The Branded and Gilded Life

Photo by Tierra Mallorca on Unsplash Winning is everything. Can you double your salary in two years? Fantastic. If you're playing for the short term, match time is now. Then the pyramid narrows.  The politics gets intense. Delivering on narrowly defined targets becomes the priority. And stress overtakes satisfaction. If you like that game, by all means, go ahead.  It's what you were made for and y...

Photo by Fikri Rasyid on Unsplash In 1916, a grocer in Memphis in the United States opened the world's first supermarket. And it was called Piggly Wiggly It wasn't Walmart or Tesco or Target. And he opened it for a very clear reason. To drive up his profits. He found that his assistants were spending most of their time serving customers. If he had to increase sales, he would need to employ more as...

Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash How would you like to write fluently in several languages of the world at the same time? Great idea? A beta version has already been launched. It's called Fluently. The promise? It will translate text from your native language into multiple other languages It's the No.1 product of the month on ProductHunt The site where entrepreneurs get their first experience of...

Sounds a little off, right. Who ever thought it would happen? Turns out that it is one of the things that wealth managers are experimenting with. You don't have to make the allocations every month and figure out how much you need to allocate. You simply let the software know what your goals are and over what period of time. And it takes you there. Hopefully. You don't have to spend time over thing...

Diwali is just weeks away. Remember lighting up those thousand walas  and running away before it resounded in your ears? The zameen chakkars that rotated as spinning orbs of fire until they slowed into weak flames on the ground. And the anaars, the cones that spit fire like little exploding volcanoes. Everyone has their favourite Diwali memories because it is an individual pursuit in India unlike...

Go to your profile page on the LinkedIn app on your mobile and you can record your name. Just like the dictionary tells you how to pronounce a word So, when you meet a foreign prospect, check out what their name sounds like. And surprise them by saying it right the very first time. What it tells the other person is that you made the effort. You took care of the small details. And those things matt...

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash With most chatbots, you know you're talking to a machine. But what if you didn't know? That was the fascinating premise of a book written about a decade ago called 'The Most Human Human' There's a competition held every year to figure out how far chatbots have progressed. On one side are three people selected to be judges. One the other are two chatbots and a hum...

You can send email to anyone in the world. Easy. But getting them to read is impossible. Anyone can make movies these days.  But you'll have to lock audiences in to watch Photography has become easy. But even selfies aren't holding our attention It's easy to wash clothes in washing machines. But they still have to be dried, folded and stacked. Attending classes on parenting is easy. But bringing u...

What was the riskiest thing you've ever done? Left home late to catch a flight? Or invested in shares, not mutual funds? You're living totally in your Comfort Zone. So why is it a trap? Because it doesn't give you the space to try new things You'll find it applies to the smallest behaviors. Walk into a 2 day seminar On day 1, you look for a place to sit. Then it becomes 'Your' place. It's very har...

The developer's work is always hidden. The copywriter's is mostly ignored. Developers write thousands of lines every month Copywriters don't come anywhere close When a developer screws up, users curse. When a copywriter screws up, the cat yawns. When developers hammer away on the keyboard, they're working When copywriters look lost, they're working. Developers work on JavaScript, Ruby on Rails, Py...

Success hogs the limelight.  And failure must permanently remain backstage. Spoken about in whispers to a very small set of people. That's not how life plays out. The 100% result that pervades everything from school to social media is a sham. We need the myths around success to stay alive. Otherwise it would not be worth the effort. The trophies and wins are flaunted on social media. But the insec...

No, it's not a startup focusing on paranormal experiences. But it's just as unbelievable. The original idea was to build an evolved blogging platform. But it has now grown into something else altogether. This post is not about the success story but a unique business model  It's not-for-profit.  No shareholders. So, it can never be bought or sold.  The code is open source and easily available to al...