My way with Face-book

 

This is perhaps a bit late in the day to be penning a page about ‘Face-book’, around the time that this medium is already towards the latter part of its life cycle when people have moved on to other avenues of excitement, blogging has become passé, tweeting a thing one did in your teens, and the people left on FB now are there more by habit.

 

One feature of FB, which I am sure has already been discussed threadbare, is the ‘Like’ feature. Man is been born with a thousand emotions, but the creators of the site chose to remain with the ‘Like’ feature.  No matter what you see on the home page, you are left with only two choices, either  to ‘Like’ the post or remain a silent observer. Rather primitive way of making people interact, if i may say so.

 

Well let me elaborate, a trip to Timbuktu, hubby in his pyjamas, child on to its monkey pranks, or the pet with its wild behaviour all manage to get a ‘Like’. Your rivals at work, manage to get a promotion, you don’t have option but to give them a ‘Like’, especially if the whole team at work has already wished him on his success, the neighbours have gone on their fourth vacation in as many months, and you are livid with envy, but do you have any options.

 

FB may be a Fortune 500 company, having  been started only for Harvard Graduates, but now when it caters to every one who can click a button, should it not be helping people express themselves better. I still wonder how many marks the behavioural scientists would give to this site. Have they studied this strange facet of human behaviour of making do with a single mode of acknowledgement of events in others life, giving or deciding not to give a ‘Like’!. What do experts in the art of communications have to say on this.

 

That is where, yours truly, comes on the scene with a whole lot of ideas to transform FB. Mother-in-law, planning to visit you, she announces on FB, wish people could notice that you clicked ‘like’ on your mouse so harshly that, had it been a more interactive software, it would have burned a hole in the web page. Imagine being able to burn a hole in the web page.  Well thats not a bad idea is it, what do u  say ?. The  ‘Hole’ would come with a acknowledgement saying “ MR.ABC burnt a hole in the status”. Of course you could still retain the option of selecting who all could see that hole.  Now do you realise how drab FB really is ?. I am still trying to imagine more opportunities here.  

 

Boss got a recognition for a work that you did, while he was away on that ignominious trip with his cute executive assistant, burn it down, but of course make sure that only the right people are able to see it, else it could burn a hole in your CV. The cousin that you have been competing with since you were five year old, marries the richest old man in the city, and you read about them leaving for their honeymoon in their private jet, matchbox here I come,  neighbour posing with the latest ‘Audi’ they had acquired, so what if they all open the doors at each traffic signal to vomit out tobacco spittle,  burn it down, i mean the web page not the Audi of course.

 

That was about extreme hatred, but you still could want to react with a negative emotion. Like slap, kick, punch, bite, someone whom you cannot stand.  So go ahead, had I been an advisor to FB, I would have made sure that there were buttons for each of these reactions.

 

Now don’t get ideas about how negative and sceptical I am. Who said I would not be arranging for buttons for kiss, love, empathise, fondle (OMG),  being on the subject why not a OMG button, when a friend fails an exam, you could click  OMG, or even when your ex post a photograph in which she has put on five kilos. Better still, we could have a customised button, which lets you express your feelings better, like in the above example you could say, ‘Join sliming classes’

 Mark  Zuckerberg are you listening ?

The shark tale

 

A Tale : Put a shark in your tank

 

The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever. The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. 

If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish were not fresh. The Japanese did not like the taste. To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish.

 The frozen fish brought a lower price. So fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin. After a little thrashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive. Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference.

Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste. The Japanese preferred the lively taste of fresh fish, not sluggish fish. So how did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem? How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan?

To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies put the fish in the tanks. But now they add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state. The fish are challenged so they remain active in the water, and yet fresh when delivered at the ports.

Gyan Guru’s learnings

Well like the disclaimer I had already put in, I am no management guru, so hardly can comment on the various learning’s that come out of the above story, like, as to how in a group, something like a shark, keeps a group on their toes, &  helps in pushing their performance a few notch etc. Can’t help remembering the similarity with the case of the Egyptian slaves being whipped during the construction of the pyramids. Its sad that we acknowledge the fact that men cant perform unless whipped.  A far fetched conclusion but a sad one nevertheless.

Here’s my twist to the story : The fishing companies are thrilled by the results that the shark provide, and are making good profits.  In a one-up-manship, one of the fishing companies in order to achieve their aggressive budget targets, try to add one more shark to the pool to keep the fishes more charged up. Over a period the shark counts increases ( you see the fishing companies also added some female sharks to the tank).  The sharks have a whale of a time (oops pun unintended). They eat more and more fishes,  the production reduces,  eventually the sharks become quite rounded. They keep barking at the poor fishes, and swallow as many as they can.  The fishing companies are now in despair. They are unable to manage the cost of maintaining the sharks,   So one fine day, one of the fishing company lets call the company ‘’Shark-o-soft’ decides to kill the sharks. Killing sharks is illegal, so Shark-o-soft decides to take them to the shores of a developing company and kill them there because of lax regulations. Having killed them  don’t know what to do with the shark meat.  They decide to trying to sell it at cheap prices in the local market. This desperate measure to save themselves hits the jackpot, as the shark meat becomes a rage in the market, soon it starts getting exported to countries already starving of hunger,  the management is  thrilled in having discovered a new business opportunity. There is sudden demand for shark meat, and the stock prices of Shark-o-soft hit the roof. So here are the learning’s-

·         Innovate Innovate & Innovate

·         One shark  fires up the team

·         Too many sharks add to cost and only erode the bottom-line

·         If necessary sacrifice the sharks and make a business out of them

·         Those who create new lifestyle habits can make a pile of gold for ex. Apple did with Iphones

So if you are a fish don’t worry, there will soon come a time when the fishing company will tire of the sharks, and you will be free once more.

These were thoughts that came to my mind, but I dismissed all of that as products of my sceptical mind. You see the management books cant be wrong and I was never good at management studies, no wonder I am still at the bottom of the pyramid.

 There are other thoughts which struck me, I had to brush them aside. You see I had no explanation for them for example,

·         Why did the Japanese not take to our Indian Dal Makni and pudina parantha, why did they insist on fresh fish ?

·         If their shores were always devoid of fresh fish, how did they get into this habit of eating only fresh fish in the first place ? Why were they so finicky.

·         Did they have Pepsi or Coke with their fish,  Were they getting a fresh supply of these drinks or where these drinks also stale,   if so then how did they make their drinks fresh – put sharks there also ?

O Oh, I am getting late, the sharks are coming, get back to you folks latter, need to catch up on my work.

 

The Internet seems to abound in 'Gyan' served out in generous dollops, one has only to log on to the mail for a quick check, to stumble upon stories upon stories of motivational kitsch, which gets one going soft in the heart, and making you wonder as to how you have remained functional all your life without ever understood the basics of life.

When in comes to Management Gyan, the deluge is almost overwhelming. The western world makes sure to rub in their understanding of business and business practices, and make one wail in realisation, as to how primitive and shallow Indian practices, especially the ones you follow are, in comparison to the best practices world wide. To rub insult to injury even the Chinese & Japanese joint in with their theories formulated based on their heritage and ancient knowledge.

Having said that, me being what I am. I cant help noticing the funnier side of such stories, if nothing just to reinforce my self esteem and feel less inferior in the knowledge that I beat them in their own game. So have a good laugh at my foolishness if u may.

So here goes my flip to the stories that come chasing us. Recently I received a new story in my email, lets see what meanings I could make out of it.