Top 10 Sites for the Marketing Enthusiast

Everybody worth their salt are discussing what's in and what's not. Here is my personal list of  top social websites; tools  that are a must-know, must-visit for every marketing professional. Not in any order of preference.

#1 Twitter: Much has been written and said about the power of a tweet. Everything still falls short of what it can do for a brand. Lurk around even if you don't get too many followers.

#2 Linkedin - I am not yet a part of Linkedin and I have my own personal reason for it. However, it has its share of loyalist who swear by it. See you there shortly.

#3 Pinterest - The latest toy in the market. Keeps your interest

#4 Facebook - Learn to keep your professional and personal prirorites apart and it will work for you.

#5 Plugged.in - A knowledgebase for entrepreneurs and the startup/geeky community, it says. Get to meet the likeminded.

#6 Scrible - Online annotation tool. Every helpful for those aggregating and researching online content.

#7 Storify - Let lose the journalist in you. Neat tool to collate and curate content from other social media sites and present the story in your own way. One can also explore Storyfull.

#8 Mashable; Wired - My mornings are incomplete without paying a customary visit to these sites.

#9 Wordpress; Blogspot - You can like them, write them or even ignore them but you surely cannot abondon them.

#10. Youtube - Would the internet be the same without Youtube? Possibly not.

There are a host of others Ryze, Flickr, Foursquare, Slideshare, Prezi etc. Each with its own unique business proposition and its own set of audience. Check them out and share what works for you.

Cafeteria Musings

My organization offers flexi-timings and work-from-home options. Huge benefits, if you ask me, especially for young mothers. Some days I end up eating lunch alone at the office cafeteria,  Being part of a globally dispersed team does not mean not having colleagues but there are days when none of whom you interact with are around.

Its might be unthinkable for many but I enjoy these occasional periods of solitude. It gives one the time to observe people around you, how each one differs in their dress, mannerisms, how they address one and other, the team dynamics and so on. And at times one inadvertently ends up being privy to amusing conversations, snippets of information that makes your meal-times fun.

There is this team who lunch with their manager who has quite a formidable personality. It is really amusing to see them being led to the dining table and after a quiet lunch walk away almost like school kids. There is one vibrant boisterous attention-grabbing crowd whose lunch sessions are replete with guffaws, jokes and gaiety. Its spring for them throughout the year, I suppose. The food is secondary, they walk-in and immediately own the place.

My favourite is to observe the couple doing the dating dance. One of them usually reserves a chair for the other, they partake even canteen food, generous with offhanded compliments on everything about the other (if the relationship is new) or tease incessantly which makes the other blush and yet they enjoy the attention. The ritual hardly changes even if they are among a crowd of twenty people. Oblivious to the world around them. :)

And then there are the usual girl gangs who love to bitch about everything under the sun. Conversations can start of with the railway budget, movie or UP politics and ends in some kind of rant (personal or professional). This groupie's carry elaborate lunches in multi-colored boxes, take the time to actually warm the food in microwaves and discuss the recipes of the curry. Given a chance they would love to combine the lunch and coffee-time if not for something called the work-break. :)

And lastly there are the perpetual lone wolfs. You can recognize them from a mile. Don't want to generalize but they mostly are the bespectacled-nerds who smile at their smart phones or are busy grasping their tablets mindless of what is in their plate. You can confound and intimidate them by simply asking if the seat next to them is free.

People analytics is more fun than data analytics, I say :)

Later is Now.

Children in their own inexplicable way end up teaching some of life's biggest lessons to us. The other day my son wanted me to play with him, while I was busy on my laptop. His pleas started getting persistent and I tried to shoo him away with different errands. So he got me a cup of water, arranged the cushions on the sofa and piled the day's newspaper and was back to ask me to play with him.

Again he started coaxing: "Mamma, mamma come to play na."
Me busy tapping on the keyboard: "Later, Avyukt"
Avyukt: "Mamma, come now"
Me (a little firmly): "Later. I said later right?"
Defiantly he says: "Later is now, mamma"

Those words struck a chord in me. We do postpone most of the things that we actually want to do to a later time. I will tend to my gardren - later. I will clean the cupboard - later. We'll watch a movie - later. Its never now. I guess we learn to postpone small things that bring us joy in the hope that once the bigger must-do's are done with we will find the time. But those things are never completely done and our small wishes remain just that - wishes.

I closed my laptop and without a word went to play 'train-train' with my son. We pulled the dining chairs in a row and had great fun. He was exhausted and asleep in about 30 minutes. I felt an elation seeing him asleep peacefully. All the laurels, hikes, letters of praise will not equal the simple joy of seeing a smile light up your child's face.