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Writer’s block!

I had heard about the writer’s block. Didn’t exactly know what it was. But once I started blogging I could make out. I thought that the block is due to shortage of ideas. One does not know what to write. May be doesn’t have enough in mind to express.

But it is exactly the opposite I guess. Everyday I can think of so many articles to write. But I am not able to do so. Getting time is of course an issue. But more than that it is the block. I just can’t start.

And now, this is seeping into my profession as well. Of late my job involves writing proposals, creating presentations etc. I am facing the same here as well. Someone has rightly said. Well begun is half done!

But there’s one area where this hasn’t impacted me so far. And that is email. I can respond to emails almost instantly, no matter how complicated the response might get. There’s a twist though. Starting an email is tougher than responding to email. Responding is easier as someone has already started.

Nevertheless, starting emails is a lot easier than documents or presentations. Now here’s the secret. I’ve started starting blog posts, proposals, presentations etc. as emails. It is helping me tremendously.

That doesn’t mean you would see lot many posts from me. But this is making my life a hell lot easier.

When I thought through it today, I realized that emails have become more natural to us. Probably this is why the block doesn’t exist there!

Why so stressed?

I am sitting at the Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivagi airport. Although still fresh in the morning, the air around the place I am sitting is filled with stress. Yes, stress.

 

Around me are half a dozen gentlemen, all wearing expensive suits and watches. All of them have a tablet (laptops are so old fashioned). Their luggage strolleys look brand new (as if they purchase one every time they travel).
I walked up to the newspaper stand nearby. There’s The Times of India, some local newspaper and one section which doesn’t have anything. I suppose it had The Economic Times, which all these gentlemen around me have taken up and swallowed. Yes, I can see two of them hiding behind The Economic Times. I think they are competing against each other to grasp everything so that they can stay ‘ahead of the curve’. The other gentlemen are doing something on their tablets, but I don’t think they are focusing enough. They seem to be switching between applications which one usually does. Two of them have also purchased ‘Business Books’. I can see some edition of the Harward Business Review with one of them. Can’t figure out the other one. But there’s an image of a man well dressed like them and pointing his finger somewhere. I think he must be some ‘Leadership Guru’. Ah another friend walks up and takes the last available seat around. And he is carrying the ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ book. But no one seems to be reading those books. Once in a while they flip some pages and move on to their tablets. Do they have scanners in their heads? I don’t know.

 
But they all look very stressed. Now you know whyI said the air is filled with stress. I don’t want to sit here. I decide to find another place. I can see two seats lying vacant. There are some kids sitting around. And they are reading some comics. One of them is playing a game on the PSP. Yes, I want to sit here. A 3-4 year old is reading an illustrated story book. These kids look so happy. I decide to sit down and write this post.

 

Let me stop here. I want take my Kindle out and continue on the Hardy Boys Mystery. Before I sign off, I just hope that 20 years down the line, these kids are not stressed like those gentlemen. I just hope so!

Egypt: We toppled the ruler!

Last couple of days I’ve met at least a dozen people from Egypt. And they all are invariably saying

We have successfully toppled our leader and we are free!

They can’t seem to hide their excitement. They just look so relaxed. It was really nice to witness the excitement of what is going to become one of the historic events of our times.

I am happy that the Pyramids and museums are safe. I was scared of them being damaged before I witness them 😉

Cheers to the Egyptians!

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Amazon may have tamed the cloud but…….

Recently I got an opportunity to attend the Amazon Web Services cloud computing event held in New Delhi. I am not going to blog about the cloud computing stuff and all. However, it is worth mentioning that the lead Amazon has got in the cloud computing race is definitely going to be worth observing. I really like the simplicity they’ve brought-in onto the complicated infrastructure and deployment related issues which enables one to scale their application without bothering much about the underlying details. This is definitely going to stay!

So why was I there?

I was hoping to win the Kindle ;-). I didn’t!

However, there were a lot of interesting observations during the event. The event was attended by almost twice the number of people the venue could accommodate. Amazon decided to distribute complimentary T-Shirts to all the attendees. Boy! did they imagine what this would mean? Definitely not. The moment the T-shirt distribution was announced, all the composure of the audience fizzed off! People started invading the counters from all nook and corner. And we are talking about senior people from reputed organizations. Honestly speaking even I was interested in getting the freebie, however I was quite willing to remain in the queue and wait for my turn. Poor organizing staff at the counters really had a horrible time.

And then there was more to it. Over-sized people getting small T-Shirts and skinny people getting XXL. That was definitely not worth their effort. So people flocked the counter to exchange the T-Shirts. AND then, imagine the T-Shirt stock getting over and those people who didn’t get one. All sort of sweet words were heard all over (yes pun intended!).

Did I talk about the dinner? Two plate counters and hundreds of people trying to eat at the same time? I’ll leave you to imagine this one.

I was wondering Amazon might have tamed the *cloud* but can they tame the *crowd* ?  Hmmmmmm……

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Read this and win a free Reebok wrist watch!

Free Reebok Watch
The Free Reebok Watch!

Yes you read it right! Read this post all along and I will give you a free Reebok watch worth Rs. 2499/ 2599/ 2999.

Almost every other company is offering a free Reebok watch with their products/ services. It has been over a year now, and this has shown no signs of abatement. Interestingly you can get this for free even if you are buying products/ services for as low as Rs. 500 or so.

What’s wrong? What are the companies trying to sell? Their products or are they using Reebok’s brand to push their products? And what’s wrong with Reebok? I would never walk into a Reebok showroom to buy a watch anymore for the simple fact that all of them would  be ‘marked up’ at least 10 times their original worth! Is Reebok sick of selling shoes that it is willing to lend its brand to every damn company which comes to it?

Whatever, it is quite irritating. My cellphone is flooded with such offers.

Not to forget, another one is the ‘United Colors of Benetton’ watch.

I think if I buy stuff carefully, I would easily be collecting a few of those watches every month.

If you’ve read it up to this here, let me know. I wouldn’t mind extending the offer to the readers of my (now sick) blog 😉

Update

hi everyone, thanks for your comments. This post was just meant to express how companies are attracting customers. I of course do not have these many watches to spare! I never expected so many people to comment !!!!!

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