With 'Like' to my Dear Friend Facebook

Dear Facebook,

I am feeling a little weird while writing this letter to you, as I could have simply posted on your wall but I rather chose this way to express my gratitude to you for being such a nice friend to me. It’s been quite some time now since we've become friends studying in the same school ''The school for bored & nothing to doers'', you've been the dearest amongst all my friends so far. I've always fell back on you when ever I’ve felt lonely and bored, you've given me your shoulder to rest on and your wall to post on, when ever I needed either of them. In fact since I've met you I don’t think I've spent as much time with all my other friends put together in comparison to the amount of time I've spent with you.

The time spent with you is not dull or boring even for a moment as you provide innumerable ways for me to entertain myself when with you. I hardly used to have a few friends before I met you, but now my friends list keeps growing everyday, I am glad I have more than 300 friends (thanks to you) now and I can get in touch with them as and when I like to, I can also 'like' or comment on what they have to say or do. It’s nice that I get to spend most of my time with my friends while you are around; you always stay back for me. There's something I need to tell you, I think for what I am today in terms of my social life, all the credit goes to you and your networking skills. None of my other friends have had more than 500 friends at any point in their life but you seem to be universes apart from them as you boost the friendship of 500 million people across the globe, also giving me an opportunity to make as many friends as I like to through you.

Your friendship has had such an effect on my life that I even end up spending more time with you than my girlfriend and even most of the time spent with her is when you are around rather than time alone with her. While you are around I can give her all the fake smiley’s which I ideally wouldn't be able to give her while we are together physically or talking on phone, you've made life so better for me my friend. Now I don't even have to buy her expensive stuff every now and then, I can just do that with you through some applications. And you know what, last night I threw a bottle of champagne on her that made her happy and I also got her, her birthday cake with you and we celebrated it with you cos we were miles away and you my friend made this celebration possible that too with me having to spend nothing, absolutely nothing and for a change she did not crib about it. Now my girl friend doesn't get pissed off even if I don't spend too much time being physically present with her, nor does she mind if I am with my other friends, as I am always in touch with her through your mobile version. We are with one another every moment even as I get to enjoy my freedom like before.

One other thing that makes you an out of the league friend is the fact that you are the richest friend I have and I don't believe I will ever be able to make a richer friend than you. And so I request you to be my friend forever and please don't change ever for the worse like our ex classmate Orkut did just after you joined our school and we became friends. Poor fellow couldn't take the pain of seeing all his friends moving away towards you and got an F in the semester exams leading to his restigation from the school due to relative marking system adopted by the school from that year. He used to be a dear friend once up on a time but as time passed he couldn't keep up with us. All the rest of us grew up in age and maturity while he remained as he was, leading to his name being dropped from the school due to lack of performance and a laid back attitude. It’s nice to see that you are not like him, you give your best in everything you do and are always proactive (suggesting friends, adding features and applications) to stay at the top of things.

I overheard someone last week saying that you are worth $50 Billion today; I haven't had rich friends before so I am not sure how to keep you happy but I try my best to remain in your best books, so, I 'like' everything that you post/like, I share everything that you share and I add all the applications that you add, if that counts (all these things I also do to a lot of other friends, to seek attention, if you know what I mean).

Anyways I just had a few requests (points) to make before I close this letter to you, hope you would consider them in your free time.

1. Why don’t you add a ‘dislike’ option for comments and posts? There are a lot of people who do and say dim-witted stuff and they need to know how the rest of us feel!!
2. Isn’t it stupid when someone likes their own status or comment themselves? Why don’t you disable that kind of an option? It will help save a lot of irritation.
3. Like I said I over heard someone saying you are worth $50 billion and I also know that you don’t have a family per say and we your friends are your only family, as we’ve always been there with you and for you. So when and how do you plan to share your fortunes with us? I don’t think we are being greedy, are we? Aren’t we a crucial reason behind your success and popularity? I just happened to calculate and each of us are worth $100 a piece at this moment, my heartfelt thanks in advance, in case you are planning to write us a check some time.
4. Though you are so rich why do you always dress up in just a blue t-shirt(top) and white pyjamas(bottom)? Are you trying to be a simple person like Warren Buffet or something? Why don’t you get yourself something nice to wear? I know you won’t take anything as a gift from us in real.L (not even a template? :D)
5. Last but not the least, why did you choose to share the information of your friends (us) with third parties? Aren’t you supposed to safe guard our privacy and interests? What if your third world (party) friends misuse our private information? We are not happy with this decision of yours my friend, please reconsider the same, we are not interested in your third world friends, it would be a great feat for us even if we can manage a small fraction of your first world friends.

Hope you agree with me on some of the points above, anyways I just wanted to tell you how important a place you have gained in my life and how you are so different from all my other friends, hope you feel the same way about me too. Please write back soon to me and needless to say, don’t forget to post this letter on your wall and ‘Like’ it on mine.

Best Regards,

Loner

Today’s Favorite Line – Don't be content with Average because average is just as close to the bottom as it is to the top.

Today’s Favorite Song – More Than a Friend (Michael Learns to Rock)

Ancestral Bubble - Is Now World's Trouble.

The most awaited event of the year 2011 is obviously neither the next release of Rajnikant nor the IPL (not even the cricket world cup for that matter). The year 2011 will be remembered in the history of humanity for a similar but larger feat than the one in the year 1999. In 1999 the world supposedly witnessed the birth of the 6 billionth living human and in late 2011 we are going to witness the birth of the 7 billionth living human (in fact certain agencies are coming up with precise date and time and one lucky person would be given the honor of being the 7 billionth!!). The planet earth is having to bear the load of 7 billion creatures with 5 senses or more and all the nuisance they come up with day in and day out. We have environmental issues, climate change, inflation, poverty, unemployment, greed, ego, racism and a hundred other issues to be taken care of, and as the worlds population increases these problems are only going to increase manifold.

Could we have avoided this situation through some precautionary measures some time in the history of humanity? I guess the answer is yes, if our ancestors would have been rational and practical mainly. If we have such a huge population base today it’s our ancestors who are to be blamed. You must be wondering why am I so anti ancestral?

 Just try and understand the following argument to realize what led to what and why we are in such an awful situation today. Most of our forefathers and the generations that followed have had 5+ children (There are a lot of them I know of who can form a cricket team) and those children have had their own families and then their children their own families and so on. The family tree kept growing, so did the population, without realizing the fact that their actions will lead to serious issues for the generations to come and it would in fact become a threat to their own family members of the future generation.

Now lets just say that our fore fathers were rational and conservative and had control over their actions by limiting the number of children to 2 or 3, at least 40%(a random guesstimate) of the population that the world has been a host to whether living or dead today might have never been there leading to layers of generations later on. And the number 7 billion that we are talking about today would have been a distant dream. All the troubles that we have to go through today would either have been non existent or we would not have been a part of the human species to witness the same. 

Now that we are talking about restraint and family planning, if some of these things would have been put into the heads of our ancestors, may be the world would have been a far better place to live in today.

The question to which I don't seem to discover an answer while thinking about the whole population explosion thing is the rational or logic behind our ancestors wanting to have too many children, what joy did they get? Most of them were neither well off, nor had sufficient resources to take care of their children and their well being. Then why did they have to burden themselves with more people to take care of leading to more expenses and worries there of? As a result of actions of these ancestors that we are talking about a lot of their children remained uneducated, were subjected to child labor, made multiple sacrifices every now and then, always lived for a share in the pie and in some cases lacked proper care and upbringing leading to not so happy lives (this is strictly my assumption, though if this question is raised to any of the elder generations the answer would be totally opposite). 

Did our forefathers not see the population explosion coming up? Were they so well to do that they assumed their earnings would serve the generations to come? I think the answer to the second question is an affirmative No, while to the first one it might be a no or a may be as our forefathers themselves faced lack of resources, so from where did they get a ray of hope that the situation might improve? I guess if they had a chance to go back in time and rewrite their life's story, it would be a completely different tale and state of affairs all together. Anyways now that our futures are in jeopardize, at least may their souls rest in peace. And the ones who are still breathing – "You Two, Ours One"  is the way forward (as the Chennai auto’s convey) i guess.

P.S. – The trigger for this write up was this article on TOI a few days back. The family trees above were made by the author for the purpose of illustration. Only four generations have been shown in the illustration as the author feels a maximum of four generations may only see the light of the day in a century and its sufficient to consider a century in the context being discussed.

Today's Favorite Line - "Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today's Favorite Song - What about now (West Life)

The Gods Must Be Crazy

If you were a conscious middle class consumer or if you have attended a marketing course, you would have realized that we in India have more car brands than say tooth paste brands, though the fact is that there are more people in the country who must be using a tooth paste than the number of people who buy/ travel in a car. Now if this fact has come to you as a surprise, then you'll be astonished to realize the fact that we in India have far more number of GOD brands than any other product or commodity brands and obviously so because the customer base is huge, in fact the largest in this category.

Just start counting the number of gods small or big you pray to, on an average on any given day. I won't be surprised even if you come up with a number that's greater than a dozen. The product god is the most carefully studied, researched and delivered product, or is it? The number of brands of this product must be running in hundreds and in fact certain brands have their own extensions and sub categories. Still there is hardly any cannibalization, actually there is no fear of cannibalization as multiple units/ brands can be used at any point in time, so margins might not really get affected much unless and until there is a huge let down by a brand. And in fact every now and then a lot of new brands are being launched in some part of the country or other. Some reach the masses quickly; others take a little time while certain others prefer to remain in their own territory. Starting a new brand is quite easy as no mega budget is required, just a 2 by 2 feet space and a trick or two would do to get started with. Expansions can be taken care of later as per market conditions and demand, and a large land shall be acquired to open a super center just like Wal-Mart does.

A lot of marketing and business gurus must have been boasting about their discovery of the concepts of segmentation and product family and so on, but they have failed to realize that the gods had (I know that the product god is a man made one, still I would like to stick to god being his own creator in this context) already very consciously done their human study and home work. They had already categorized each one amongst themselves as per their advanced market study, for instance they gave Goddess Lakshmi the money market, and Goddess Saraswati the education industry, lord ram the general welfare and so on. If someone really wants to understand and study supply chain management and channel management, they should take this product as a case study. In India there's no other product which enjoys such kind of a reach, they have multiple centers in every street, in fact they are connected from door to door in every home that too without using social media or a 3G network, not even a discount sale ever! Just some freebies on a regular basis do the trick. Their treasury is the wealthiest one in the world, be it recession or inflation they are always secure, they have hedged all their risk and have no down side loss, they have most prompt payment rate as well, their repayment rate is even higher than that of Grameen Bank.

They get paid in billions on a daily basis for the one and only service rendered by them - HOPE. Quite a price to pay for that four lettered service I guess. We are glad to see the product doing so well, as it can be used for various fund raising and research activities. In fact when the whole world is out of business and unemployed, that's when their demand is at its all time high and the bank balance of all these brands touch new highs. And yet god doesn't give a discount during inflationary periods even after earning extra ordinary returns during other times. I guess like all other products even god is always looking at maximizing their EBITDA and PAT.

Product design and Packaging are key elements of any product or brands success apart from its functionality and other attributes. The product ‘God’ has been designed and packed in a really innovative way across brands that each one stands out for its own specific design. For instance Lord Ganesha has been given a designer nose where as Lord Hanumans mouth does the trick for him. In fact most of these gods have various add ons or applications built in with them in terms of a creature or an instrument, like Lord Krishna has his Chakra that he can spin around as and when he likes, while Jesus has been given a designer cross to rest his back on in a stylish way, and certain goddesses have been given the liberty to use animals as their couch. Each of them have their own customized dress code and accessories specially designed using finest material available. I am just wondering, if they had annual awards ceremony, who would they honor in different categories and who would be in the jury?

The gods must have had a real eureka moment when they thought about entering the human market to provide their services, how would they have known this industry would flourish as much as it is doing in India today? They are a big failure in China, as 90% of the Chinese don't have a religion. The gods must have really gotten crazy while trying to create the blue ocean strategy for the world’s second most populous country and you bet, they have been doing a great job so far, it’s the wealthiest industry in the world today and hopefully will remain so for a long long time. Amen

P.S. - Obviously the title has been inspired by the movie. I do look at the concept of God more firmly as a product than anything else, so most of the things that have been said above are a result of the thought process thereof. Anyways disclaimers are inevitable as usual; this piece was written in a completely fun mood and was to just look at things on a lighter note rather than to make a statement or mockery of these highly followed brands. Hope you understood and enjoyed the attempt at subtle humor. Last but not the least, the names that have been taken were incidental and not deliberate to put some brands above or below some other brands,

Today's Favorite Line - "Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly." - Dr. Robert Schuller

Today's Favorite Song -   Aye Khuda (Paatshaala)