Entries by Administrator

I first thought of writing this blog when I read the one by Ajay on emails. And then yesterday, when I saw an excellent PowerPoint presentation on ‘Emerging trends in the world of web design’ I was reminded of it again.

For me, the fascination with PowerPoint began with the very first day I used a computer. And I would go even so far as to say that PowerPoint was one of the reasons why I got glued to computers, and later enrolled myself into the world of internet marketing.

During one of our team meetings last month the topic of using (or not using) PowerPoint so much during a presentation came up. Personally speaking, I think PowerPoint really adds colour and life to a presentation. I personally find that PowerPoint is an effective tool regardless of the subject matter. And is that not very important? In fact some of the best presentations that I have seen used PowerPoint and I brought that up during our team meeting.

So my question now is: Is the problem really with PowerPoint or the way it is used? I would say it is obviously because of the way it is used and if that is the case, then is it not unfair to tag PowerPoint as the culprit? The fact is that it is those who use the application in a dry and boring way who are to “blame” for PowerPoint getting a bad name. I do believe that a PowerPoint presentation can really be a great visual aid to a talk.

In fact, my purpose with posting this blog now is to invite a few comments from the other side of the story. I would love to hear from those who hold that PowerPoint really takes away from a presentation rather than add to it. So let’s begin that conversation, now!

Motivation is a key ingredient in success but those who really understand success also recognize that it is not just about motivating yourself but also about motivating those around you. 

Think of your workplace and gauge if it is a place where you feel motivated not only to complete the task at hand, but to also do what you are doing in the best way that you can.  A lot of how well one performs has to do with the kind of place they are working at and the kind of people they are working for. If you are working in a place that applauds a job well done and gives constructive criticism you will feel like a valued employee and feel motivated to perform better.

But motivating works both ways.  Looking towards the individuals and the environment around you to motivate you to do better is only half the story, because you have to do the same back for them.  You have to keep in mind that those around you are affected by you just as much as you are affected by them.  Most of us are quick to point out how others come in the way of our best performance but it is just as important for us to look at ourselves and see if we are contributing to or taking away from the positive environment at our workplace.

Also keep in mind that motivating does not have to be a top-down phenomenon.  That is to say that you do not always have to look towards your superiors and managers to motivate you.  Your colleagues can motivate you also and vice versa.  At the same time, good performance and positive attitudes from team members could very well go a long way in motivating your managers to perform even better.

There are innumerable blogs online that about how to blog. I was just reading through one such blog and amidst all familiar information I came across this interesting little bullet point.

According to the blogger, instigating some sort of controversies on your blog page improves readership. Does it really?

Although the blogger was talking in a very general sense, I think this advice is more suitable for personal blogs than corporate blogs. On corporate blog sites you can’t in any way afford to offend the reader. If you go through corporate blog sites, you find that disagreements are rare. Or more appropriately, as often happens on our site, disagreements are understated. And actually, they are not even very serious disagreements.

A corporate blog site has a purpose that goes beyond the written word. And as much it may work, such a tactic could just as well backfire. You may end up losing readership, because often readers get put off by such things. So is it worth the risk?

I would say one has to be really discerning when deciding to employ such a tactic, and do not use it just for the sake of it. If you have a point that may incite emotions and reactions, go ahead and make it in a way that makes people think.

But when I first read that bit about generating controversies, I imagined a corporate blog site that indulged in talking about all the office politics. Wouldn’t that be some fun?

Happy Diwali!

And as is our tradition here in our office, we were all set to have a Diwali bash this year too. And as usual we were looking for something different to do as our Diwai highlight.  So suggestions were collected and what the majority voted for was a delightful idea about a photo exhibition that shows our city in all its glory during Diwali. 

Of course, most of us, bar a couple, do not know head and tail about photography but what we were looking for really was not technique.  We all know how beautifully the places around us are lit up during Diwali and capturing these images on camera and displaying them seemed an excellent idea.

And as expected we got some spectacular pictures of our city.  In fact a few even made a party out of this and spent a Saturday night out in the city taking pictures. There were suggestions that we should make it a competition but it was finally decided that we didn’t want to do something of that sort this year. Just the exhibition was beautiful and brought together some brilliant images from all across our city right here to our office.

Those who have been around here for sometime have known about our interdepartmental love story. On November 1st Ravi and Manisha had there wedding here in Delhi in great style.  And as weddings go, this one was done in a grand way too but that of course was not enough for us.  To celebrate the wedding of our favorite couple we decided to throw them a surprise party.

Most of us from the content and graphics team got together at the Parikrama Revolving restaurant last Saturday night for a fantastic dinner. With the early winters setting in our city and the after-glow of Diwali lights still glittering, there was no better place to be than high on that rooftop restaurant. 

Needless to say, the bash was a lot of fun and the newly weds had a few words to share with all of us present.  It was really a fun night and I managed to get a few great pictures which I am more than happy to pass on to anyone who wants to take a look.

I’d definitely like to add, two thumbs up for this dear couple.

Last week’s Bay Decoration Day was, indeed, a success.  Every time we come up with such an activity I’ve seen that we really have a blast.  Plus, I think the theme that we had this time added a lot more to the excitement.  We didn’t do anything as such to celebrate Independence Day this year so choosing “60 Years of Independence” as a theme for the Bay Decoration Day was a great idea.

As usual, we had some very interesting and creative decoration ideas.  It was especially great because the whole office was bursting with colors as soon as people started decorating their bays.  I am also impressed by how you are all taking this activity in the right spirit.  There is the right amount of suspense and secrecy to keep the excitement up.  I remember last week I asked someone what their team’s ideas for the decorations were and I was refused an answer.  And that was good because if word had spread about what everyone was doing then I think that would have cut down on the fun.

This time around it was the print design experts’ turn to win the contest.  I don’t think it came as a surprise to anyone because their bay was decorated quite creatively and colorfully.  I should also mention that the web developers also did a great job and we had a tough time choosing between the two teams.

Anyway, once again I would like to congratulate everyone for their input and creativity.  Great job, guys and keep it up!

Of course, there is always a lot of creative action going on around here but I decided to title my blog thus because creativity is something that we hope to see a lot more of during our “Bay Decoration Day”.  After considering the suggestions and seeing the general interest around having a “Bay Decoration Day” again, we decided that we really should put this fun idea into action.

So as you all know we had this week to come up with themes for the day and I thank all of you who gave in some rather innovative ideas.  And I am also really happy to point out that we do get very encouraging responses when activities are being planned out, so keep up the great job! We got great entries from across the company be it the content creation team, web designers or web developers.

Anyway, after some thinking and choosing we decided on the theme for the day.  But before that I would like to mention some of the top choices of themes and we had a hard time settling on one. One that I thought was quite interesting was “East Meets West” and I think we can save this topic for the next time we do something like this again.  Thanks to Archana Kohi for that one.  Another one that was quite interesting was “States of India” which was submitted by Akash Deshpande.

But the theme that we have decided on for the day is “60 Years of Indian Independence”.  The reason for this is that the Activities Committee felt that this one encompasses the qualities of the other themes quite well and what better way than this to celebrate our nation’s great achievements and progress.

We have decided that the “Bay Decoration Day” will be held on the last Friday of the month and since your teams will be made according to your bays, you would already know whom you would be working with. 

So put those heads together for some fresh ideas and get ready for some exciting competition!

This time I am not here for a ‘usual’ blog but for another purpose.  I am sure many of you must have noticed a new face around the office and I would like to take this time to introduce you all to a new member of our team of web developers.  Anjana Sachdev joined here on Monday and has recently moved from Bombay where she used to work a web design company. I will leave the rest of the details for her to fill in.

I feel that having a new member join our team is a big thing.  It is exciting because having been here for as long as I have, I know how closely we have to work with our team members and having someone new to work with is both a challenge and a pleasure.  

This is Anjana’s first week with us and I hope we will all make her feel at home and welcome her as part of our team.  I have been raving to her these past couple of days about how strong our team is and also about how good we are at winning those fun activities!  

So let’s take this chance to welcome the newest member of our team! And let's all encourage her to join our own in-house blog brigade!

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.

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.)

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.

It’s been months since we have had any parties. And it was about time we broke the monotony.

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.

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.

I would say that I quite disagree with those who say that the new trend in content writing is that of quality content writing. In fact I was quite surprised that that was the stance that some content writers took when speaking of their own field of work.  As a writer myself, I have always thought that the quality of the content should be good no matter what.

But I do understand what they mean by “good content”.  The fact is that with content creation the goal is always to give the site owner what he or she wants.  The end product is rarely up to us. This means that the tone and style of writing is hugely affected by what site owners want.  However, there is a section of writers who believe that writers actually have a better idea of how things should be said and if creativity is used then it would attract more customers.  On the other hand, site owners might want to say things right to the point and creativity might be the last thing on their mind.  So the issue is really not about ‘good content’ but the fact that there is a disagreement about what ‘good content’ might be.  I believe these kinds of debates rage on with all kinds of internet marketing professionals. 

I do not know if there is a right and wrong here but this is how I look at it: is your content meeting the need of the website?  Content would be “good content” if it fulfills the purpose.  So good content is not a standard thing; it does not have to be only about keywords and such things.  When writing, I would say, ensure that your writing meets the purpose of the site.  Strike a good balance should perhaps be the new buzz word.

There is never a point when enough is said about communication.  We have always tried to keep communication channels open in our workplace. I was quite happy when we started the suggestion box because I think that is one of the best ways to get feedback and criticism. I really thought that the anonymity factor would bring forth some of the issues and concerns that do not come out in the open otherwise. However, I found out over the past days when we have put out the suggestion box that things are not really working the way we thought it would.  We had got very few suggestions in our box, much to our surprise. 

There really had to be a reason for this lack of response and some of you might have been the ones that I spoke to about this issue. The main response that I got was that employees felt that suggestion boxes usually don’t work.  One employee told me that the suggestion box reminded her of the ones in shops and malls, you fill them out with the knowledge that nothing might be done about them.  Someone else said that they do not even know if the suggestions are being read. 

After taking all these factors into consideration, we have realized that maybe it would be a better idea to have a town hall type of set up. Once a month we will have a town hall meeting where everyone will meet up and is free to voice opinions and feedbacks.  Managers and employees are going to be there together so whatever your feedback is will reach the person right away. 

I am really looking forward to this town hall meeting and hoping that everyone will participate and keep these channels of communication up and running. We are still trying to finalize the finer details of how this is going to work and our first town hall meeting should be coming up soon.