A Song to Remember

As a music enthusiast I like to carry my entire playlist with me every time. Commuting to office is often crowded, so hardly get a chance to read. But accompanying music is convenient, with two small earphones plugged in playing my favorite tracks. As the playlist sifts through one song after another, it lands up on a track which rings a bell in my mind. It may or may not be your most favorite track but your mind locates how did this track end up in your playlist. You remember the person who passed it to you by bluetooth transfer or usb drive or a cd/dvd maybe. So here goes a few songs which flash in my mind the person who gave it to me.  

Thanks to Viraj I could experience the phenomenon of Pink Floyd. It's the most different kind of music I have heard till date, not to mention the fantastic lyrics as well. "Wish you were here" and "Time" are great in lyrics and "Shine on you crazy diamond" stands apart in music. I became more fond of Rafi sahaab than I already was because of Pushkar. He gave me quite a few songs by Rafi sahaab but I distinctly remember the track, "Apni toh har aah ek toofan hai". Tushar had set up this track as his caller tune during our 2nd year MET days and I felt so relieved listening to it every single time. It was Annie's song by John Denver, a.k.a. "You fill up my senses". I also got the romantic instrumental "Havana Sunset" by Govi from him. And how can I forget "Ghita" by child artist Cleopatra Stratan passed on to me by Chirantan during summer internship at Tata Chemicals.

Abirami gave me a few songs of which "Cry" by Rihanna and "Gumm summ gumm" from the movie Paa I vividly recollect. Shweta, an ex-colleague, had given me "When you say nothing at all" by Alison Krauss, before which I always thought that the same track sung by Ronan Keating in the movie Notting Hill was the original number. Pratik Khot and Pratik Sabnis have shared some great Aatif Aslam tracks with me of which "Aadat", "Woh Lamhe", "Ehsaas", "Jal Pari", "Tere Bin" are all my favorites. Ameya passed on some memorable marathi tracks from one of Sandeep - Salil album like "Ayushavar bolu kahi" and "Gadi sutli".

I feel remembering someone with a song as reference is perhaps a good kind of memory. Every song in a person's playlist is there because he or she likes it in some or the other way. There are songs which are mood specific and songs for all moods. But when some of these remind you of someone, they generally end up bringing up a beam on your face. I hope some geek mind takes a cue from this and builds up a Facebook app around this. It certainly is a good way of remembering people and being connected with them.

 

Why (not) so Social?

As promised on my Facebook profile, I am back with a blog post about an experiment which I did a few days back. I shall call it a social experiment as I did it on my social media profile. A few days back I got this crazy idea of testing the reaction to a change in my relationship status. It had been a while since I had posted any update which received substantial likes and comments. Besides, I had been reading and hearing a lot about the coming of Social media and how it has started affecting us and so on. It was fodder enough to just go ahead with the idea.

Since I set up my Fb profile, my relationship status had been 'Single'. Few days back, I changed it to 'It's Complicated'. I wanted to know what happens. Who takes notice of it, what would be a general reaction by those who do, who would call me up to discuss it and so on. Statistics people would understand this, that I had an idea of the outcome of this initial hypothesis even though I did not draft it down. To put in simple words, I kind of had an idea who would be the people who would take notice. But, surprisingly, the hypothesis was wrong. As an after thought, it ain't a surprise that it was wrong.

So the results of this experiment are as follows. Very few people 'liked' the status change but hardly any one commented. However, none of them were people I expected. Two of my friends, who I thought are not so frequent on Fb, happen to call me asking details about it. One of them had not been in touch for a while, so it was a good point for him to catch up with me. Another friend called me shortly after the update to know more. When I told her it was fake she did not accept it, took a while to convince her. Another friend, who's a colleague, did not 'like' or 'comment' but did ask me about it. 

Stage 2 of that experiment was to switch back status to 'Single'. For this update, comments were more than likes. One of the comments was about me being confused, by an acquaintance I barely know. My sis, who had noticed my status change, did not comment until I declared all this being an experiment.

Conclusion from all this is that man being a social animal since the very beginning, has always been curious about what's happening around. People around you are more often up to date with anything substantial which happens in your life (Just observe how many people like and/or comment when one of your friends updates relationship status to 'Married'). People just love to be updated about you; they may or may not speak to you about it but they would always like to know. And there has been no other platform like Facebook which has made all this so simple for us.

From the entire gamut of Social media platforms, I would separate out Facebook and keep all others aside, simply because of the impact it has on us. You can be in touch with people you are interested in, get a grasp of a person looking at their profile, check out vacation and wedding pics of your friends, and their friends. With the fairly new ticker addition, at the top right, you get a real time update on what's happening with people in your friend list. You can express your views, let out your feelings there, to get attention and sympathy, taunt someone in particular (I have heard about some couples fighting over something like, "Magar tune Facebook pe woh post kyun dala!").

Facebook is also excellent at generating influence. You see an ad on the right side talking about a funky tshirt, with a caption saying Mr. X liked it. Now this Mr. X happens to be a person of interest, or of good regard for you. So you go ahead, click on that link, check out the funky tshirts on offer, and may well go on to purchase a few.

Facebook has already acquired much attention of marketers and becomes a bigger rival to Google each passing day. Demographic targeting is perhaps it's biggest USP. In Google Search advertising, Google cannot show any ads until a user types a search query. The initiator is the user. However, in Facebook, if a user's profile matches the targeted set of customer, that guy will start seeing ads right away. The ad format of Facebook is touch better than Google text ads. A good graphic element is eye catchy and the follow text does the remaining task. Add to that the average time spent on Facebook compared to Google Search; it is much higher thus gives marketers more time to get a conversion! (sale, form fill up, or just user noticing something).  Mr. Zuckerberg certainly has a winner in his hands, isn't it? No wonder Facebook has done so well at the Wall Street, becoming the biggest Technology IPO in history.

I remember a friend calling me to ask about this experiment. I told her the truth and then she came up with a crazier idea. She asked me to update the status from 'It's Complicated' to 'In a Relationship' before coming back to 'Single'. That would have been more devilish I guess, but it wasn't required. All I can pass on from doing all this is that people in your friend list are more or less aware about you and you can do such things to grab their eyeballs from time to time, something like below. It has to be creative though, and never repetitive :)

 

In pursuit of next inning

Logicserve Family

After 2 years and 8 months of a wonderful professional stint at Logicserve (LS) I am now moving to Komli, albeit with nervousness and excitement. Good time passes swiftly, a cliche which does hold true. My time at LS was nothing less than a great experience. Today on my last day, I can't stop expressing my gratitude and feelings for LS, the people and the learning I have gained here. The journey has been full of highs and lows creating memories for my lifetime. 

I came across LS thanks to my batch mate Prajakta Mahajan. She happens to be a relative to our CEO Prasad Shejale who through her reference came to MET for campus placements. It was recession time and I wasn't getting through anywhere so applied for this opening with high hopes, with no clue about the business of LS and profile on offer. I was shortlisted, called for an interview at Mahape office. I didn't know such a place existed close to Mumbai. Prasad sir conducted my interview and I felt it did not go that well. So, when our then VP - Sales and Marketing Anshuman Misra called me asking, "When can you join Rohan?" I was totally flabbergasted. It was a difficult time for me from both personal and professional perspective so getting through was so much relief. I took the offer without any hesitation and joined on 3rd August 2009.

Pushkar, Me and Pratik during initial LS days

I was allocated to Broadplace PPC team which managed PPC campaigns for UK based clients. Sheetal Patil was my team lead and I had heard about her being very strict and a tyrant. I was a good lad I guess, coz she did not bother me much. I learned as much as I can and got to work on live accounts soon, still unaware as to what was I actually doing. 2 months into the job I was fed up of not knowing the exact nature of work and feedback from superiors. I decided to speak to Anshuman sir about it. We did speak, and he said, "Feedback will find a way to you, so never ask for it". Pratik and Pushkar also joined LS at around that time and I had actually started learning since then. 

Offsite at Palas Resort - 2009

Pratik introduced me to the business of LS - Digital marketing and I realized how cool it was. Since then, it was never looking back. I knew I was in the right vertical and made up my mind to make up my career in it. This renewed interest probably showed up in my work and thus I was nominated for Best Emerging Employee award, which I won, having spent just over 3 months in LS. Pratik, Pushkar and I used to discuss about our accounts, what new we learned and tried, which news and companies to follow and so on. Very soon we found our way in apt sub-departments. By February 2010 I was offered the profile of Team Lead which was a pleasant surprise. Our then COO Hemant Manglani and George sir were responsible for this.

My SEM team at LS with James

Diwali celebrations at LS

I took over a team of 6 and by the time I moved on to other department, our team was 12 member strong with a good mix of SEM Specialists and Executives. Together we managed high number of accounts and moved ahead from strength to strength. The tussle between Comms team and our team was again a good learning experience, as eventually we understood their side of story and so did they. Weekly review meetings with Anshuman sir and Prasad sir were the best reason to be in constant touch with senior management to discuss matters of concern, progress and more learning. It was a great sense of achievement when our team crossed the milestone of managing over 50K GBP worth fees every month.  

Offsite at Zoia resort - 2010

After spending close to 2 years in SEM department I was feeling a bit bored because of the routine. I wanted something new to do, to learn. During our offisite I became aware about the plans of Web Properties team headed by Vikram Chande for 2011. I was genuinely interested to be a part of it and I approached Anshuman sir who was by then Senior VP - Operations and Sales. He was happy about my decision but asked to create a resource to replace myself before heading to Web Properties. I had a good successor in Cyrus, so I could switch very soon. And thus I joined the best team at LS in 2011 - Web Properties.

Chilling out at Dapoli with Web Properties team

It was a lonely period when I joined Web Properties. Pratik and Pushkar, my best buddies, had recently left their LS jobs. Thanks to Sushant, I did not feel lonely for long. I was accepted as a part of the team very soon. Web Properties was the best department to learn and execute ideas. Interaction with Vikram and Prasad sir was so damm interesting that I was sure I was doing something really happening. Here again the team grew from just 3 to 11 when I decided to hang my boots in LS. I am proud to be a part of this team which is so very close to me. Our entire pack is full of interesting lads who are good at work as well. More than that, the kind of fun we all do is most amazing. The best part though is other departments envy us, which is so damm exciting!

25th Birthday celebrated at LS

Personally I achieved a lot in LS, right from iPod touch, mobile phones, microwave to buying my first car and 1 BHK flat. I have met some people who are friends for a lifetime, like Abirami, Rewati, Sushant, Ajeet, Pooja, Sandeep Dhar and a few more. This is apart from all the learning and industry experience which I've gained. Knowing and working closely with people like Prasad sir, Rohit sir, Ajay, Anshuman sir, Vikram, George sir, Sam, Vidya and Ashish has been superb. I can't neatly express my gratitude to LS for all this. I turned 25 here in LS and it was the best birthday for me in a long time.

Everything except my exit from LS has been the best. I expected my exit to be better than it was. I have no regrets though, as I understand the circumstances in which that decision was taken. As a professional venture, LS was my first love and thus it will always be special to me. The decision to leave LS was not an easy one but I knew time had come. Just want to appreciate everyone's effort in making my experience at LS worthwhile. And I sincerely express the fact that I have not done anything which could harm LS in any way from rivals. All ideas and secrets are safe with me, so please do not worry. I expected a bit of trust though from LS about it, but as I said, no regrets! I will always be among those who are eagerly awaiting continued success for LS and in all probabilities I would love to have a second innings at LS for a much broader role in future. In order to shape up my Digital marketing career I am moving into Komli to learn new things and work in newer markets. It would be great to utilize all the knowledge I gain over the period for LS. For now though, I am moving on to my next innings. I hope it is atleast as successful as my first innings. I am sure of your best wishes for the same :) Thank you all my LS family, will miss you!

Celebrating Facebook success of Couponraja

Paradox is the way of life

Consistency in academics was a prime concern for my father in my school days. He used to be really upset with me if I scored lower than my previous test results, even if the difference was minor. My cousin, who was also my tuition teacher, made sure my father is aware if I am not focusing enough on studies and when complaints were constant, my dad used to beat the shit out of me. Once I got my test results in which I performed poor than my previous test. My cousin told me that she informed my dad and he was very angry. She said, "Be prepared. Somebody gonna get a hurt real bad!" That scared the hell out of me.

My dad being a Police man, his beating was rough and painful. All the while in the bus commute back home, I was getting petrified of getting hurt, and go school the next day with swollen face and bruised back. With heavy steps I reached the entrance of my building and suddenly all my fear was gone! I wasn't scared to face my dad's beating any more. I was totally prepared for it. But (And) my dad did not beat me up that day!

Now switch back to recent time. I was trying to get into a company since second half of 2011. But for some reason I was not even being considered for the job on offer, even with relevant experience and skill set. After almost 6 months of trying hard to just get an interview call nothing was happening; I gave up. I thought it was not meant to happen. Just a few days later I got that interview call, in February this year. I was asked to work on an assignment as well. I did all that but really had no hopes at all. But (And) I got that job in April this year!

My new employer wanted me to join within a month. That wasn't possible as official notice period at my ex employer was 2 months. I negotiated my notice period with my new employer, to join in 45 days. But I didn't imagine being relieved in this much time, because of handovers and transfer of responsibilities. I expected my ex employer to make me serve entire 2 months just to trouble me or get more time to try and retain me. But (And) when I approached my super boss regarding resignation I was relieved from my duties on the same day!

You get late to office at times and try to hurry up. There's chaos on display with you missing out on few things on the way. Sometimes you just give up the idea of reaching in time. But (And) those are the times when you somehow manage to reach on time without getting late remark! Is this a common observation for you? Am I over analyzing these random experiences?

Maybe God's act is at play in such cases. Some wise-guy once told me, "Never give up, you just might win! ". But when you really give up maybe God works out his magic. When you are actually prepared for the worst, just then it doesn't happen! This may not apply always but I believe it will apply for everything in our destiny. But (And) we can't fake it, I think. You really need to be prepared to loose out on it if you want it to happen; quite a paradox, isn't it? I hope I have unraveled this mystery of life correctly, and if so, I know now to be prepared for the worst for the best to happen!