My CONCERT quotient

Just been from the Woodstock of India. Our Oscar winner a.k.a A.R.Rehman performed with his JAI HO gig, it was a class apart. Around 70,000 people turned up for this show which was for a social cause, just imagine the funds generated (Hopefully, its all in good hands). Around 15,000 car's in the parking lot, so it was like the whole of Chennai was driving in ECR ;-).

My Concert quotient

1. Concerts are best on TV unless you get a free ticket or your buying the costliest one- We got a decent 300 rupee ticket (the costliest being 10,000/- ... only ;-)) and guess what !!...A.R.Rehman was just a moving dot for me from where I was standing ;-), but the projection screen was good enough (no problems).
2. Advertise on Parking lots, Tolls & other stops- I seriously feel, its so damn worth the penny. Where on earth you get to advertise yourself for free to 70,000 people. Just printing around 50,000 booklets for free distribution can do wonders to a business.
3. If you are giving a performance somewhere, you should make an effort to understand the management- lame line, but a guy of that Stature should know how things are organized. The management was good , no doubt, but it could have been better with some good refreshments, parking system & mainly toilets (how can you expect 10 piss pots for some 45,000 penises (no comments for ladies toilet)..lols ;-D)
4. Crowd Positioning- you know its gonna be a big ticket show, Why not surprise the viewers with something they dint anticipate. A little more expenditure on the crowd placement would have really made a difference.
5. Know the exact venue, not where its near to- really, this "near to mahaballipuram" was a total turnoff. We started and our drive was never ending, really I pity the guy who drove us (thanks man). If people knew its 30kms ahead of Mahaballipuram, the crowd would have cut down by half (but, on the other side...its a good tactics to mention the address as "near to so & so place")
6. Song Choice- The concert was in Chennai (no actually it was Pondy ;-)) and people expected him to sing his Tamil hits but everyone got to hear his Hindi hits (Tam guys were blinking for a few). Around 80 percent was Hindi & rest Tamil. Who's the winner? guys like me who enjoy both Tamil & Hindi ;-).
7. It doesn't matter how much ever you dress at home your going to be dead tired after 3hrs of drive. Its better to carry a perfume/deodorant (man!! I missed it ;-P).
8. Want an experience, that's the place 2 be- once a while, do go out and shout like fools, its real fun when you get 70,000 fools to shout the same things as you.

No matter what, I just loved it. Shakti Foundation is doing a great job and I am game for the next concert which is coming up next year. Happy Diwali to all those who read it this far ;-P. Ciao

PS: what a fab office, m getting paid for blogging about the concert I attended. hehe

F.Y.I

Some bullets from a week full of weakness, Nah! If you see it, its just learning all the time. Humans evolve, Funny but true- It takes examples & real life encounters for us to understand some of the very easiest & the obvious things in life.

1. Boomeranged- I was running after a few things for over 2 months now, my run might have transformed to a marathon or a long walk but truly the effort never goes waste & it comes back for sure, you just need to give it a little more time than expected. Now, I find myself being surrounded by it all the time. It reminds me of a wise line "You get what you give to your life"
2. It's good to hide certain facts- People go nuts over issues which they consider as ill mannered or a taboo. Of course, "When in Rome, be a Roman" but sometimes its just oh k to let go of what's uncomfortable to others. Lesson learned: Hide facts which others might not like to listen from your mouth. For instance, telling your boss about you going for a smoke/drink is really not a good idea coz during job hours you might surprise yourself with her change of attitude with you.
3. Just ask man! - Its so true, I tried to implement a principle from a book. It say ASK ASK ASK. I asked for what I wanted to a person and guess what! they have no problems in helping me out. In general, we are afraid to ask a girl out, but why? in the start we don't have her, after asking her out, if we get a "NO", still we don't have her (we don't loose anything, its just from where we started), but what if we get a "YES"...Sigh.
4. Don't get terrorised by expectations- As dull as it sounds, you don't need to be what others expect of you. If people don't like my beard, that's fine with me even if it looks awful...I am not growing it for them. Just ignore comments which gets in your way. You are expected to be what you wanna be.
5. Help people make a choice- If I have my product or my idea which I need to sell to someone, I know there are a lot of others doing the same, So, Instead of telling them what my product is all about, Its better to tell them what they are gonna get out of it. I was car shopping this weekend; I visited Ford, Hyundai, Tata, Honda, Maruti & Chevi dealership; For the price range we were looking for, everyone had a good car for sale. But of all the cars i.e. i10, i20, Chevi Spark, Chevi U-va, Indica Vista or Indigo or Punto...Everything is more or less same for buyers who don't care about what German technology is or what engine efficiency is, right now I'd go for Indica Vista (higher end) which I hated in the beginning...Why? coz he (salesman) helped me make a choice & also explain me on how that car can make my life easier (unfortunately, no funds, so drop the car idea).
6. Easier done than said- just get out of your comfort zone, you will find all that you were missing. Call back a person who you lost in touch with, initiate a thing which you screwed up, face a person who you always wanted to avoid & meet people you hated ;-), try the things which your age group finds childish. You know what? I went out of my comfort zone to experience things which I'd never have experienced. Nobody is evil for long, people change.
7. Money means a lot to the world but not you- again a dull topic but when I was gambling with all senior citizens/oldies last to last week, We were playing "3 carder", One women said "You don't wanna be the richest in the graveyard, So, Why don't you increase the stakes". . Risks are so essential, but make sure you know how much your gonna loose before you make a move coz that's what is know as calculated risks ;-).

That's about it, its not 7 points in 7 days. Its just random and hope to get a lot more things out of what I am doing daily. Do what you love to do not what comes to you or what you can, coz satisfaction is what you want at the end of the day.

OMG its Monday tomorrow, Shit job!!..;-), K then, heading for a concert from an Oscar winning chap.

PR Weds Reporters

PR is a good move for those who'd like a mix of presentations/content writing & a lot more on those lines. No doubt, Reporters are news hungry not coz they love news(may be) but coz its their job, they have deadlines.

Who comes to a reporters rescue? The PR people. They are made for each other coz they both make each other's work simpler, they complement each other in all ways.

HOW?
PR: Gets a client ? Say: xyz company
Reporter: Working under a beat: Small & medium enterprises
PR: Needs to build content for xyz company
Reporter: Ready to build content but is looking for resources
PR: Gives the resources to the reporter, suggesting xyz company as a news maker
Reporter: Gets to it & builds a good story/content about xyz company for publishing (scope of getting some bribe from PR ;-), you know why)
PR: Job's done as they are getting other people to talk about their client
Reporter: Job's done as he gets the story for reporting before his deadline

Happy Ending!!

Other things picked up on the way:

1. Straight jacketed reporting- just go to resource/news makers and write all that is being said
2. Multi jacketed reporting- go to the resource, look into other relatives for getting a wider view and then compile a story (these guys succeed)
3. Magazine & Newspaper- Newspapers break news, actually News channels do it before them; Magazines write research articles on the news which is already talked about, it needs to add a little more information than what the newspaper is giving
4. PR- Public Relations, these guys make other people (i.e. media people) to write about their client, they don't buy column space instead they make clients requirements as news and expose to the people (advertising in a way), it's needless to say that the news is always tweaked to how the clients needs
5. You can copy paste articles from other newspapers/magazines or even Internet but you cant sell it, instead you can make it as a free circulation material and earn with advertising
6. Whatever news is published, if it says wrong about me and in reality, it ain't; then, I can go and raise it on court (that was already known)
7. If you sit and try it out, you can easily find what product (newspaper/mag) sells what i.e. everything is a different product, functioning differently and giving different perspective to news (believe it or not, it's not how things really are, news is to be read not understood coz news might not be facts).

Whatever it takes, it's just too complex to actually carry out a process in any god damn job in this world. Every job has complexities to it coz if it dint then it no longer qualifies to be a job.

Good luck, need a lot more research on PR/Publishing.

PS: Had a 1+ hour meeting with a PR agency CEO (name withheld), truly gyan dispensing

Deccan chronicle- A Visit

Instead of thinking about it, I finally made it in person to the Deccan Chronicle office to see how things function & its needless to say, I only got an overview of newspaper operations (that too a basic overview ;-)). Its really an exiting job for people who like to track particular sectors of news, for instance if I am guy who loves cricket, I can start as a sports (cricket) reporter and die as one (well, I am doing what I love...that's the juice to the job/life).

Everyone working for a newspaper is a reporter, they need to report news which belongs to their beat (that's a term for department/domain as we say in IT). I am not a cut for being a reporter but still the job seems interesting as its exactly what journalists do, I discovered a very silly fact that journalism is not what I like; I am into Publishing and the two are very very different (that's what the editor told me).
Keywords to publishing/journalism- creation of content (from my visit)

• News hungry people- assigned beats
• Following TV, Radio & All the possible newspapers (from English to local languages)
• Deadlines with submission
• From Reporter to Sub Editor to Editor to Chief Editor in Hyderabad (I think so)
• Lots of Facebooking, Twittering, Internet research & of course millions of phone calls
• No job hours, news is made every god damn minute, so, be there when required
• Contacts run the business, reporters need to build a rapport and always be a people person coz they (people) are the once who are making news

PS: Thanks to my mom's contact for giving me a good lead to reach the right people.

PS: It's given me a wider thinking to what my start up can be like and how to fine tune my plans to make it a little less risk prone, so, overall it was a good meet.