Desicritics Author: Gautam Ghosh

Vint Cerf on The Internet

Gautam Ghosh — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 09:35:16 EST

The first thing that I noticed when I reached the Marriott hotel off Hyderabad's picturesque Tank Bund lake to hear Dr. Vint Cerf as part of the first edition of the Google Speaker Series, was the huge level of security. Bomb squads, private security personnel, metal detectors were all keeping a track of the 600-800 people who had turned up to hear the man who co-wrote the TCP/IP protocol. On enquiring why there was such a huge level of security we were told that Dr. Cerf would be a prime terrorist target and no one wanted to take any chances.

There were a lot of people, considering it was a Friday evening with lots of students from engineering colleges of the city and IT employees from firms of the city like Satyam, ADP, Dell and journalists. Of course, bloggers like yours truly don't yet get considered as journalists in India, so I could not participate in the separate session later after the talk.

Roy Gilbert, head of Google India Online Sales, introduced the Googler who holds the fancy designation of Chief Internet Evangelist to the audience (view Wikipedia article about Vint Cerf here). He said that the Google Speaker Series would be a quarterly affair and would try to showcase thought leaders (and not necessarily Googler thought leaders.

When Vint Cerf finally came on stage, what stood out was how old he is. Sure one has seen his pictures on the net, and knew that the founding father of the internet was around 63. However to see him in the context of the young Google executives was particularly contrasting.

Vint started off his talk saying how an Indian, Yogen Dalal was instrumental in TCP/IP development in 1974 when he was a graduate student at Stanford.

Talking about his work with the Jet Propulsion Lab where he is helping in developing the Interplanetary Internet he wryly remarked "You must have heard about the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), well that's because we haven't succeeded in finding much intelligence in this planet!"

Joking about his designation he said, "Well, I wanted to be called an Archduke or something, but then the folks at Google told me that the last Archduke was assassinated in the early twentieth century and that started the first world war. So therefore I dropped that demand and decided that evangelist would do just fine"

He started off with the presentation which chronicled the growth of the internet over the last 10 years from 50 million users in 1997 to an estimated 1039 million in January 2007.

Cerf's contention was that the further growth of the internet would be in the domain of the mobile phone and the majority of the new users will first experience the internet through that device, which is quite different from PDAs and laptops and therefore has implications and challenges for application providers like Google.

He showed another slide which showed that Asia is the largest proportion of internet users. "As Asia's influence online increases, the languages, applications, demographics and economics of the internet will be impacted by what you and your countrymen in India and other Asian countries deem interesting."

He stressed that Africa's internet penetration was very low and infrastructure would need to be deployed to help increase the percentage.

Then he started talking about the structure of the internet and thankfully for people like me, made it sound simple. Talking about the Internet Protocol that he made with Robert Kahn he said,

"Bob and I wanted the internet to be future proof, and therefore it was a dumb network. IP does not care what transport mode is used (satellite, fibre, radio, etc) and does not care what application it is carrying (video, audio, web, email, IM, etc) and therefore it had a profound impact on regulatory models. Earlier networks were bound to switching technologies like TV, radio, Telephone networks and were very vertical and could therefore be regulated easily. However the internet cut them all very horizontally."

Talking about the challenges for the internet:

"The IPv4 can hold 4.3 billion web addresses with a 32 bit address base, however at the current trend the number of unique addresses will run out by 2010, and therefore IPv6 will need to be used which will supply more addresses."

"Broadband is very asymmetrical now. You can download fast but uploading is slower. Therefore video communication through the internet has not taken off. Users will soon insist on broadband symmetry."

"When Bob and I visualized the internet we had a simple model in mind, that all computers would be connected to all other computers. That however does not work in commercial terms. Organizations need to have VPNs, Firewalls and those were not built into the basic architecture of the internet. If we had to make the internet today we would incorporate that into the basic architecture."

He went on to talk about security implications and admitted that there are no good answers for them.

He said that he did not ever think how the internet would push a new user oriented paradigm where users share, discover, transact, announce, collaborate and produce (mentioned blogging in this context). Self service by users at Amazon, Fedex, TiVo, Image and Video sharing and communities of interest like MySpace, World of Warcraft, Second Life. He talked about the use of the internet to aggregate thin markets (though he did not use the term "the long tail").

The future:

"We don't have semantic networking or search. Tim Berners Lee is working on that."

"We have to move to time and location as organizing paradigms of data."

"What can we do about information decay?" As an example he shared an example, "Suppose you are in the year 3000 and you have discovered a presentation written in 1997 using MS Power Point. Let's say you have MS office 3000 running on whatever machine you have. But can you read it now? Will we need to preserve bits, software, OS and hardware to read old digital information?"

Then he started talking about uses of internet enabled devices like refrigerators, clothing, bathroom scales along with technologies like RFID all connected to the internet.

After that he talked about his work with the Jet Propulsion Lab and developing an interplanetary internet protocol and the challenges of transmitting data over planetary distances "Mars for example is closest to Earth at 3 light minutes and farthest at 20 light minutes."

Some interesting questions that the audience asked were:

How does he see internet penetration increasing in the rural areas?

"One answer is by mobile phones, except that a lot of such phones are not equipped with GPRS. The other answer would be a reasonable regulatory and financial incentive for a municipal broadband by floating a municipal bond, except that the market is not developed for municipal bonds in India. So it's not very easy to answer that question."

How can the internet be accessible for people with disabilities?

"We are experimenting with colors for people with color blindness, specially in reading maps. For deaf people we are seeing if video subtitling and captioning can be possible. Speech as a medium to interact with the network will overcome not just barriers like blindness but illiteracy as well. Lots of researchers are working on such answers."

Why did he choose to join Google?

"Well, I get to raise the average age, and hopefully not lower the average IQ. But seriously, I have worked all my life in the infrastructure of the internet. Now I want to work in the application space."

On whether internet can help in reducing poverty?

"I wish, but at the most it can help farmers use to get better prices like e-choupal is doing or to access and deliver work that you could not do earlier like outsourcing is doing. The internet is just a tool and not a magic wand to make our troubles go away."

Television: Why Karamchand 2007 is a letdown

Gautam Ghosh — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 15:18:30 EST

I was waiting to catch the first episode of Karamchand, starring the carrot -chomping detective played with such freshness by Pankaj Kapur in the 1980s. The ads before the episode were full of tempting questions: Where had he been all these days, gosh! - 20 years? What had he been up to?

Unfortunately the questions were not answered by the end of the first episode. It tried to make it sound as if the intervening years had not happened at all. And that the leap of 20 years (that Ekta Kapoor strives to add in her serials) had never taken place at all. Kapur strives manfully to breathe the character back to life. However, too much water has flown under the Nizamuddin bridge for us to accept Karamchand back with the same fondness, as we had missed him.

First, Kapur looks old. The typical Karamchand mode of dialog delivery and hand gestures that made the 1980s detective seem so different, look depressing on this fifty-something detective. Of course, in the 1980s, we saw Jeremy Brett play Sherlock Holmes on Doordarshan too.

Karamchand was the exact opposite to Jeremy Brett's cool and composed take on the great detective (one of the best in an impressive list of actors to play the 221B Baker Street resident, IMHO). Karamchand would run out of exact words to say, a stark contrast to Sherlock Holmes, who always found the right words. Of course, it did not make him seem like a bumbling idiot, but rather as someone whose words could not keep up with his thoughts.

And then there was the carrot. In the non-health conscious 80's, Karamchand ate carrots - and I guess convinced a fair number of until-then dubious school children like me about the virtues of the vegetable. Popeye hadn't smashed his way onto the Indian TV screen to extol the virtues of spinach yet and therefore Karamchand seemed like a radical contrast to the pipe-smoking (and occasionally opium smoking) Holmes.

However, today Karamchand seems like an anachronism of that age; like VP Singh trying to make his presence felt in UP.

Kitty, for example - the new actress who plays the dumb assistant to the detective has little or no effervescence to not turn the character into a caricature. And the only thing she seems to be there for is to say the predictable last sentence to her boss "Sir you're a genius" to which he will invariably answer, "Shut up Kitty".

Or take Pankuj Parashar's direction. In the 1980's when the camera hardly moved, Parashar's unusual camera angles and use of shadows and lighting marked him out as a different talent. He took that talent to mainstream Bollywood too, with Naseeruddin Shah as hero (!!) in Jalwa (remember the giddy camera movements during the title song sung by Remo Fernandes?) However, the same camera angles look childish today.

In all, the context has changed but sadly by the look of the first episode, nothing much by way of content has changed on Karamchand. The second coming of the detective does not take the show to another level and therefore disappoints one even more. All that it has done, is awaken our memories of the past and make it more painful for us.

Graphic Novel Review: Ramayan 3392 AD issues 3 and 4

Gautam Ghosh — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 15:31:15 EST

I missed out issue 2, so issue 3 was a shocker for me. When we left them in Issue 1, Rama and Lakshman were fighting the asura army at Janasthan. Turns out that it was not led by Ravan but Viv-shan, a 3392 version of Vibhishan. Lakshman gets wounded in battle and the Asuras outnumber the Armagarh forces. Rama surrenders in return for Viv-shan's word of sparing the women and children of Janasthan.

Both Rama and Viv-shan apparently break their codes of war. Rama for surrendering and Viv-shan to not live up to the Asura code of "no mercy".

Rama's surrender is viewed as treason by the Armagarhian council and he is exiled for fourteen years. Embittered, more human than the maryada purushottam of the epic, this Rama is even criticized by his brother Lakshman. This exile is somehow more believable as Rama searches for a new life and meaning of his life.

Issue 3 starts in the desert as a wandering Lakshman gets saved from a bunch of assassins by an old sage who calls himself Vishwamitra. When they get introduced, the sage is interested in getting to know where is Lakshman's blue-skinned brother. Tired and hungry, and fascinated by the sage's powers Lakshman agrees to go along with him as they search for Rama. Eventually they find him, with a fishing community, living as a commoner.

Lakshman informs Rama that their father is no more, he passed away after Rama's exile. The Council of Armagarh started to get corrupted and Lakshman had assassination attempts on his life. Finally he left to try and locate Bharat and Shatrughan, and assassins followed him, until he ran into the old sage.

Vishwamitra then tells Rama that he is blue skinned as he came from a different 'loka' and that his origin and the powers of the Asuras are related. He then asks Rama, Lakshman to follow him to discover Mithila, the fabled land, which has a secret power that the Asuras are after. If that falls in the hands of Ravan, the destruction of the world will be nigh.

In issue 4 they discover the kingdom to Mithila, where they save a lady who was being apprehended by a group of Asuras.

Vishwamitra reveals that this lady is the answer to the world's problems and that Rama will be her protector.

The graphics of the Ramayan have improved tremendously from Issue 1.

The bleakness of the protagonists' luck is mirrored by the dark colors used. Rama's blue skin goes well with the bitter and moody persona he's given in the story. He and Lakshman even come to blows. Graphics are quite portrait-like, and one area that could use some improvement by way of help is the action sequences.

The story has turned gripping and it needs to be seen as to what will Sita's specific role. What is the power of Mithila which is desired by the Asuras?

Yes, I am hooked now.

Graphic Novel Review: Virgin Comics' Ramayan 3392 AD

Gautam Ghosh — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 06:14:05 EDT

Writer Shamik Dasgupta promised good things about Ramayana 3392 AD:

Sadhu is good, but just wait and watch for Ramayan Reborn (Now Ramayan 3392 AD). It will simply blow the minds off, India has never seen Ramayan like this I can assure that much...since I am the writer.[:)] you wanted a retelling of the Amar Chitra Katha...now read the retelling of the oldest and greatest epic in the world. Jai Shree Rama.

In a lot of ways it does not fulfil that promise. The story has been retold with a fairly futuristic approach and yet a lot of old elements have been retained.

The future in the story is not a very optimistic future. There has been an apocalyptic war and the ecology has been destroyed. Earth is surrounded by a radioactive haze and humans only live at Armagarh in the Aryavarta continent where they have managed to penetrate the haze and get some sunlight. In the other parts of Aryavarta live 'anthropomorphic' beings like Vanaras, Garudas and others.

To the south lies the continent of Nark, hellish in all senses as the name implies. Ruled by Ravana who is a creature spawned by the apocalypse and who seeks to extend his rule over the Aryavarta kingdom.

The kingdom of Armagarh (not Ayodhya) which is ruled by Chief Councilor Dasarath has four sons - Rama and Lakshmana from the deceased queen Kaushalya and Bharat and Shatrughan by Kaikeyi. The story tries to give a reason for Lakshman's bonding with his blue-skinned elder brother, the reason being tied to blood relations. He is more hot-headed, outspoken and resentful of his step-mother and for his father's lack of time.

Kaikeyi, unlike the Kaikeyi of the traditional epic is no sullen queen in the kop-bhavan sulking. She is empowered as she is a councilor in the kingdom's governing council. She is also quite a racist, believing that humans should not join forces with other beings.

It would be interesting to explore racism in the Ramayan 3392 AD setting. Would some parallels be drawn to today's stratified society? That would actually be hopeful to expect from the comics. On the other hand the use of the word
Kshatriyas for warriors and use of Aryavarta for the 'civilized' continent might actually reinforce caste and cultural stereotypes.

The story opens with the Armagarh council debating how to combat Ravan's Asura army and it is decided to send the four sons to the outposts of the kingdom. Rama and Lakshman get posted to the comparatively 'safe' place of
Janasthan which is underdeveloped. A reader might draw parallels with present day Bihar (a couple of clues: Lakshman says, "Why don't they understand, lack of necessity does not mean lack of initiative for progress?" and the rustics there insist on calling him Lachchman).

No sooner have they reached that they realise that the outpost is under attack by an army of Asuras led by Ravan himself.

The graphics are quite disappointing. For whatever reasons, close-ups of the protagonists do not convey the intensity of the story as much as the graphics of the landscapes do, with the exception of Lakshman, whose distinctive red markings on the face help in conveying his anger with his parents much more eloquently than his expressions.

The final full page graphic shows Ravan who looks more like a beast than his traditional ten-headed humanoid form.

The question that it leaves one with is, Would Ravan be shown as unidimensionally as the artwork suggests in future issues? One hopes not. Ravan's character is the epic is wonderfully diverse and rich. Ramayan 3392 AD's success will lie in making both Rama's and Ravan's character multidimensional and not the caricatures depicted in Ramanand Sagar's teleserial.

Curiosity makes one look forward to the rest of the story. Where would Sita come in? And everybody's favorite monkey god, Hanuman? Does this Rama have divine nature and will it be revealed? And how will the stories be radically different from Ashok Banker's series of Ramayana?

Graphic Novel Review: Virgin Comics' Devi

Gautam Ghosh — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 04:05:32 EDT

Devi, after Sadhu, is the newest offering by Virgin Comics. It tells the story of Gods, who have been defeated by a fallen God called Bala. Shades of Lucifer? Bala was different from the other Gods, as he grew more powerful from imposing his will on humans. So much so that the Gods each sacrificed a part of themselves to create Devi (inspired by the myth of Shakti), who inhabits the body of a warrior woman of the Durapasya, the humans who fight along the Gods.

Devi does defeat Bala, but Bodha, the king of the Gods decides not to kill him, but lock him up in Jwala, the prison of fire and stone.

From these mythical times the story moves to modern day Japan, where a female assassin fights Japanese Ninja gangsters while recieving a call from someone who wants to employ her services. The assasin is Kratha, an apsara, whom Bala wants to employ to kill Devi.

The battle of the Gods will move to earth, and one really looks forward to the story's next part.

Unlike The Sadhu, there is not too much metaphysical and philosophical mumbo-jumbo, but plain action and delicately made graphics by Mukesh Singh. Colours are bright but add to the story rather than distact from it.

Siddharth Kotian's script is tight and those looking for echoes of Indian mythology would be a trifle disappointed. Devi is pure fantasy, except for that reference to Durga and Shakti mentioned earlier. I only hope that readers in India do get to see it soon.

Deepti Lamba's review of Devi is also available on Desicritics.

Infosys' Corporate Blog - A Review

Gautam Ghosh — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 16:05:32 EDT

Infosys launched its corporate blog, Think Flat with a post from CEO Nandan Nilekani, last month and then by Stephen Pratt of Infosys Consulting Stephen Pratt.

Most of the posts seem to be stuck to the "Flat world" theme, and the first two posts don't acknowledge the fact that they are being posted on a blog. Hmmmm, cut and paste job by someone in Corporate Communications, I guess.

Thankfully there is a RSS feed, and comments are not moderated. Sample this comment to Nandan's post

"What a terrible waste of time and storage space.
Is that the best thing you could write in your blog. blah d' blah blah about your company and the tripe you serve your minions. That's not what we want to read. Its a blog.
Don't you know what a blog is?
Don't make this another space for you to serve your corporate bull crap man. Talk of how you can inspire and elevate the youth in your company. How you can stop them from jumping into Microsoft.
Talk of your life. There should be something interesting. Chill out. "

Heh.

And no post or comment back from NN.

The recent posts are by a lady called Richa Govil. She posts a thankfully more bloggish post here. Who is she? She doesn't say. An introduction might have been in order, considering the heavies she's following on the blog !

What else is missing? A blogroll. Or links. We'd like to see who the bloggers at Think Flat read. Tom Peters is a great Infosys advocate, maybe they should add him to the blogroll.

Now that Narayana Murthy has retired maybe they could ask him to blog, considering that he always has an opinion on most subjects.

What the blog needs is less posturing and more conversation. More themes. Flat is too narrow a category for the blog, unless Infy plans to launch multiple blogs. Which the domain http://www.infosysblogs.com seems to suggest.

Let us hope the blog does not die the quick death of the Wipro Blog ! Hope they take more inspiration from the ex-Infosys Sales & Marketing head honcho Basab Pradhan who also blogs

Verdict for now - "kaafi Flat blog hai" !

Comics Review: Virgin Comics' The Sadhu - Issue 1

Gautam Ghosh — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 15:43:57 EDT

Virgin Comics has been brought out and is the brainchild of Bollywood and now Hollywood Director Shekhar Kapur (Mr. India, Bandit Queen, Elizabeth), New Age spiritual guru Deepak Chopra, and maverick UK businessman Sir Richard Branson.

The Sadhu is the first issue of Virgin Comics and the story is by Chief Creative Officer and Editor in Chief of Virgin Comics, Gotham Chopra and the artwork is by Jeevan Kang.

The story starts with a group of bandits led by a mystical leader called Dadathakur who fight the English Army in the jungles of Bengal around the First War of Independence (or the Sepoy Mutiny, if you so desire to call it) only with wooden lathis, and the bandits (or Dakaits, as the comic calls them ;-).

Dadathakur meets a strange lady who says that his chosen is on the way.

The story then moves to England where, James Jensen lives as a daily wage laborer on London's tough docks with his short tempered brother William. One day as destiny would have it, James is approached by a recruiter of the British Army to go to Her Majesty's colonies. James has always been attracted by India
and when he finds that his wife is pregnant he chooses the life of making a career in India.

In India he loosens up and becomes more joyful somehow being sure that this is where he is meant to be.

He keeps running into a mysterious man in a Kali temple and again when he and his wife are accosted by a Royal Bengal tiger. The tiger listens to the mysterious man and walks away.

Who is this man? Is this the Sadhu? How is he related to James and Dadathakur? What does the future have in store for James? The first issue ends with these questions for the reader.

The artwork is in one word - amazing. The milieu changes and James' moods are reflected in the grey and dark blue sombre colors for England and bright yellows and reds when they move to Bengal. The mystical parts are done with fade out of boundaries in the background as well as sepia tones.

The drawback however, for the Indian audiences would have to be the dialogues and narration. With an eye on the Western audience and marketing Indian mysticism, Gotham Chopra's script seems to be New Age-y (which is understandable, as he is Deepak Chopra's son) and has stilted attempts at being profound. For example after the Prologue, James' story begins with:

"We choose starting points, when in truth every single moment exists in the context of every single moment throughout time that precedes and follows it. Time is a tapestry with neither beginning nor end. We like to think that stories start at a single point, but in truth it's one eternal tale" !!!

We hope this heavy dose of prose goes away in future issues. However, if American and Brit readers lap it up, we might continue to be inflicted by it. Additonally to make matters more painful for the Indian reader, a page full of explanations of the concept of Shakti and the four stages of life make the comic seem like a treatise on Hinduism by Deepak Chopra.

As a reader one just wants to concentrate on the story, and axioms for the story should be built into it, not provided additionally as an addendum.

You can check the the preview at the Virgin Comics site

All in all, it's a good attempt, but I won't say that it will do for Indian stories what Manga has done for Japanese comics! At least, not with current track of Westernised presentation of pseudo-myths. Only Ramayana Retold seems to have the potential to be a hit. Snake Woman is the story of Bollywood staple Icchadhari Nagin, adapted to the US !

Resurrecting Indrajal Comics' Bahadur or doing a re-telling of Amar Chitra Katha would probably have been a better way to invade the West !

Succeeding on The Edge

Gautam Ghosh — Tue, 4 Apr 2006 00:06:02 EDT

What gives us Indians an edge in this world is a paradoxical ability to balance the super-structured with the totally ambiguous !

In my view, no other civilisation (Jung would call it the 'collective unconscious of a people'), save the Japanese, drills in both the factors to such an amazing degree. So you have the example of a Ramanujam who excelled in the so called structured world of maths relying on mysticism and intuition.

So what, I hear you ask? What does this psycho-babble have to do with strategy? with business? with India Inc.?

Look around you. The structured world of business as Taylor, Ford and Sloan knew it is falling (or has fallen) like a house of cards...and the domino effect is happening around the world. In these chaotic times the skills that are needed most are the duality to balance the chaos of the environment with order and structure of the organization...and yet not be rigid !

The rise of the Knowledge Age, when expertise is the most coveted talent...in the Financial Analyst industry (the "new Jews" is what Indian whiz kids are called on Wall Street), in the Software industry (too numerous to chronicle), in the still developing discipline of Management (CKP, Rajat Gupta, Sumantro Ghosal, Ram Charan are uber-gurus!)

I believe the skills that help us succeed in these diverse fields are embedded in us, in our psyches.

Interview: Sanjeev Bikhchandani, CEO of Naukri.com

Gautam Ghosh — Mon, 3 Apr 2006 00:15:18 EDT

Following last week's email exchange with Sanjeev Bikhchandani, CEO of Naukri.com (according to Alexa, India's premier job site). I invited him to answer a few questions.

How has the response to RSS been?

We launched RSS less than a week ago. We have done no promotion of the feature - no press release, no ads, no banners on other sites - nothing. The only promotion is on naukri. So while it is a bit early, the response is as expected - a small number of tech savvy users of naukri have asked for RSS feeds and a few dozen more ask for it every day. We find it encouraging. Should RSS become a hygeine factor on web sites then we are happy to be there early. While a few hundred a week is a small number over several weeks it adds up and the cumulative RSS feeds going out after a few months will not be an insignificant number. What it also does for us is that ensures that you don't lose even an infrequent visitor to naukri or a passive job seeker so long as he came to you once and set the appropriate RSS feed.

What should we do about spam to registered users of naukri?

While there is no foolproof answer to spam we have taken several measures to minimise it.

The first thing registered users of naukri should do is to set their privacy and mail options to the ones they want. You have already detailed these options out in this blog earlier so I will not repeat them here.

In case you have made your resume searchable (to ensure a higher chance of finding a job you should go for this option) and you find that there is a client of naukri who is accessing your resume by searching our database and sending you irrelevant mail you can send a complaint to abuse@naukri.com. We go through each complaint and wherever we find a client stepping out of line we warn him and if he repeats his behaviour we may even suspend his subscription temporarily. In a few cases of extremely stubborn clients we have even cancelled subscriptions and have refunded the balance money. However to tell you the truth this is an evolving situation and there are some clients who are not very well versed with email ettiquette - so they have to be educated. It is still relatively early days of the internet in India for some users.

We also have a few dozen dummy CVs of our own in our database. Should we get a spam mail from one of our clients at the email ids in the dummy CVs a flag goes up and we monitor the activity of that client closely and talk to him even if there is no complaint from a registered user.

We have recently introduced SMS in our resume database. Instread of sending email to a registered user of naukri recruiters can send an SMS. SMS offers many benefits over email to recruiters - response is faster, open rates are higher - in effect you recruit more and faster. One difference - you pay for each SMS you send, whereas email is free. We feel smart clients will increasingly use SMS for the benefits it provides and because each SMS is paid for they will be targetted better than emails currently are. Simple economics.

We are also planning a few other measures which we will announce closer to the time of implementation. We are focussing on the problem - every Monday we have a product planning meeting in our office and spam has featured prominently in our meetings for the last several weeks.

Any ideas or suggestions will be welcome

Emphasis in the posts are mine - Gautam.

I think they are trying SMS in an innovative way. It'd be interesting to see how the job-seekers react to it. Would you respond better to a SMS by a recruiter than an e-mail?

I think the idea is a good one with some merits, except for one fact, the transience of SMS is very high, and richness of data might be lost for the recruiter. Branding opportunities are also curtailed. You just can't use logos or corporate fonts on SMS. So if you have invested in building your brand, you don't get too much visibility through it.

Why Blogging Works

Gautam Ghosh — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:30:06 EST

According to process work, there are two basic drivers for a human being.

1. Expression
2. Relatedness

Expression is the desire of all human beings to create and leave their mark on society, for the future. Some express themselves by words, some by painting, some by sculpture and most people by work. Expression is searching for how individually we impact the larger world. It's making a mark on the fabric of time and space.

Relatedness is the other great driver for human beings. As social creatures we have relationships "pre-formed", but we take effort to develop and nurture relations with others. Relatedness refers to the 'quality' of relationships.

What does this have to do with blogging?

I believe that blogging more than anything else, helps us achieve both these primary drivers of human beings. It helps us to express ourselves with pictures, words, videos and sounds. And it enables us to relate to others by sharing experiences and acknowledging their expressions.

Of course, blogging is not perfect, but the fact that it has democratised the tools to enable the larger human processes to find an outlet is the primary reason for it's success.

This post is a winner of Recruiting.com's Post of the Week]