Hey folks,

For the last two months or so, I’ve been trying to help out in organising what is India’s first ever TEDx event.

For starters, lemme explain what TEDx is. I’ll have to start off with TED.

TED is an invitational conference that started in the US in 1984. It is an initiative that promotes ideas that are worth spreading. There are a set of speakers who’re carefully chosen to be some of the best, in terms of their ideas. And then, there is the audience. The members of the audience are also carefully chosen to be the best-in-class. All this is to ensure that ideas translate into conversations that matter and actions that bring about change.

The registration fee for a TED Global Conference is about $6000. Wait, don’t jump yet. Everyone who’s ready to pay the money isn’t eligible! TED picks those that are eligible. There is even a popular argument that TED is too elitist. But I think they can afford to be that elitist or overly-selective in order to ensure amazing quality. You would better understand if you see a TED video. Go down to TED and watch a video now.

Now, apart from TED Global Conferences, there are also TED Conferences held in specific countries. This year it is taking place at the Infosys campus in Mysore. Find out more about TED India, here.

Apart from both the above Conferences, TED has a provision for independent communities to organise TED style talks in their own geographical locations. This is the TEDx. Naturally, TEDx events are not organised by the guys at TED. They’re organised by some independent group of people who’re passionate about bringing TED to their communities and about Ideas that are worth talking about.

Having said all that, let me tell you now that TEDx is coming to Chennai very soon! I’m part of a small team of folks that are keen on bringing TEDx to Chennai. We’ve been working on it for the past 3 months and it’s taken good shape now. So, here’s TEDx Chennai.

TEDx Chennai will take place at the IC&SR Auditorium inside IIT Madras on November 29th 2009 (Sunday). It will be a one-day-event and all the speakers are being hand-picked to ensure a very interesting experience for everyone.

Tickets are running out! So, do hurry to secure yourself a seat!

Yours Skeptically,

Hey folks,

As promised earlier, here’s the post on last Sunday’s meetup.

The original plan was to meetup with Srinath (mainly to catch up with him) but also to cheer up the dude. He’s slogging his ass off at work and we (me and Vinay) couldn’t just leave him at that.

So, Yours Skeptically, just thought he’d plan a surprise party on the beach with a lot of common people and cheer up Srinath in a big way. But, as randomness would have it, Yours Skeptically, screwed up in his own unique way! Also, people like Teal, LVS and a few others opted out at the last minute, due to who-knows-what reasons!

So, the plan came down to me and Vinay meeting Srinath on the beach. Vinay suggested that the local Twitter user group was meeting nearby to celebrate Benedict’s and Nadhiya’s birthdays. Being the shy type, I initially hesitated. But, Vinay ‘compelled’, ‘persistently insisted’ and ‘literally dragged’ me there. Srinath had no issues with coming there, from the beginning.

Again, being the busy dude, Srinath said he would ‘confirm’ the plan by 4 PM. He promptly did so. Yours Skeptically was sleeping when he sent the confirmation SMS. So, had to get up, grab some grub and rush to the ’spot’!

I reached the Spencer’s Daily outlet in Besant Nagar and found Srinath waiting there for me promptly. We walked to the beach talking usual crap

It was nice talking to the fellow in person after a loooooooong time. We caught up on some old times. A few leg pullings et al.

Being the busier dude, Vinay turned up at 6 30 for a meeting scheduled at 5 30 PM. Payan periya aal aaittaan. Navin Iyer ku laam website design pannaraan! paah!

Srinath posing perfectly. Me looking at the scenery. Trick photography!

Then, we had a photo-shoot on the beach. Vinay is still uploading his pics from that session, one pic for every 3-4 days! Sustainable content delivery paradigm aamaa. Mokkai naai!

As we were pulling each others’ legs, Saranyan called up and asked where we were. I had informed him that I’ll be in his area in the evening and invited him sincerely for the Chennai Tweetup. To my luck, he agreed.

Srinath and I walked towards the Murugan Idli Shop on Bessie Beach Road, to meet Saranyan and go down to the Tweetup. Vinay, meanwhile, sped past us on his bike (scootie pep plus pink colour)!

He stopped by for Srinath to hitch a ride upto Mast Kalandhar, where the meetup was taking place. Meanwhile, me and Saranyan were talking about all kinds of stuff ranging from the French Revolution to Robin Williams’ stand-up comedy!

The generous dude, Vinay, dropped Srinath off at Mast Kalandhar and came back to pick up me and Saranyan. And, Saranyan, being the oh-so-accomodative guy, opted to walk. We had to use a few choicest swear words to ‘persuade’ him into getting onto the bike. So, three people on a bike driven by someone like Vinay. Need I say more?!

We landed at Mast Kalandhar about a minute later. Srinath was there with the camera and we took ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ style pics on Vinay’s bike!

Vinay and Saranyan posing perfectly. Me staring at scenery(?!)

Prakash stepped out of the restaurant and greeted us. Nice dude, I must say. Very gentle mannered. Works for Symantec, btw. So, now you know whom to kick if your Norton Antivirus doesn’t work well!

We then walked into the restaurant and spotted 2 tables worth of people (~ 10-12), all pepped up to smash the cake on Benedict’s and Nadhiya’s face! We then introduced ourselves to Aravind Kumar, Raja (I knew him already), Shiv Ranjan, Ratz, Magesh, Benedict and the rest of the gang.

Then, orey the cake cuttings, cake hittings, cake eatings only!

Srinath had to leave early and Vinay went to drop him. Meanwhile, me, Saranyan, Raja and Magesh mixed up our orders and ended up drinking each others’ drinks!

Saranyan and I were waiting for Raja to be done with his drink. Once he was done, we bye’d the gang and left the place. Stomach was making strange sounds. Then, I realised the drink I had was an apetizer! WTF mode.

Came down and spotted Vinay waiting for me and Saranyan across the road. Rushed, got onto his bike and went to AAB for a more economical, more filling dinner. Had a lot of ROTFL moments there, expecially at the billing counter and then while eating.

Once we were done eating, I had to leave with Vinay. We bye’d Saranyan and sped away towards the ‘heart of the city’!

Vinay then took an amazingly complicated route and dropped me in T Nagar. I got hold of a Share Auto from there. Sandhya kept me occupied on the phone during the lonesome Share Auto ride. Pretty surprising to find a Share Auto go empty for a long time around 9 PM in the night on a Sunday THIS close to Diwali. Folks at home were wow. Why? Because I had returned home much earlier than what I had informed prior to leaving. Maybe I should give them more of those wow moments!

Rest later.

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. A totally amazing time we had that day, as may be evident from the tone of the post above.

Hey folks,

I have always been an ardent supporter of technology and an advocate of its inherent positives. But, today, I am going over to the other side to talk about how technology has mechanised the traditions of Indian festivity to a sizeable extent.

I woke up today morning to find my GMail Inbox overflowing with Diwali ‘wishes’ emails. Some of them were personalised and had content known only to myself and the sender. But, by and large, most of them had a generic ‘wish’ and were most probably sent out as a broadcast.

I sat down to think how things used to be (just about) 7-8 years ago! Sending emails was only a means to reach out to expats where the cost of an ISD call was unreasonably high. That is an understandably reasonable use of technology.

Also, speaking ideologically (like Srinath), a wish is a genuine transfer of goodwill from the heart that is converted to a verbal or textual form in order to be able to be communicated across. However, I can still wish Srinath wins in life all the time, without letting him know. Both of us still know that we would support each other irrespective of our own states of existence or any other tangible aspect of life. We have never wished each other for anything in the last 4-5 years. This goes for Arun, LVS, Pavithra, Ash, (the other) Srinath et all too! Sowmiya is a little particular about wishes, though. I still don’t wish her. But again, we know we’re there for each other irrespective of the presence or absence of any tangible aspect of life!

Today, I had to import all my business contacts and send them ‘Diwali greetings’. I did it. For reasons best left untold here.

But ever since I hit that ‘Send’ button, I kinda felt a bit uncomfortable about the lack of personalization and unconditional genuineness in such a wish.

So, here’s the official line. I have now taken a resolution to send out personalised emails to the folks (whose names are) mentioned above and to a select few (who’ve made a difference to my life) other than them.

Why email? Why not a phone call? You may ask. I chose to use the same ‘cold’ and ‘impersonal’ medium to create goodwill in a way that’s similar to a good old phone call. Just to prove one point I’ve always advocated, ‘Technology is only a medium, a tool. How it is used could drastically change the way you or me or the World function(s)’.

What better a way to announce this than a good old blog post?!

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. Please gimme some time, guys! Writing personalized emails back-to-back isn’t an easy task!

Hey folks,

I had written a post yesterday night(or today early morning), after a long time. But, it was too serious and I felt kinda bad. So, here’s a post with all the nice things.

Class is getting less rigorous and more funny now-a-days. Many thanks to Saranyan, Sandhya, Arun, Virus, Poorna, Anand et al for keeping me cheerfully occupied on campus.

I kinda initiated a small process to change the content on my institute’s website. The content was/is pretty old, dry and boring. So, I volunteered and wrote fresh content for the website with a lot more contemporary language. It was a nice process of learning, collaborating with the management and arriving at trade-offs on what words to use where without affecting the freshness of the content. I kinda learnt the difference in thought process between our generation and the previous one. It is VERY visible, mind you!

I also showed them how there was no original ‘controllable’ content with respect to my institute, on Google’s first SERP. I myself felt the approach was a bit rude but it was the best one I could use to convince them to have a strong Social Media presence. I gave the management a plan that was approved provisionally. Haven’t begun work on it yet. Will do, after the mini-vacation. The plan is pretty strong and clear. I’m trying to document the plan into a 6-7 post series for the Electrosocial Blog. Let’s see. Should be done soon.

The first trimester exams came and went. With a lot of fanfare, I must admit. Let’s stop talking about it now, shall we?!

Had a lot of fun meeting Saranyan, Vinay and Srinath over a relaxed Sunday breeze at Bessie Beach. Separate post coming up on that!

Woke up to a wild idea one fine morning and ended up thinking on it all week. It’s grown well into a fine, neat plan now. Roped in LVS and Vinay. We’re now trying to see if we can make it a startup company, our first in life (together and individually). Again, let’s see. Should happen mostly.

TEDxChennai is shaping up VERY well. I’m kinda proud to be one of the active organisers! IIT Madras and RTBI have agreed to co-host the event. So, it’s slated to happen at the IC&SR Auditorium inside IIT Madras on November 29th, 2009. We are now looking into the nitty-gritties of the event. Hopefully, things should fall into place soon. Made some nice friends as a result of this commitment! Raja, Jo, Balajee, Benny and the big man himself, Kiruba!

There was initially a plan to work on a research paper on (a topic in) Branding. I had bootstrapped the idea but had to let go of it temporarily, for reasons best left untold here. During the mini vacation, I had the chance to speak to Milind about it and managed to get a lot of gyaan. Roped in Saranyan, the thalaivar. Will begin preliminary work on it soon. Doesn’t look like it’ll get done in anytime within a year. So, this is one of my longer commitments. But the kind of work involved is really wow. Should keep me motivated to work.

Heard of the NASSCOM Product Conclave 2009 and checked out the details. Sounded wow. Roped in Saranyan and registered sincerely, as Students. Macho discounts, I tell you! And, amazing value. Can’t wait to catch Guy Kawasaki! So, will be out of town on October 27th and 28th 2009. Bengaluru, here we come!

Found some amazing people to connect with, on Twitter. Mostly as a result of me attending the Chennai Tweetup on 11th October at Mast Kalandhar. A few more people from LinkedIn and Facebook.

Raja (the total thalaivar) sent me an invite to Google Wave, a deed for which I’d prolly waive the treat he owes me!

Will write more in another post.

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. Separate posts on (second) college life, Google Wave, nice people I’ve met in the last 3 months, Social Media addiction, the Bessie Beach meetup et al would come up in the next few days!

Hey folks,

It’s been quite a long time since I posted on this blog. Not that I’ve been busy, just didn’t have the inclination to sit down and post. A lot of draft posts lined up but nothing completed. To those of you looking for a cheerful light-hearted post, don’t bother reading further. This isn’t it. On the other hand, if you’d care to know what’s been going on in my life in the last 3 weeks, please read further.

The last 3 months in life have been totally amazing. Not only on the work front but also w.r.t personal life. People who’re close to me would know that I’m a born Leo. Arun would vouch for how short-tempered I used to be whilst in college. Probably, Sathya might vouch for it too.

The day myself and Srinath started Sit, to discuss our personal value and belief systems on a quasi-public platform, we (knowingly or unknowingly) ushered into our lives a movement towards increased tolerance and openness. To many, this might sound like a statement worth ridicule. But to the few who have known either (or both) of us well pre and post Sit, the difference would be quite visible.

To this day, there are people in my circle who laud this openness and there are people who criticise it to the core. The truth is that neither of them is wrong. I chose to go ahead with the openness because somewhere inside me, it felt good to continually keep changing for the better. Irrespective of who or what brought about the change.

About three months ago, I told Srinath I would make the first ever attempt in life to remain a lot more patient. To tolerate a lot more destructive and constructive criticism. To remain calm and react to them with a balanced state of mind. A lot of people were responsible for this little attempt. Namely, Dr Annamalai from Gandhi Study Centre, Milind Jadhav, Srinath himself and finally, my greatest inspiration in life, M K Gandhi.

Randomness has been my best friend and worst enemy, both at the same time. It waited for 22 long years to let the above mentioned piece of wisdom dawn upon me. But, fortunately, it gave me enough chances to test my patience and my conviction towards the word I gave to Srinath.

As my Facebook and Twitter trail would indicate, work-life has had a lot of positive progress. So much so, that a few people who had written me off have bothered to contact me and let me know I’m doing a good job. Nice. But there have also been some really pressurising times when I used to work hours together for no apparent progress to take place.

Those pressurising times made my process of transition towards a calm, balanced self a bit more elusive. Every human being has an emotional high point and every human being makes mistakes. But, fortunately or unfortunately, they had to take place at the same time in my life. This led to a lot of unnecessary complications and a lot of emotional pressure.

I have always kinda had a fear of offending people. As a result, (in recent times) an apology from my side would never be a moment too late, if the mistake is/was on my part. Sometimes, the apologies would get a little too much. People are different. So, there is also a chance that someone would get offended by an excessive apology!

It is a little sad that I’ve been completely ignorant of that fact in life till now! A little incident involving such a person created quite a bit of emotional pressure over 3 weeks of time. Srinath, Teal, Pavithra, Arun and LVS would remember this incident. They usually know everything there is to anything in my life. I didn’t bother telling Vinay, Vinay and SrinathC for (their respective obvious) reasons best left untold here. At best, they would’ve noticed that I wasn’t normal.

I have to kneel down and acknowledge the support that all of them provided to me during this rough patch in life. But for them, I would’ve lost my cool completely, long ago. A special thanks to Saranyan for telling me a few subtle points about my own personality. Some things I had failed to notice even after some introspection.

It was VERY difficult, trust me. But, I’ve kinda made it through the rough patch with as much patience and balance I could muster on my mind. Naturally, due to work life and its pressures, I would’ve had emotional high points and would’ve lost my cool. I felt like a naxal who wanted to return to society and lead a normal life. Society would never accept him initially. But, over a period of time, even Society would change seeing the conviction of the guy towards leading a normal life and towards patiently awaiting forgiving. Though these emotional high points led to a lot of complications, all it took was one single long conversation to set things straight.

The first time I waited patiently for a person in life, it has turned out to be a nice outcome. The first time I tried to consciously maintain the balance of tolerance and self-respect-breach. The first time I stepped forward to admit all my mistakes upfront. The first time I continued to show respect for someone who was totally pissed off with me and kinda ignoring me. This moment in time, as I’m typing this post, I feel a sense of victory I have never ever felt before in life.

Not even when I’ve done my best feats and not even when I’ve won prizes. This seems beyond all that. The sense that I have won trying to do something I never believed I could do, only 3 months ago. It is truly an amazing experience.

Time might fly and people might come and go in my life. This incident will stay as the one that lead my transformation towards greater tolerance, greater patience and a stable balance of emotions.

I just felt like putting this up as a regular blog post. No specific reasons. More of gut feeling.

Will post in the coming weeks about a lot of positive and VERY happy things.

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. I have tried my best to put down the outline of incidents. The granular details need not be dealt with here. There is an alternate space for that.

Hey folks,

I had just gone down to Chittur (in Andhra Pradesh) as a result of family protocol to attend a relative’s house-warming ceremony.

Now, let’s not delve into why it’s called a house-warming ceremony. It was certainly not warm, it was freakin’ hot! What with all the smoke and fumes, in an otherwise scorching hot day!

There were quite a few thoughts that were sparked off on my mind as a result of experiences on these 2 days. Let me now write about the first of the thoughts.

These one-and-a-half days have made me realise what kind of a pathetic handicap I have. It was so difficult passing time without a computer and internet access that I was more eddicted to checking email than what Obama was said to be! Thanks to GPRS, I had access to my mailbox, atleast.

I’m not irritated at having spent a day there as such. It has helped me realise an addiction, so strong and so captivating, that I never knew I had.

This trip (by car from Chennai to Chittur and back) has also made me realise that I’m not as insensitive to the long-car-journey-fatigue as I has estimated myself to be. I slept like a log on Sunday afternoon after reaching the place!

In all, a good learning experience. Will post later. This week looks like mad work!

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. My mid-trimester exams have ended and I have done better than I expected in 6 of the 7 subjects. Economics, however, looks very sad!

Hey folks,

This is my first blog post from college. I’m kinda having fun here. Not started studying, as may be evident from the long gtalk sessions!

It’s been a nice month, this one. I’ve realised that I was more observant than I had ever imagined. I had managed to notice a lot of things that others seemingly missed. Things that relate to most people’s lives for that matter.

Other than that, there has been a lot of progress on the work front. A social media internship for a company called Electrosocial has been the most happening thing for the last 2-3 weeks. I’m kinda liking it a lot. The content is delivered twice a week and packs a lot of insight with relevant links for further reading. I was even asked to post once on their blog and contrary to my guest-post record, the post has come out very well!

You can find it here. About a month of the internship is left and I think it’s only going to be more interesting!

I also got my hands dirty with a small-time market research project for the college involving life insurance. Learnt a lot of things about professionalism and how it doesn’t come with age and 2 years IT work experience for certain people. A lot of networking with some CXOs from the insurance industry as well. Not that I knew enough about insurance to engage them in conversations!

Other than that, I’ve kinda dusted my old stuff a bit and have started working on a small idea I had in the past. I’ve luckily found people to work on it with, this time. So, you can expect a post on that in the future on this blog. It would involve research, more research and even more research. But not the typical geek nerd research! This is more of logical analysis relating to life.

Me and 2 other people here have kinda developed a business idea and would be working on polishing it soon. Hope that works out as well. It’s a nice thing and fits the current market well. There is a funny thingie here! We had actually spent serious time researching for some business ideas and we thought of this one while randomly chit-chatting in class!

I’m going to be involved in organising an event in Chennai in November. Though this is still in the preliminary stages, I’m sure it would pick up momentum in the coming weeks and would be an amazingly fun experience for me.

A couple of conferences, some contests, (hopefully) one research paper, a video for Sit and some work for Mozilla are other stuff in the pipeline.

This post also serves as a reminder for me. I tend to get a little too forgetful and irresponsible if I don’t have my commitments listed in a single place!

As for the post title, I’m kinda experiencing early signs of insomnia. It’s a state I’ve forced onto myself, in a way. I’m hoping to take a week off sometime in end August. Let’s see if that works out!

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. Most of the content on this post was completed in college but the computer guy got mad and drove me off the lab. Apparently, I hear he hates working. Understandable. India still has a lot of scope for change!

Hey folks,

Yes, this is one thing that all of us wish doesn’t happen to us. The loss of a loved one. But given the abundance of randomness in life and the fact that it’s beyond human comprehension and control, one needs to cope with everything and life must just go on.

It is interesting to see a workshop being done on this. Most of us take this ‘coping with’ thing on an ad-hoc basis and don’t really realise the need to be prepared to bounce back into life after such a calamity. I am sure that attending such a workshop would be of immense use, not only when the calamity happens in your own life but when it happens in the life of someone you value a lot. This is more of a chain reaction but it is worth the process. Most of the initiatives I support are slow organic chain-reaction-based initiatives. I wish to see this one in such a way too.

Anyway, I’ve attached a DOC file about the workshop, here. Kindly look into it and see if you can attend the workshop. It’s about a month away, on July 17th and 18th. So, don’t say you weren’t informed well in advance!

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. The mini-workshops organised by Career Cats have been postponed. Will post again when they’re scheduled.

Hey folks,

A recent unpleasant happening in my dad’s extended family has totally shaken my belief system and has pushed me to look at the rest of the World with a lot more compassion and care.

I was thrown awake to the rude fact that the best metric to judge the quality of one’s personality is the number of people who genuinely cry when he is no more. This fact just made me see my own ‘close’ circle in a different way.

So, here it goes. If I have ever hurt your sentiments or have ever imposed my views upon you or have ever been a complete asshole, I unconditionally apologise for the same and assure you that I would put my best effort to see that I change for the better. I would also like to let each one of you know that I am there for you and that I shall help you out in whatever way that is best possible. I assure that I will give you a shoulder to cry on and a hand to pull you up when you’re down.

However, although I don’t expect any tangible return, I would feel better if I could get a little care from your side too. A pat-on-the-back occasionally and a good joke every now and then.

In the upcoming week, I shall personally contact every single soul I value and shall do my bit to make his/her life happier and easier. For others, I’m always there. All you have to do is just ask!

On a more serious note, I request all of you to make it a habit to get a master health checkup done every year on a recurring basis. In the most unlikely of cases, this should cost you around 5k. It is usually lesser than that, I think.

I also request you all to put in some effort and try to avoid procrastinating things. I am doing that from this very moment onwards. I will try hard not to procrastinate in life. For all you know, I might not be there to execute things tomorrow.

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. I hope this post finds you all in good health and a pleasant state of mind.

Hey folks,

I had the opportunity to talk to a self-made entrepreneur who tried his hand at politics during the recent elections, from Chennai. Contrary to public perception, this guy is accessible just on paper. His contact details have been put up in the public domain, yes. But little do people realise that there is a whale of difference between approachability and accessibility!

He is often portrayed as the man who rose to fame from a very humble background. I have no heart to deny that. That is a success story that needs to be documented for future entrepreneurs to read, no doubt. But many people have two sides no?

Behind that ‘next door guy’ image, this man has a far darker side. He is someone who expects to be given paramount importance wherever he goes. He expects limelight, fame, popularity, attention and the ‘wow’ factor wherever he goes!

The man can’t even talk proper English but goes around flaunting his educational background! I am tempted to think that every educational institution, however great it might be, has some amount of error in choosing candidates, about 5 misfit people out of every 100 or so. I guess this guy got into those places because of such an error factor.

A standing example of the fact that appearances are deceptive, this man actually contested in elections and won nearly 16000 votes. I can understand if illiterate folks have no etiquette and a lot of ego, because they ain’t educated, dammit! Srinath (Boss) used to keep telling me years ago that a good proportion of the fellows passing out of the country’s topmost educational institutions add no value to the country but have a very high ego. I realise that now, thoroughly!

I am even prompted to believe that illiterate (or lesser literate) folks would do a better job managing the country’s government than well educated fellows like this entrepreneur!

Of course, I wasn’t supporting him at all during the elections. I even argued with one of my juniors, who was supporting this guy during elections, saying this guy can’t make one hell of a difference. The man has no track record doing any proper societal service, either physical or intellectual! Yet, he shamefully claims that he is going to save the country from greedy politicians! Dude, have you ever done some self-introspection at all in life? Have you atleast heard of the word ‘Self Introspection’ ?

Learning: Never ever ever buy the face value that people depict! Such a value is almost never the real one! Watch out for the real sides of people!

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. It’s such a coincidence that I’ve known a couple more people who passed out from the same institutions as this guy, very well for a long time. They’re such nice people that I’m guessing the error-rate theory I’ve come up with has to be true, indeed!