Tuesday, August 28. 2007
The name of the game is not “Blind Man’s Bluff”
There were a very few interesting questions raised in a previous blog “The Difference Between Friends, Acquaintances and Strangers” and I would just like to put forth my opinions (because these might not really be answers) to those ponderings. If I may say so, I do think my friend is a little paranoid about strangers but maybe that is because strangers are scarier offline than online.
No, I don’t think we overlook anonymity online but I do think we have started to become comfortable with it, especially when it comes to Internet marketing. For a minute, let us compare this online/offline situation to a telephone conversation. I am guessing that when phones first came into the picture, many people were uncomfortable with a faceless voice floating to them from the other side of the line. These days we take for granted the telephone and this headless voice. Is that not similar to the Internet situation? Perhaps, the thing is that we are beginning to have faith in the medium more that the person who is on the other end of the line.
But I do not think we need to look at it as, black or white, believe/disbelieve, friend/stranger. To say all blogs are credible would be naïve because blogs by definition are opinions and not all content writers tell the truth all the time. And all of us know how opinions work. So, I would say, more than a question of credibility, it is about the relationship you build with other bloggers on a blog over time.
For the most part it might be easier to trust a person sitting opposite you than a faceless person online, but that doesn’t always have to be the case. I do think that to an extent we have started to accept anonymity, if not trust it blindly. We look at it as a part and parcel of the Internet. And credibility is something that may or may not trail behind.
Tuesday, August 21. 2007
The difference between friends, acquaintances and strangers
While reading up on an article about CMG (or Consumer Generated Media), I was, once again, thinking about the power of blogging. Rather, I should say, I was questioning the power of blogging. Of course, there is no denial, especially amongst Internet marketing professionals, that the blogosphere is a very influential medium, but then do we ever overestimate the importance that we give this sort of writing?
I know that if the person sitting next to me tells me something then I might believe him or her (depending on who that person is, of course). Can we really deny that, when online, more often than not, we are speaking to or interacting with strangers? And can we really interact with these “strangers” in the same way that we speak to a ‘real’ person sitting in front of us? I think not. I still feel that when we are talking about person-to-person, face-to-face communication the communication is much more influential and convincing.
The word that I keep coming across is credibility. I do also agree that credibility increases in a source like a blog, as compared to say, when the message has to do with Internet marketing, or it has any other kind of promotional tilt to it. But, my question is: to what extent is these blogs believable when we do not really “know” who are writing these messages? Have we got so used to the Internet, that we are willing to overlook anonymity?
Wednesday, August 15. 2007
Lay out your ideas
Last week I was in charge of mentoring one of the newer people here and we got talking about “brain dumping”. When I first told her about it, she started laughing. Understandably, ‘brain dump’ does have a funny sound to it. But then jokes apart, I have found that brain dumping is one of the most useful ways of working.
Basically, all you have to do when you are brain dumping is that you bring out everything you are thinking on to a piece of paper. Seems simple enough but I know for a fact that not many of us actually do something like this. In fact, I end up not doing this myself because I get lazy or start to feel that it is enough to go through the thoughts in my head rather than taking the effort to put it down on paper.
I remember when I was in school; I always had to study by writing things down. While I watched my brother reading and retaining what he needed to, I realized that I could never work that way. Well, different people, different methods. I suppose writing down reiterates these ideas into your mind. And you will be surprised how long you will be able to remember these things once you put them down on paper.
Have you ever heard of the theory that says that the best way to remember your dreams is by consciously thinking about it as soon as you get up and then writing it down? Brain dumping is similar. I find that when I write things down I can remember it for much longer, not to mention thinking about it much more clearly.
It is a fairly simple thing. Imagine you want to come up with a creative slogan. Start with putting down all your ideas on paper. They might be the silliest ideas or things that seem disconnected to what you want to do. Don’t worry about it, just put everything down. Keep looking at what you have written down; play around with it in your head. You know you do not run the risk of losing the idea because it has been put down in front of you.
Take it from me, brain dumping does work and very well too. Try it out and let me know what you think.
Friday, August 10. 2007
Working from home is not all play
For most people, the idea of working from home is very appealing. There are the obvious advantages like waking up late, not having to rush through breakfast and not having to bother with office attire. Rush hour is most definitely not a problem you need to deal with.
But think about it for a minute: are these really the advantages?
Okay, working from home definitely means you do not have to tackle rush hour, but the other ‘advantages’ are wishful thinking more than anything else. If you have work to do, would you Really sleep in? I think if someone who really knows what he/she is doing, working from home will be met with the same kind of gravity with which people work at an office.
There are advantages to working from home and I won’t deny that. But too often people get carried away by the distractions and are not able do what they set out to do. And that is really the main obstacle. Those who work in an office have a clear and physical demarcation between office and home. People working from home have only a theoretical concept of that. Yes, of course, you can have an office area where you do only work. But the fact is that I have also seen plenty of offices in houses that get used for “household purposes”. For example, the computer would most probably be in the office, so the room is shared with children. And so on and so forth.
The bottom line is that you Have to set ground rules and you cannot afford to stray from them. Once you take them lightly you will only be tempted to break these rules over and over again.
Of course, everyone has a different approach to work and some can deal with working from home better than others. What you now call distractions might actually end up becoming bigger problems for you. Set your ground rules early and start work from there.
Saturday, August 4. 2007
Let's do it again
Have you realized how long it has been since our last Bay Decoration Day? I have forgotten when the last time was exactly but I am sure it was a long time ago. But anyway, all those who were here during that time would know it was quite fun indeed.
So let me just backtrack a bit for the newcomers.
A few months ago, we had a “Bay Decoration Day”. And as the name very well explains it’s a day when we all get together and make our office pretty! So those who want to make a party out of it usually do and there are others who take the competition quite seriously (as we saw from last time.) But the whole event was fun and it would be great if some of your guys could write in your comments about last time.
So coming back to what I mentioned about competition, the Bay Decoration Day does have winners. Again, it is all good fun and just to bring out the best in us. So the newcomers do not need to feel nervous or pressured. Last time we made teams according to where we sit and gave one hour for each team to decorate their bay.
Now here is what we can do: we can decide on a theme for the Bay Decoration Day. And we can work from there. The fun part is the theme and seeing how different teams interpret it. It does make the whole thing more challenging.
So this is a suggestion put forth to the activities committee to see if a day like this is possible.
(Those who want to see pictures from our last “Bay Decoration Day” can come to me; I’ve got a bunch.)
Monday, July 30. 2007
Frauds forever? - hope not
The whole deal with fraud on the Internet is becoming quite a concern with clients. A number of clients who I have been working with have various questions about how we can ensure that their presence on the Internet will not be touched by fraud. I would not say that their fears are entirely baseless. After all, I am aware that they are investing money and security would be a big concern. In fact, anyone related to internet marketing should be concerned about fraud.
It got me wondering about what is actually being done by search engines about click fraud. There are some internet marketing professionals who believe that click fraud is a major hindrance to Pay Per Click sites and other online advertising. And then there are others who believe that the Pay Per Click industry is booming so much that nothing can really hurt it. Both sides might have a point, but what I am wondering is: Is there a solution to click fraud?
I do believe that search engines can help. Search engines are already doing quite a bit to ensure that the clicks on a link are genuine by doing different sort of filtering activity. There are softwares that search engines use to determine the authenticity of clicks. From the looks of it, it seems to me that search engines can probably do the best job at determining and eliminating click fraud. Of course, there are problems search engines will face with privacy issues when it comes to click fraud. Perhaps having clicking information out in the open would make it easier for us to deal with click fraud. But I can see lots of people opposing the idea, just because many like to keep this kind of information private.
It might not seem like such a big deal now, but bringing an end to the problem of click fraud at the earliest would work out for the better of all of us on the Internet in the long run.
Thursday, July 26. 2007
For those who can do it and those who can't
Recently there was a blog posted here questioning the place that grammar takes in a blog. Yes, I’ve been there too. Reading through blogs that are structurally and grammatically totally off. It is a rather frustrating experience and for the most part I do agree with our blog posting. But then again, not entirely. I think we need to look at the bigger picture to understand why this happens.
Yes, we content writers do take these things seriously because it is so natural for us. But perhaps the thing is that it is natural Only for people like us? After all content creation is only part of the story. Let’s take a few steps back and look at how blogging started. Blogging by definition is for those who want to express an opinion without having to worry about ‘formal writing’. I completely agree that blogs are a form of communication but the question we need to ask ourselves is: Is it also a form of communication for English speakers?
The Internet, for a number of reasons, is laden in English. This works perfectly for people like us, but there are plenty of others who do want to express an opinion or make a point but might not be comfortable with the English language and its rules as much.
I guess it comes down to the fact that the Internet is an open board and the blogosphere is where all this open communication happens. So as difficult as it might be to understand some of these writings and as absolutely frustrating it might be to see the English language murdered, we would just have to deal with it. So I do disagree with the claim that this lack of structure and grammar usage is an offshoot of ignorance. It is more like being unskilled in English. It’s a rather common problem.
Tuesday, July 24. 2007
Keeping it relevant
There is this common impression that the Internet is all about quick fixes. It sometimes is, and other times it isn’t. All this came rushing back me when I spent hours online searching something that I couldn’t find. Web developers might smirk at the idea, but its true!
Surprised? I ask, because I certainly was. That is when I really thought about what relevancy means in for a search engine. Because when you look at the results that you get, you realize that they are relevant to the specific keywords you typed in, but still not what you are looking for. I think internet marketing professionals are often faced with this problem.
I think we are so used to the Internet that sometimes we forget that it is not Actually a living, thinking person (thought I can think of at least two people who might claim that the Internet is exactly that!). Anyway, my point is that we type in keywords as if we are talking to a person, completely forgetting that there are so many contexts that come into the picture when we search for something online.
For example, if you type in something along the lines of “coffee in India”, it might give you all kinds of bizarre and unrelated results. You could have meant you want to know about how coffee is grown in India or it could have meant where can you go to drink coffee in India. So when you get results to do with both these contexts, is the relevancy wrong? I think not.
And to make things more interesting, the English language is full of words that are spelt the same but have different meanings. For example, “glass” as in something to drink out of, and “glass” as in the building material. “Black” can be the color or it can be a reference to someone’s last name. The list is endless and would a search engine know the difference?
All these have to be taken in to consideration and ‘tackled’ as much as possible when doing online searches. I think most people get better with practice and trial and error.
Saturday, July 21. 2007
A treat for the eyes
How many of us think of the Internet as words, words and more words? We completely forget the fact that there are as many graphics on the Internet to accompany the words. I recently came across a blog, which complained that icons are a waste. They are not worth it considering the time and resources it takes to make them.
Let’s take a look at why icons are used in the first place. For convenience? For variety? For beauty? I believe that icons are used on the Internet for all these reasons mixed together. Many web designers might tell you the same thing.
The fact is that the Internet is a visual medium as much as anything. So even as we talk about the Internet being an abundance of information, we should not forget the role that graphics play on the Internet. All you have to do is think of a page that contains only words and no pictures. Just the thought of a web page like that is turning off.
I agree that icons should be relevant to the link and a good icon will tell users what the link is without them having to read the text attached to the icon. If not, the icon is not really doing what it is there for. But I do disagree with the claim that icons are there only to make links easier to use. I think icons are inserted also to make the page look better. It is common knowledge that how a web page looks has a lot to do with how it is received by its users. Since that is true, we cannot ignore the fact that icons have a lot to do with appearances also. And appearances are important, especially to internet marketing sites.
So your website might not need icons next to links but then it is very possible that having icons there will add to the appearance of your website. And though that might not sound like such a big deal, it does affect the way users deal with your page.
Thursday, July 19. 2007
Stories from On and Offline
The other day I was a silent spectator of a rather interesting conversation. The conversation was basically about the value of books about search engine optimization. Personally speaking, I have never read a book about SEO and don’t see myself doing anything of that sort in the near future. But regardless of what my reading habits are, there are a number of books out there that speak about search engine optimization, trends and all.
The irony, as I see it, lies in the fact that something as traditional as a book is being used to describe something as dynamic and technologically charged as SEO and the Internet. One side of the argument is, what are the chances that by the time this book hits the stands, the contents of the book is already obsolete? That must be a major issue that authors of these books face. These things have become all the more common since internet marketing came into the picture.
When we write a blog, we know that the information that we are communicating will be up and running in a matter of minutes. That is the advantage that being online gives. Internet marketing professionals are especially aware of the time factor and how much time being online saves.
But all said and done, the good old paperback has a charm of its own that I feel cannot be overshadowed or replaced. Then, of course, there is the point that not everyone is online all the time. So books will still be ideal for people like that. And there are still people who would prefer to get their information from a book rather than a website. Books really have stood the test of time even after e-books, blogs and other online sources materialized.
Tuesday, July 17. 2007
Bring those plates back
The last time we had a bring-a-plate party, the idea was pure fun. This time around we added some meaning to the fun. We clubbed the bring-a-plate party with birthday celebrations. Yes, not a celebration, but celebrations because we celebrated the birthdays of four of the employees.
Isha--the content writer and self-proclaimed compulsive blogger--was born on the 15th of July. And two of our web designers, Prashant and Tarun were born on the 16th. The past three months there were no birthdays or anniversaries to celebrate in the office. And we were all waiting for a good excuse to bring in a cake and food. It was Tarun, I think who suggested last month that at this rate we may have to start celebrating birthdays of our relatives. But now we had not one but four birthdays to celebrate. In fact, we were in such a hurry that we celebrated Amrit’s birthday (23st July) almost a week in advance.
If it wasn't for the number of deadlines that await all of us, we would have celebrated each birthday separately. But that one day of the party is good enough to changes the mood of this web development company.
And we began the proceedings by singing happy birthday four times. Much like the last time, this time too we were celebrating diverse cuisines from across the country. And yes, we were all grinning with anticipation. Focused on the task at hand, we gave lunch all our attention for this one day.
This time we were generous and saved some pieces of the giant chocolate cake for the three birthday boys, and one birthday girl to take home.
Sunday, July 15. 2007
Happy anniversary to me
No, this is not a personal blog about me celebrating my wedding anniversary or anything. This me celebrating the second anniversary of my blogging career.
Exactly two years back, on the 15th of July, on my birthday, I started writing blogs. I’ve got everything from boring to intriguing responses to many of my blogs. And sure enough, I’ve made some blogger friends over the two years. Two years and the anonymity has been maintained.
There’s a group of us, in fact, who meet online, on a fixed time once every week. We are all content writers. We know that much. And the fact that we all work in similar roles, doing similar kind of work in different internet marketing firms. And above all, we share a passion for blogging.
We feel that blogging is an excellent way to converse with people, and to establish your expertise in a certain area of work in an interesting way. I think people read blogs with an open mind, unlike articles. After all, any piece of information can be made interesting provided it is presented in an interesting way. And what can be more interesting than the conversational style of blogs.
And whats more, corporate blogging has now become a great platform for businesses large and small to talk about their products and services. And of course, it also works as a great search engine optimization method.
But that’s not necessarily what interests our group. Blogs are the new-school way of communication. Gone are the days when there were specialist columnists who came up with brilliant weekly and/or daily columns. Brilliance is sprinkled all across the internet, by way of blogs. In fact, I’ve come across some phenomenal writing on blog sites. And in praising these pieces of writing, I am speaking both of the content and the style.
And what’s also attractive about blogs is the economy of words. And having said, I shouldn’t make the mistake of writing a long tedious blog.
But as a last brief note let me urge all bloggers to explore the possibilities that blogging offers.
Wednesday, July 11. 2007
The business of ethics
We got to take another two ours out of our work time. But this time it was for serious business. Well, more serious than film appreciation. Or actually, the point is that it had a more direct correlation to our work.
Abhida Satyendra from blue moon Corporate Solutions had come to the office for a training session on Business Ethics. Clearly, the trainer had been very well briefed about the general profile of the audience and the business we are into. And she had tailor-made her presentation according to that need.
And the training session was rather enjoyable, and informative. Abhida started off by introducing herself, and even though she had a general idea about all of us, she asked us to give our intros. She wanted to know our corporate experience, and our respective areas of expertise. Her prior training experience with content writers, and web designers was about improving communication skills.
Abhida told us that it was the first time she was training in an internet marketing firm. In all earnestness, she asked us to give relevant examples related to our business whenever we felt the need to. The 2 hour session was interactive, and was meant to be an introduction to the whole idea of business ethics. To start off with, Abhida spoke about the nuances of ethics as a word, and the complex arena of business ethics. The most interesting bit of the training was two ads that she shared, one a video campaign and the other a print campaign. We were asked to write down, and present our response to the ads based on our personal understanding of ethics.
I must admit, this was perhaps the first time since the time that I was in school that I was asked to address a group of people. Working as a web developer has hardly ever given me the opportunity. But Abhida was truly encouraging. She really made us all feel comfortable, and was very appreciative of our ideas.
And that was what made the training so much fun. She was constantly asking us to give our opinions, and relate the information to the experiences we have had in our business. At the end of the two-hour session we were also asked to write our feedback to the training. I think this was a great experience for us, and we are all looking forward to more such sessions with trainers from blue moon Corporate Solutions.
Thursday, July 5. 2007
For the other screen
“When you are writing for a website, I’d suggest you keep your eyes open. But when you are writing for the screen, it’s advisable to close your eyes every now and then.”
That’s what was written on the first and only slide of Ajay’s PowerPoint Presentation. Yes, there was no room for PowerPoint because the session purely centered around interaction. He showed us a few clips from films he felt were well-written, and shared his own experiences while writing both fiction and documentaries. A few film clips his session with those words. And given that he has experience with writing for both the screens, none of us hesitated a moment before taking his word.
But that’s not even the best part of the three-hour session. That’s right. There was more – much to our surprise. We were in for a surprise when we were asked to actually write a 1-minute scene. And what a task that was. All our notions about being writers crumbled with that one activity.
At the outset, writing for films and writing for websites may seems polar opposites to many, but that’s not really the case. There are definitively many similarities. For instance, a screen writer’s work is developed and given final shape by creative technicians like cinematographers and editors. The same holds true for a content writer who is reliant on the technical expertise and creativity of a web designer and a web developer for the work to take a unique and attractive shape. So then what is the difference?
The opening lines of the presentation hold the answer to that question. The hardest part of the exercise is definitely to write and visualize the final output. A content writer for a website has to keep the final output in mind, but the detailing required when writing for the screen is incomparable.
The session was interesting, to say the least. And at the risk of being repetitive (because enough people have said this, in the office, and surely through blogs) – in addition to being a great learning, the sessions were also a great break from our routine rigmarole!
Monday, July 2. 2007
Apologies and acknowledgements
I wonder if it seemed a little haughty of me to not write about the Film Appreciation workshops I had conducted. I was just genuinely caught up with the work.
First of all, I must say the experience was excellent. And to be honest, much better than I had expected. This is the second time that I am holding such workshops in a Corporate setup. But the very first time when my audiences were primarily web designers and web developers.
The reason I say ‘better than expected’ is because I was a little apprehensive about my assessment of my audience. Had I picked movies clips that they will enjoy? Was the subject matter really going to be interesting to them? Am I getting into unnecessary depths vis a vis some topics.
But all my apprehensions were set aside, the moment the session began. A two-hour session which went by, leaving everyone (including me) wanting more.
I think what worked was the fact that it was a great novelty to them. None of them had seen or heard about any of the films I had shown. It is no easy task to get access to foreign language cinema. And particularly those films that don’t fit into the mainstream mould.
And most importantly, like Vinod had written in his blog, the craze and thirst for films in this country is endless. And I am guessing, that in itself fuelled a lot of enthusiasm.
So, yes, it was indeed a variety of factors that made the Film Appreciation workshop successful. And for me, the fact that there has already been a follow-up session, and I am being asked to do another, is in itself the best possible appreciation. Unfortunately, stringent project deadlines meant that the session meant for content writers was postponed. But tentatively, its going to happen on the 8th of this month. Fingers crossed!
Continue reading "Apologies and acknowledgements"
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