Where will Syria's chemical warfare stop?

What if every Government which feels threatened decides to use chemical weapons against those who oppose it.

This is the simple question that is being discussed now by the nations of the world. France, UK and USA want to take action against Syria for using chemical weapons. If you want a quick update on what is happening take a look at this short video on the current state of affairs by clicking here or by copying and pasting this url - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23863012 to your address bar.

  

Anti-social

Everywhere. Yes everywhere, all I see is social media, sharing, connecting, sharing and more sharing and even more sharing.

What if you don't want to share. Who the hell is sharing every millisecond of their lives anyway? Ahem... yeah ok some people are.

Does it mean that those who don't share are out of sync, not tuned in to what is happening and what will happen. Not really.

Anti-social is fine. Be yourself. And for heaven's sake, stop this bloody incessant screaming, advertising, communicating and subliminally forcing upon all of us. About sharing, sharing and sharing.

PS- I hope you like this post that I have 'shared' :)

A Chinese 300X300 pixels ad that can show more information than any other ad that I have seen.

It is a simple innovation. It was an ad for a Chinese university and I saw it on the Economist website.

Here’s what they did - they put a scroll within the square display ad. The text was larger than the size of the ad so you could scroll and read the entire text using a scroll bar within the ad. Which means that if you want, you can fit in the entire contents of a website in that small square ad… wow!

By the way when I went back to look for it on the Economist website I couldn't find it again. If any of you come across the ad (ugly and inconspicuous but unmissable placement on the right side) please share a link in the comments.

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Is Big Data going to affect creativity in advertising – looks like it!

We creative people already have to contend with Research and now here comes Big Data. Being a creative person, I won’t be able to demystify Big Data for you, but I can give you a rough and ready idea. Big Data is the massive amounts of information gathered from a variety of electronic sources (even video and audio recordings come under the purview of Bid data).

However, it broadly be divided into two chunks - internal information of large organizations consisting of intranets, emails, documents, chat messages, logged data and others, and the other chunk is made up of any kind of chatter about a brand in all social media and sharing websites.

The first chunk from within organizations doesn’t really affect creativity though it might have a big impact on the marketing strategy. The second chunk, however, could.

If you have a campaign running on TV or in newspapers or on the Internet, and there is some bad chatter about it, through Big Data decoding you might get to hear about it very quickly. And you know how easy it is for someone somewhere to get offended by something they have seen somewhere and write about it.

After a short period of time, when you redo the campaign and make it safer, and it still generates negative chatter, then you might hear about it very very quickly.

You can go on fixing it and making it safer etc. etc. but this is just me imagining about a possible scenario. There are already people out there who are doing this all the time, analyzing Big Data and altering the communication according to it.

It can bring out brilliant opportunities, and result in a first mover killer communication, and it can also kill off good creative ideas.

I guess only when the Cloud over Big Data clears will we really know ;)

Why have policemen stopped helping us and started victimising us.

In the recent ghastly and inhuman incident concerning the five year old who was brutally raped, the police tried to shut up the parents of the child by paying them Rs. 2000. They also caused many hours of delay that would have been medically crucial for the little girl who was attacked by the beast. Then one of the senior policemen slapped a woman who was protesting police apathy in the above incident. In the Nirbhaya rape where a young woman was so horribly brutalised that her intestines came out, the police were equally, frighteningly insensitive and scary.

Today, policemen are feared as much as the twisted remorseless criminals they are supposed to keep at bay. Policemen have begun to victimise us. Buy why?

What have we done to them? And why us? Why not reserve that kind of behavior only for criminals?

I hear and read about incidents almost every day of how the police refused to register an FIR, harassed the victim (recently a 10 year old girl who had been raped was locked up in a police station for a few days, because her parents dared to approach that particular police station after their child had been raped), beat up peaceful protesters, asked for money etc. etc.

Policemen are literally turning against helpless common people. However, at the same time if someone is rich or important, they are giving them special preferential treatment.

But why?

Could it be that all of mankind is becoming meaner, harsher and less human with every passing day, or does it have to do with the low wages, insufficient numbers and bad working conditions of the police force? It could even be that dealing day in and day out with criminals and inhuman people have made the policemen inhuman themselves. Could it be that every good thing that policemen try to do just boomerangs, and gets them more and more frustrated? Could politicians be forcing policemen to act against their will, to the point that they just give in completely and become bad people?

It could be all of these reasons, but the important thing is why is it being allowed to happen at all?

If for some reason policemen are becoming more of a menace than a service, then it needs to change.

Can the media start talking about how to change the core of the police force, so that they can be saviors instead of terrorisers?  We can't sit back and blame the police for everything, something has to give. Something needs to be fixed and we need to go and find that something and fix it.

Maybe we can start with the problems that policemen are facing. Let’s bring their problems to the fore and try to solve them. If the police system improves, policemen will be better human beings.

Let’s start with something. Really, we can’t let this happen to us, not in this day and age…

Meditating Paramahansa

Meditating Paramahansa - Black pen on acrylic - 3 ft X 2.5 ft canvas - Jan 2013

Difference between a Build-Great-Brands client and a Save-My-Ass client!

This one is for all the creative folks who are struggling to get some good work out!!

Types of content and what they are about!

Here's another infographic that is quite interesting, and I am sharing. It tell you about the different types of content around and what each kind can do for your brand, and what it takes to create each type and how much effort is needed by your TA to engage with it. Great stuff!

Arjun, Arjunah

ARJUN

ARJUNAH

Where is God asks Ivan

The similarities between Twitter and birding - an Infographic!

See the full size infographic here - http://twitpic.com/ar3q60/full

Marketing is changing drastically, the olde marketing ways are dead, traditional advertising is dead and buried, mass media is going to fade away... WTF?

Let's get one thing clear right away, I am not a marketing expert. I am a person who is keenly interested in advertising and therefore also in marketing.

That said, I can fearlessly begin with this potentially completely flawed post on what is happening with marketing these days.

Let me begin with why I am writing this post. It’s because I have come across way too many pieces of online and offline communication about what this post's headline talks about - Marketing is changing drastically, the olde marketing ways are dead, traditional advertising is dead and buried, mass media is going to fade away.... These messages, posts, articles, videos, comments, tweets… have been crowding my mind without quite forming any kind of tangible picture.

So I thought I should try and get a clear picture in my head (to the extent that is possible) by writing about it.

The basic discussions seems to be about the fact that it is no longer relevant to broadcast your message, now your message has to be discovered and shared.

The reason being that now nearly the entire planet is on the Internet, and nearly everyone is searching the Internet for information, reviews, tweets, posts, Facebook comments and such, to gather information before choosing a particular product or service.

That is absolutely correct. However, back when the Internet wasn’t there, whenever possible we used to ask friends and if we knew one, even experts, before choosing a product or a service. Now, this is happening on a much wider scale and everyone is doing it. Therefore it is a very very important factor to consider when marketing your brand. OK, got it loud and clear!

Now, social media is enabling groups of people to broadcast their message far and wide without spending any money on media - Twitter, Facebook, Google+ et al. 

And it has brought down Governments. 

Wow that’s amazing. However, can a brand do something like that, very doubtful. No brand can have a

Why don't passenger airplanes have giant emergency parachutes built into them?

It doesn't sound impossible, nor will it need new technology. Hey, I have no idea at all about exactly what size and number of parachutes will be needed to keep a passenger aircraft  afloat, but it does seem plausible.

If we take a smaller private jet, I think it can have a built in safety parachute system, for emergencies. And with safety being the most important factor why not manufacture smaller planes with this safety mechanism built into them.

Just a thought that I wanted to share with you all :)

Do put in a comment if you know why it can or cannot happen!

And finally someone was good enough to share some pretty good information on it, thanks 'Anonymous' for the link from Yahoo Answers UK, here it is - http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091130051003AAjSZ5m  

OR click here to go directly to the link!

Bird Checklist for Yamuna Biodiversity Park

The Birds Checklist for Yamuna Biodiversity Park!


Yamuna Biodiversity Park
Jharoda Majra (Near Village Jagatpur)
Wazirabad, Delhi
Tel: +91 11 2761 6569
Email: ybp@biodiversityparks.org

1.                               Alexandrine Parakeet

2.                               Ashy Prinia

3.                               Ashy Wood Swallow

4.                               Asian Koel

5.                               Asian paradise Flycatcher

6.                               Asian Pied Startling

7.                               Bank Myna

8.                               Bar-headed Geese

9.                               Barn Owl

10.                           Barn Swallow

11.                           Baya Weaver

12.                           Bay-backed Shrike

13.                           Black Bittern

14.                           Black Drongo

15.                           Black Ibis

16.                           Black Kite

17.                           Black Redstart

18.                           Black-breasted Weaver

19.                           Black-crowned Night Heron

20.                           Black-headed Gull

21.                           Black-headed Munia

22.                           Blackrumped Flameback Woodpecker

23.                           Black-shouldered Kite

24.                           Black-winged Stilt

25.                           Bluethroat

The Big Bird Day was a surprise, Ranjit Lal was a bigger surprise and the snake capturing was the final surprise!! Birding at Yamuna Biodiversity Park on 5th Feb, 2012.

The plan was to set out from Noida at 7.30 am. We set out at 7.45 am, excellent by any standards. We took just 20 minutes to reach the Yamuna Biodiversity Park (YBP) as there was hardly any traffic. A note for others who go to YBP, when you see the first road sign proclaiming ‘Yamuna Biodiversity Park’ and see a bridge over the ‘nallah’ on your right, leave that one, and move ahead. Within 200-250 meters, you will see another small bridge across the ‘nallah’ and a similar road sign. This is the one you should take, and for that you need to go down the road for some distance and take a U-turn. Then go straight down the bridge and along the straight road till after about 200 meters you see YBP to your left. By the way, the first bridge takes you to the same Jagatpur area but you have to follow a very narrow and bumpy service road along the ‘nallah’ to reach the other bridge and then turn right, therefore better to take the second bridge after the U-turn.

Phew! Direction instructions over, now I can get down to the actual birding experience. Me and an office colleague Koushik had planned this trip for Saturday, but I wasn’t able to make it, so we went the next day, Sunday. When we reached YBP, Dr. A K Singh, with whom I had spoken to the previous evening, was at the gate. The first thing he said was, “Will you wait for the Big Bird Day group?”.

I literally jumped with joy as did my friend, because we had no clue that it was the Big Bird Day (the day every year, when a bird count happens all across Delhi’s main birding areas). Of course we waited, and soon met up with at least 20 birders, and amongst them a well known birder Dr. Oswal.  However, at the helm of things was Dr. Faiyaz A. Khudsar, scientist in-charge of YBP. A very impressive person who quickly handed out bird-lists for YBP and started to mobilise the birding forces. He quickly and efficiently organised everyone into 3 groups. I and Koushik got attached to a group that would go through all the wooded areas, and would have three other birders and a guide from YBP, Mr. Mohan.

The Big Bird Day walk in progress, Mohan is right in front.

As we started to walk, I enthusiastically pointed out an Indian Koel hiding between the branches of a tree, and wondered who the three people with us were. Mohan, a wonderful naturalist and person,  started to spot birds with great expertise, as we began our walk. A short , bespectacled slightly elderly gentleman with us, was making quite amusing remarks about the birds. He described one as wont to do a lot of make-up, especially with the lipstick. We were looking at the red-crested pochard which is found only in the YBP in the Delhi region. As I peered through the binocs I did notice that they looked like they had applied quite a bit of red lipstick.

A Red Crested Pochard, this photo is from the
FlevoBirdwatching site, specifically from this page - 

http://www.birdsnetherlands.nl/uk%20visitors%20amsterdam.htm

At one point, to make some conversation, I asked one of the birders, a tall pepper haired person, if Dr. Oswal the well known birder was in the other group. He said, yes, and then he said, “There’s a famous birder amongst us too…”.

As I wondered who it was, he pointed at the short bespectacled gentleman and said, “That’s Ranjit Lal”.

The great divide, or the shape of things to come in advertising!

I usually don't post graphics or pictures created by others, but I felt that this infographic created by http://www.voltierdigital.com/ is a really useful one for everyone who wishes to remain relevant as a brand in the foreseeable future.

Have a look... and in case you are not able to see the infographic properly go to this mashable post where it is very clearly visible - http://mashable.com/2011/10/30/inbound-outbound-marketing/

10 ways to get the top 25 videos about the 5 best things that the 20 top people use for the 100 best sites about the 5 best things that use the 10 biggest mistakes that get the 10 best results!

When will everyone get tired of the 10 ways, 25 top things, 100 best sites that seem to have taken over the entire Internet, from social media to blogs to whatever, everything is about 10 ways…

The Internet needs a new way to share content and write headlines. Any ideas?

The Vinoculars, what I’ve imagined and dreamed of for years now, are actually here! Yipeeeeee… And now for the price…

Many a times I thought and labored about why a binocular and a digital camera cannot be merged into one awesome birdwatching device. I have searched the internet in vain looking for something that can do this.

Now, it is finally here - the ultra-awesome Sony Video Binoculars or Vinoculars, a dream come true for birdwatchers in all aspects (except the price)!

There are two model DEV 3 and DEV 5, and since for us birdwatchers there is no question that it is the ultimate device, let me get to the price right away. They plan to price them at $1400 (Rs. 64,300) and $2000 (Rs. 91,800) each.

That’s a lot, so let me start telling you about what they can do.

Go on! Click on it for a much bigger image. 

Primarily, they can take 7.1 megapixel still images and 1080 high definition video. Their magnification is 10X optical through Sony G lenses (F1.9 to F3.4) with optical stabilization, and a very useful feature, a pair of backside-illuminated CMOS sensors that help capture good photographs in low-light situations. The 7.1-megapixel still images are captured in 4:3 aspect ratio and they also capture 5.3-megapixel still images in 16:9 aspect ratio.

There is built-in optical steady shot image stabilization and auto focus or manual focus.

Also there is a powerful microphone so that you can record bird song. Man… what a dream device!

The video capture is incredible, in 1080p high-definition recording at 60 frames per second and 24 frames per second. There is also 3-D still and video capture that sounds like an unnecessary extra, it must have gone a long way to increase the price of the Vinoculars!

By the way, the more expensive Vinoculars also have 20X telephoto like magnification through digital zoom, and geo-tagging through a built in GPS receiver (so you can tell others exactly here you were when you saw that rare bird!).

They weight 1200 grams as compared to 850 grams for a typical Olympus 10 X 50 binoculars. That’s just 350 grams heavier than a normal pair of binoculars.

This is all I need... no food no water no nothing, just Vinoculars!

These awesome devices work through two small cameras inside the Vinoculars and the 2-D still and Video happens through one of them, while for the 3-D both camera record.

I want them! I want them now! I am starting to save money right now for the November launch of the Vinoculars…

Birds-ctasy!

A little rain in the night meant that it wasn’t a very bright morning, so it was all very well that our plan got delayed. We were to reach the Ridge near the polo grounds by 7.30 am, but reached only at about 8.45 am.

A little bit of mist was still there in the air, as we turned our car into the first left after the statues of Gandhi Ji and his followers at the end of SP Marg. It was going to be our very first birding jaunt in this part of the Delhi Ridge. Right after the turning there were a few tenements of construction labourers, whom we asked for directions. We were told that the army polo ground was just down the road.

We drove over the rough road, and suddenly came upon a large regal tree, and the polo ground behind it. Oh the joy of discovering a beautiful place which is so near yet so completely hidden from us. The polo ground and the area around it was like a wind-blown hill station, especially on that winter morning. We got out of the car, and were struck by the crispness of the air and the sheer beauty of nature all around.

The tree next to the polo ground

We walked along a motorable road lined by tall trees, with the polo ground on our left and inviting forests to our right. We could hear a variety of birdcalls right away, and there were so many, that we quickened our steps to get into the forested area.

The road leading into the forested ridge

Birds, trees and butterflies at the Yamuna Biodiversity Park! - A Photo Walk.

It was a dreary January 1st 2011, when at about 8 am, we set out for the Yamuna Biodiversity Park. We had only seen the directions on the website of the biodiversity park, and went straight on the ring road after the ITO crossing, looking for a place where the road was split into two by a divider. We found it and took a right turn over a 'nalla', and entered the lane alongside the 'nalla'. This lane was supposed to take us to the biodiversity park, and was also supposed to have a few signboards. There were no signboards, and it took many turns and twists before taking us to the biodiversity park. 

We had taken the wrong turning after the divider. We should have gone on straight on the ring road and taken a right turn after a petrol pump, where there was a signboard of the Yamuna Biodiversity Park.

Not withstanding that, we came to a road that went alongside the Yamuna river. On this road, we saw some pretty interesting areas where birding could be a possibility. Finally after reaching a place called Jagatpur, we reached the biodiversity park.

The time was 8.55 am, and we walked into the gates. We were met by a few grizzled old men sitting around a small bonfire. They told us that we could not enter the park wihtout permission or without the scientist-in-charge being there. However an old man was very helpful, and made a few calls, and on contacting one of the people in charge, he allowed us to go for a small round with one of the men  there.

The man told us that there were many snakes in the park, and in the summers they are often seen on the paths, which is why it was mandatory to go with someone from the park. 

We set out, and the first thing we saw was a signboard about the nursery.

A sign board that captures the basics of the park 

It was a cloudy day, but the park was looking wild and inviting.

The wilderness is taking shape

A very large area and clear walking routes

Thick undergrowth perfect for small mammals and birds

We saw some interesting plants, including cactii.

From cacti to all kinds of exotic flora