and so will Rand :). Happy Weekend!

Do this vs Do this because

When you become leaders/managers you tend to use “Do this” phrase and rightly so as that falls under the profile. “Do this” is a very important phrase to get the things done but there is a better effective phrase, a little costlier and time taking but with high dividends, “Do this because”. I have seen that most of the managers don’t take time to explain the reason behind the steps taken. It applies to entrepreneurs/HR managers too.

Lets take an example: “Don’t use Personal Yahoo messengers in Office”, this is so obvious, we all know the reasons as well. But still many a times we ignore our subconscious knowledge. These are different approaches to get the work done in a better way.

1. Do it method - “Don’t use Personal Yahoo messengers in Office”
2. Do it because method - “Did you know that a small message only disturbs you for 3 seconds while it takes another 10 seconds to get back to work, after observing some team members we are not allowed to use personal yahoo messengers any more, Sorry for inconvenience to some”.
3. Help us decide method: - “Did you know that a small message only disturbs you for 3 seconds while it takes another 10 seconds to get back to work, after observing some team members we are in a doubt to understand the use of yahoo messenger in our office. Should we be using it? Do we have any major advantages for it?”

There are various methods to make the same work effective. Approach is a very important part of our life. As we grow up in ladder, our decisions starts affecting more people, so we need to be using a better approach all the time. This is not diplomacy but a good approach allows you correct your mistake as well. Sometimes after following the third method “Help us decide method”, we may allow yahoo messengers again in office.

There is another aspect to this, when you describe the “because” part, the “do this” part becomes obvious and people tend to do it as a practice rather than a rule. Good night, will try to post more next Saturday (my official off days ) .. Happy week ahead

Starting with Kolkata web - Jeetbo.com - Jeetbo re

This is Saturday again, a day dedicated for my own work and interest. I have been thinking about creating a very strong web group in Kolkata for almost an year now. Let’s give it a push now. I am an entrepreneur. Not all entrepreneur want to create big companies only, some want to create things that can be used. I think I too fall in the second category of entrepreneurs.

Join Web Kolkata jeetbo.com

What are the plans

• Ask more and more people to join web kolkata group.
• Get some sponsors.
• Make a small team to manage the group activities.
• One big conference for 2 days, Saturday and Sunday. Invite some big names.
• Web entrepreneurship education to school.

What are you waiting for???? Join jeetbo.com.

Why content writers have no future?

Oops, I did step on some toes. May be it wasn’t well communicated but let me put it in better words. Hey, no biggy fights, I have too much work to worry about. I will certainly put my thoughts to clarify it. Was pending for quite sometime. Many have raised this, many objected and I stand with the responsibility to explain it.

Some ground work before I answer the many concern, “Why did I say that content writers have no future?”

Some traits that are always useful:

1. Public speaking.
2. Writing.
3. Listening.
4. ….. few more.

Writing is a trait that is always useful, with or without the tag “CONTENT WRITER”. Before jumping into conclusion lets visit some of the points.

Let’s define “content” using content categorization:

• Easy learning topics: There are some topics that can be learned easily and are not connected with many things, like say education. We all have some knowledge/experience and more importantly an opinion about this topic.
• News/Events/Moments coverage: There is one event that happened, 80% of the information can be gathered from the event itself, no background/previous knowledge required. Just the right skills to present it artistically.
• Connected subject: IT, Finance, Marketing, HR and major topics fall under this. THIS CAN’T BE LEARNED EFFECTIVELY IN ONE DAY. One need to develop an opinion about it. The problem with this category is its connectivity with many things. Lets take an example, if one need to write about “Web site usability”, he/she must know how web works, how pages are rendered etc. Lets take a better example, say if you need to write about refinance, it is very easy to write what is refinance and different aspects of it but if you really need to write an article that will be used then you need to pen down in a practical format (which is almost impossible to learn for a content writer, it needs long experience or help from experts).

What does industry say about content writers (in general) and how they work?

A topic (generally connected type content and sometimes easy learning topics) is given to them to write about it. They will search across the web and will gather enough knowledge to pen down an article. Deadline 1 to 2 days (max 3 days), amount paid $1 to $10 (max). As Kamanshish said, “they are suppose to write something about the topic, thats it“. As he said, “it is not possible to produce quality work in that short time or with that budget“, just check out some of the freelance websites and their work. THEY ARE PURELY MAKING SEARCH ENGINES more spammy and thus OUR LIFE DIFFICULT. THEY ARE SPAMMING THE WEB with unwanted/useless content.

Then there are technical writers (background education required), financial writers (CFAs and other financial degrees), Person development writers/trainers and topic-expert writers. They do a wonderful job with their field. A technical writer is not a good financial writer and vice-versa.

Simple Acid Test to check content writer quality for that topic

One and only one acid test to determine your present standing as a content writer on any topic.
Do you have an opinion about what you write?

• Yes - Carry on and enjoy a future as a topic-specific writer.
• No - Sorry you will die off as a content writer, please don’t spam. Either you study enough or buy two ox and two cow.

How to become a content writer designer?

There are many technical, financial and topic experts with immense knowledge about the subject but they don’t know how to put their experiences using words. A good content designer can help these topic experts design their content, this is a pure blend of engineering and art. Example: I have a great logo designer, he makes amazing logos but when I asked him to pen down an article on logo designing tips, he wasn’t able to frame it properly. Moreover people like us are grammatically incorrect most of the time. A good content writer is the one who:

1. can write useful content on easy learning topics and news/events etc.
2. who can work with an expert to produce a good content for connected topics.
3. understands how people read content and knows current trends of writing.
4. who can simplify the content.
5. who has confident grip over linguistics.
6. who knows how to check the performance of their content and follow up to achieve the goal.
7. who can arrange/rewrite the content in a more logical way.

This wasn’t an easy post for me, it took me more time than I thought.

What did you achieve in last 5 professional years?

Ok, this is a post that will humble me even further. God was so good to me that for last 5 years I was able to live a life worth looking back and thanking God. We all work, we all create quality products and services but I am happy that I with the help of many were able to help many do their work smartly and create better products.

(Last 5 years of professionalism)

After leaving Grmtech these are some of the comments (in random order) that really kept me motivated:

1. ” Wish you all the best. I have learnt so many things from you rather from your blog. Today I can’t stop myself from writing this comment. May god bless you all the time and be the best again.”

   - Susmita Chatterjee (She worked with me for some months. Thanks for the comment and thanks for reading my blog regularly.)

2. “I came to know this from your blog only. I read your blog regularly because I find it interesting and informative. Sorry for being so late in posting comments. I hope its never too late to begin.”

   - Manjit (She worked with me for very few months, we enjoyed the work but it was a big surprise to hear from her. Thanks for remembering me)

3. sometimes people make a huge difference in the environment surrounding you… and you are one who does that Sir… i am sure those guys in your new company would realize your true worth very soon… U ROCK SIR!!

   Sir, you made GrmTech the place what it is today. Without you it would have not been the same innovation oriented group of people. Personally you have made me what I am today. I owe a lot to you Sir. I have learned many things from you.

   YOU ARE STILL MY ROLE MODEL ALONG WITH ONE SPECIAL PERSON IN MY LIFE.

   We will miss AjiNIMC at GrmTech.

   May God Bless You Sir.

   Good luck !!!! (more …)

   - Anand Kedia - [He joined as a very young team member and how he is handling a lot of things now. Many hate him and rightly so he sometimes is irritating too, I respect him for his initiatives (very few people have this quality) and I wish I could have shared some unwanted experiences with him. Never too late for it. Here I go: "The spirit of communication is not the spirit in which you speak/write but the spirit in which the other person hears/reads you. So always thing of the impact that it will have on others by thinking like others. Thats the only change you need, rest everything rocks except your knowledge level. People respect you for your knowledge, so read read and read and then apply apply and apply and then read read and read and then reapply reapply and reapply" :), he is a great guy to work with)

4. When I started my career in SEO people use to ask me WHY? Why are you choosing this field, while you are an ETC Engg. and you can get a good job, but when I joined my first job that time I was completely fresher. It was you who taught me the real taste of web and now almost 20 hours of my day goes to web and I am really enjoying it. There are lots of stuff associated with web, and it is also true that you are going to learn every moment of your life. Thanks Aji.

   - By Alok (Currently heading a company as CEO, He worked with me on one of the projects. It is great to know that people are creating more jobs for India).

5. If I look back at those 3 years, Grmtech has been more of an institute rather than a company for me (Thanks to Aji and Sourav Da).

   - by Anirudh - It reminded me of some early days of Grmtech where we wanted to make it more like a university to do a very highly work and research. Congrats dude for completing 3 years at Grmtech.

6. Wish you all the luck and success sir…m sure whrevr u go…u will keep on inspiring people as always

   - by Vasudha (We worked together for just few months. People inspired me and some say that I also inspired many :). Great to see your comment).

7. I know that you have the ability to change the environment when you do not like it…keep it up…my best wishes are always with you [:D]

   - by Saikat (he is one of the best lot with whom I am associated with. There was a time when my first 30 mins in office was scheduled for a meeting with Saikat and the topic of discussion was INNOVATION. We worked on many new stuffs. Soon looking to work with you.)

8. good decision. Sometimes we need to deconstruct and reconstruct certain things in our life. I am happy that u have done so. I believe right now u r quite confident with ur new venture. Carry on, all the best.

   - by Susenjit

   Nice seeing you growing up. Best of luck in ur life. hope things will turn in ur favour.
   It was great pleasure working with you. I always remember you.

   - by Subikar
   [This was truly motivating as I never expected that Subikar and Susenjit will comment on it. I am very very happy they did. Towards the end we did not share very good professional terms. We departed very sadly or in a very unusual way, very rarest moments in my professional career. There comments gave me a lot of energy. Subikar proved that any person if dedicated enough can prove his worth. I recruited him on my own risk, many laughed at him and on me (for my recruitment) as he could not even talk properly. Things changed very, he believed in himself and I in him. He became one of the good performing team members. Ended up doing many work on his own. It was big learning in my life. Best of luck to both of you and thanks for dropping in.

9. Its great move and we should not keep us away from changes that happen around us. It was great time working with you. Now surely some more people will enjoy your experience and knowledge.

   - by Mithilesh [It was good working with him. He codes like an artist, never happy with the perfection of code ... we have learned a lot together. I will remember him whenever I see a complex regular expression :)]

10. Wish you a very best of luck for your future. I will always remember your humble support and advise. The knowledge you gave me in last 11 months (not only technical) will surely help me to grow my career graph. keep in touch

    - Shyama Kant [It was very emotional moment when I left Grmtech. I was helping him to fight the odds in his career. He was improving amazingly. I liked him because of his attitude towards work. He worked very hard to complete things. Soon he will be in different trajectory creating greater products. He was the only person who sat with me when I was a new driver, he is a risk taking guy :), wishing all the best. ]

11. This is Jayangshu from Kolkata. I came by your blog by chance few days ago and quite liked the post titled “How to decide your new employer”. After that I saw few of your new post.
    But today I ended up reading a huge no. of your old post tooo ( Despite of having my xams tomorrow, writing my last B.tech xam ). And they are really great. Liked some of ur stories too. Keep blogging Aji

    - by Jayangshu Saha [through email.... I should blog more :), thanks for dropping in]

There are plenty more (thanks for all great comments, emails and scraps). I will keep on adding comments from emails and blog posts here. A very special blog post for me. Whenever I will feel down I will read this post.

What did you achieve in last 5 professional years?

It’s people, It’s people who creates. It’s not the Idea but the people behind the Idea. I have always believed in people and got very good returns. When many ask me that “What did you achieve in last 5 professional years?”, I will use this blog post to tell them, “A small group of people who trusted me and helped me grow the products and companies”. This blog comes very handy in expressing your emotions too.

Did I miss your comment, please drop me a mail.

Where were you all these 7 months?

I was on a look for a good employer for the last 6 to 7 months. Met and talked with many, even took an off to disturb yahoo’s interview at Park Hotel for a good job. I did not like many, many did not call me, many did not value me enough and nothing worked out for several months but ……

For last one week, things have changed. After announcing my resignation on my blog and alumni list, I started getting hell lot of calls and mails. I already got committed to DigitalAvenues with good perks and more importantly good culture and quality work but people are still trying to lure me with better perks. The highest offer been close to 125k per month, Gosh! where were you all these 7 months? Thats why I still call life stranger than fiction. Anyway I appreciated and enjoyed all these offers and talks. I am on the track to shrink my CV and enjoy the journey.

My first day at DigitalAvenues was really great

All happened really quick, on 25th Apr got a call from DigitalAvenues for an interview, on 29th Apr I took a leave and went for the interview. Reached there at 12:40 (instead of 12:30 because of huge traffic jam) and started interview in next 15 minutes. Partners after partners talked, we liked each other, thought of getting married and DONE. They prepared the paper, I signed it and I was in. On 30th Apr, I served a one month notice period to Grmtech and somehow that day became my last day there. I called up DigitalAvenues and asked them for an early join and they agreed. Took a day off yesterday (1st May) and I was in office today (2 may), my first day at office.

I reached there before 9, called up the guys and they were surprised since they were not prepared as I was going to join them officially on Tuesday (6th May). I was in t-shirt and jeans, so I asked them about the company dress code. I heard this back, “Wearing something is important, what you wear is not” (We laughed and carried on). Within minutes I was in the conference room going through some ppts about their new product line. When I saw the product, I was forced to say “WOW!!!!!“. Then I met another partner, he explained to me about the service part of the business and the whole model. I will be taking care of the web marketing department from Tuesday. We did a lot of official talks including an introduction to the pillars of DigitalAvenues (the core team leaders). It was more fun (amazingly fun) than work. My first day at DigitalAvenues was really great.

I was amazed at:

1. Their ability to think and deliver big.
2. Their achievement in short span of time.
3. Their colorful PPTs, it looked so amazingly professional.
4. Their crystal clear strategies.
5. Their pristine clear mission and commitment towards delegating their vision to the bottom of the company. The management layer was into the business strategies rather than work.
6. They having amazing fun inside the office.
7. Amazingly artistic crowd. Their designers are really talented and a search on web shows the same (see some work).
8. Enough for the first day

I will be spending another unofficial day tomorrow at DigitalAvenues.

Did someone really moved your cheese?

There is a bit of learning, there is a bit of preparation and you are never too late for either of them. Enjoy the presentation, which has helped me a lot in my life.

(Wait, the ppt will take some time to load ……………………………………………………………..)

There are a lot of other books from the same league which I could recall “Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach” (Thanks NG for introducing me to that).

I am not recommending this book to make a change but just to let you know that one must be prepared for a change. According to me this book wasn’t asking me to change but preparing me for one. Don’t ever become prisoners to comfort zone, never be afraid to face the heat/change, always remember how you had done it and more importantly believing that you can do it better this time :).

My journey with Grmtech ends here :)

After spending some 4 years and 9 months at Grmtech, I am leaving for my new ventures (Today was my last official day at Grmtech). (After a day break) I will be joining digitalavenues and will be working with two departments, one is a service of my own choice (Web marketing) and the other one is a product (my passion to shrink my cv is still alive).

I am looking forward to meet some of my new team members, I am sure it will be a lot fun. At this time I want to thank all of my team members at Grmtech (and ex-Grmtechians) and want to wish them a very big success in life. I have been a people-oriented leader and I have believed in what I have done so far, I will continue to do so. Keep smiling, take Grmtech to next level and I will work with my new team at DAve in taking DAve to next level.

I will start blogging at webkotler.com (My new avatar, changing it from 5 year long AjiNIMC to Web Kotler). Also I will be consolidating my experiences at http://www.99smallsteps.com.

Good Night, will see you all next morning.

Why Indians fear failure?

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” — Albert Einstein. We can rephrase it is as “Anyone who has never failed has never tried anything new”. But then why are we afraid of failures?

Being an Indian, I am not stating this as a fact, rather as an observation with a 28 year old eye. Last seven years in the Indian corporate world, where I was hired for innovation, have forced me to conclude that “Yes, We (Indians) are taught to succeed and not to fail”. Most of the times, failure is seen as a result of inefficient, unfocused and UNWANTED attempts made by an inefficient, unfocused and not so smart individual.

It takes me back to the year 1995, my 10th grade science practical exam. We were asked to make projects based on scientific theories. The most popular choice was to go for a wind mill or a solar heater. Our seniors did it and their seniors too and probably their seniors too, everybody knew about these so called popular yet regular projects. However, my friend Rajkumar decided to break the so called success mantra by doing something new, a water clock. He made a water clock where one drop of water was hitting a second’s hand every second (He did all the calculations and I guess it worked). But he really had a tough time in convincing his teachers of its worth (and his hard work). He was discouraged at every stage and the weapon used to dissuade him was again the after effects of failure. It’s not a story with one Rajkumar but almost every Rajkumar.

Here are my viewpoints on why (most of) the Indians are not very comfortable with failures:

1. We hardly failed: From our childhood we hardly failed as we were not allowed to fail. We were given a tested formula before every experiment which minimized the chances of failure to almost zero. We were almost always taught the “how to” with “what to”. As we grow the word failure takes a different meaning altogether as we never saw that as a part of our normal day to day life.
2. Failure makes YOU a failure: It was always inculcated that failure makes you a failure. Things are changing but still the respect for the failure is missing. I really liked Sir Ken Robinson talk on “Do schools kill creativity?“. I wonder if our education system is creating the fear of failure inside.
3. Less freedom for innovation at higher education level: I had been a student of 2 great universities but we hardly had the freedom to try something new. Creating something new was an option that was left for not so important (out of course) subjects. I personally feel that at PG level or professional courses there should be classes on the necessity of attempts and failures. The more freedom you have for innovation the more you will try and least will you fear failures.
4. We never enjoyed the luxury offered by failures: Every failure comes with a cost - huge or low. Most of the time we can not enjoy the luxury offered by failure due to the cost and the time involved with every venture. Failure is a lot of fun when you are not putting your throat at risk. How many of us have modified our two wheelers for fun? We owned them for use (I am happy that things are changing very fast though)
5. At corporate world we are appreciated for success (only):
   
   
   
   However, in my present organization we take special care to ensure that real attempts are appreciated and awards are not limited to successful attempts only. In fact, I wrote a mail to all the employees asking them to fail more often.

Things are changing very fast. We (Indians) are trying our best to make failure less fearful both at personal and corporate levels. The term failure is being redefined by the latest high-end mergers and acquisitions by risk taking Indian companies. It may be considered as some indications of the new era.

Abraham Lincoln was a success man

• Failed in business at age 21.
• Was defeated in a legislative race at age 22.
• Failed again in business at age 24.
• Overcame the death of his sweetheart at age 26.
• Had a nervous breakdown at age 27.
• Lost a congressional race at age 34.
• Lost a congressional race at age 36.
• Lost a senatorial race at age 45.
• Failed in an effort to become vice-president at age 47.
• Lost a senatorial race at age 47.
• Was elected PRESIDENT of the US at age 52!