Month: September 2011

Executing on ‘The Fred Wilson School of Blogging’

Fred Wilson, one of the best known bloggers in the world today, had a fantastic post on ‘The Fred Wilson School of Blogging.’ I have been trying to get my head around his points ever since I read the post 2 months ago.

But, as I was going through the ‘use of social media’ with a colleague, I found myself going back to the post as ‘best practice.’ That was the moment I decided to execute on it! The transformation will probably take a couple of weeks but I am very confident it will be well worth it. Here are the pointers with my action steps in red –

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1) Have a long form blog on a domain that you own and that is permanent. Like Anil Dash says in the comments to Tom’s post, this is about compiling a set of work that is substantial. Anil says:

Based on the past dozen years that I’ve been writing it, I expect that my blog will in some ways be one of the most significant things I create in my life.

I’m 100% with Anil on this. People ask me when I am going to write a book and I laugh at that suggestion. AVC is more than a book will ever be. It is live, it is deep (in terms of total posts), it keeps going, evolving, and ends when I end.

This is my long form blog but as a result, the ‘good morning quotes’ will no longer have place. In many ways, I see his point. I have shirked away from committing to a post a day. My excuse has been ‘busy times’ during which I put the quote in and get away.

Who am I kidding though? If he can do, I can as well. I just need to make drafts earlier.. 

2) Have a short form blog an a different domain that you own and is permanent. Mine is at fredwilson.vc and hosted on Tumblr. This is where I put the things that fill out the story but don’t belong on a long form blog.

This is where the quotes will go. I think the quotes are positive all in all. I probably will still continue to feature them on ALearningaDay’s facebook page and my twitter but they will not be a part of this blog.

3) Participate actively in the social distribution platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. Build profiles, followers, and credibility in these communities. I use Twitter for broadcast to a wide group, I use Facebook for friends and family, and I’m still trying to figure out how to use Google+. These distribution platforms are great for getting your work out there but I don’t personally want to use them as the place where my work is hosted.

I have LOTS to learn here starting with observing how Fred and Mark Suster use Twitter. I don’t use Twitter at all. It is just linked to my blog. Need to be more active in my use.

The principle here is simple – Find a great role model and copy them. And gradually, as you understand their rationale and way of working, you will develop your own style.


4) Build community on your domains. In the case of my longform blog, Disqus is the tool I chose and after that decision, our firm invested in the company. I’ve seen and used all the various community tools out there and I believe Disqus is the best at building community on long form blogs. In terms of community on short form blogging, I think Tumblr has done the best job and that is why it is growing like a weed right now.

Fred is incredible where this is concerned. I still remember when I was among 200 odd commenters (his posts generate that many comments as an average!) wishing him for his birthday. I was touched when I saw him reply to every one of those wishes with a ‘Thank You Rohan/your name’. In my case, I don’t have the kind of burden he does. Activity here is still scant but he is a fantastic role model.

5) Engage everywhere. That means on Hacker News, other blog communities/comments, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. This takes a lot of time. Too much time. But I get so much value back from doing it that I make the time.

I tried Hacker News for a few of my IT related posts and the response was fantastic. I need to explore this avenue as well. Lots to do!

The most important part is to engage. The second most important part is own your online presence. Marco Arment has a great post on this point. He says:

If you care about your online presence, you must own it.
I LOVE this!

So if there is a “Fred Wilson School Of Blogging” this is it. It works for me and it can work for you if you are willing to invest the time and energy.
Thanks Fred. I owe you! And this could be the start of something very special for this blog.. 

That’s Why She is Thin as Wafer

I thought I’d quickly blog about a short conversation we had on way to a football league game that culminated in a 11-0 thrashing..

We were walking down Battersea park and a wafer-thin girl (no exaggeration) jogged past us. She was laboring through it as it was evident she was exhausted – probably the end of her run.

Immediately, a friend wondered aloud as to why she even needed the exercise!

And that’s when another pointed out that the reason she IS thin as wafer is because she exercises regularly.
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It was an ‘epiphany’ moment. The financially secure are the ones with the best spending habits.. and the thin and fit ones are the ones with the best exercise habits. There IS a reason..

Remembering 10 School Teachers and Lessons on Teacher’s Day

It took a couple of not-so-subtle reminders from my Mom this morning for me to take notice of the date – 5th September – celebrated as Teacher’s day in India. After 5 years spent away from home, I must admit the significance didn’t jump out. Thanks Mom, for the reminders.

I found myself walking down memory lane for a little while and remembering some truly fantastic teachers who taught me. The list of teachers who made a difference is endless.. and on this very special day, I thought I’d remember 10 special teachers from my 14 years of schooling in India and one defining learning/incident that I remember.

1. RCS Sir: I’ve blogged about RCS sir before. I had the privilege of being a student of Sanskrit under RCS sir for 3 years. I learnt more about my Indian roots from him than I have from anyone. He inspired me to invest in a 759 page book (!) on the Mahabharata (one of the 2 main epics!) and having read and re-read that story and learnt so much from it, I am thankful for his advice..

The other simple fact is that I remember more from RCS sir’s classes than I remember from any other class in school simply because he used to share many many fascinating stories. Talking in stories is an invaluable skill and I experienced it’s effectiveness with him..

2. Vanaja Vimal Ma’am: Vanaja Vimal Ma’am has had immense impact on my life by being the driving force behind  1 thing – My Handwriting. She inspired me to pay close attention to handwriting and presentation of my work. She converted diagrams in science from ‘art’ to ‘science’ by showing me how simple principles of structure can be applied everywhere. 

Most importantly, she drove me to keep working on my handwriting and I am thankful, for I have received many a positive remark since. It is an invaluable asset to have  – especially as a young Associate/Analyst level employee who has to frequently be a scribe during meetings – often on a white board! :) 

3. M Rajeshwari Miss: I worked closely with M Rajeshwari Miss for 4 whole months – She took an enthusiastic bunch of 12 year olds and lead us through a process of executing on a project to improve the handwriting of a 160 student test group and then present our work with a 100+ slide presentation at a National Convention for Quality Circles in Education.

During the process, she was very open to our ideas i.e. ‘she let us play’  and come up with creative visuals and slides and after she had patiently ‘listened’ and watched us execute, she also took matters in her own hands, changed our jazzy template to a much more professional looking one and replaced our bad charts with proper ones. 

This was pretty amazing – by listening to us and ‘letting us play’, we bought into her as our ‘boss.’ And even if we were upset when she threw most of our ‘cool’ work away, we still didn’t object too much because she had listened. (And we couldn’t either.. but as kids, that didn’t cross our minds!) And finally, her experience was vindicated when we won 3rd place in the convention! Learnt a lot from that!

4. Radha Miss: I’ve blogged about the ‘world is my family‘ concept. And Radha Miss was probably the first person on this planet who taught me that. She was my mom in school during her 3 years as my class teacher. What more can I say? 

5. Malarvizhi Ma’am: I spent a big part of my last year in school sitting practically a couple of feet away from Malarvizhi Ma’am. As our Class teacher and Physics teacher, she spent a lot of time with us and in our enthusiasm to get my grades on track, 4 friends had decided we were relocating from the last bench to the first. 

Probably the best thing that came out of the move was the time we got in close proximity to Malarvizhi Ma’am. She is probably the calmest person I have known. She was like a sea of calm amidst an incredible amount of chaos. (Boys school!) And I learnt a great deal from her response to everything.. one of absolute calm. She was amongst the best proponents of the ‘Don’t react. Respond.’ learning..

6. Sampath Sir: For pure passion, there are few teachers who could match Sampath Sir. He lived Chemistry. And in an environment where learning was focused on grades, Sampath Sir ensured we actually learnt something from it. 

Watching him teach was a sight. He hardly ever touched his book but he was ‘on show’ for the 40 minutes he spent with us. Nobody talked.. and that was not the norm. It felt a bit like we were under the spell of the man for 40 whole minutes. Quite amazing! He took teaching Chemistry to a (‘justu’..) whole new level..  

7. Shanta Vijaykumar Ma’am: My memories of Shanta Ma’am are as a tough task master. But a very lovable one. She had a simple objective – She wanted us to each get a 100/100 in Math in our Board exam. 

Now, her approach was the ‘my way or highway’. She was notorious for taking away our P.T (i.e. Games) periods.. and such moves typically put you in the ‘black list’ in your student eyes. But somehow, with Shanta Ma’am, I think we all loved her.. because, at the end of the day, it felt worth it! 

8. PT Department: I learnt a lot from my PT teachers (Sam Kutty Sir, Balaguru Sir, Subramaniam Sir and co.). And I had to group them all together. Thanks to training for the Table Tennis team, I used to stay far beyond school hours and generally play sports for a while with the PT teachers, and talk as well. I learnt many things from these men – the importance of wearing the right shoes, how playing sports helps us mentally and just how important staying fit is. 

Most importantly, I had tons of fun thanks to them. They used to help drag us out of classes to practice for the inter school meets and keep us in great spirits. A lot of my best memories from school come from times with them..


9. Sathish Sir: Sathish Sir was my Principal in my last 2 years of school. He was quite the personality and I have many an incident thanks to having interacted with him a fair bit during those years for various reasons. 

My best Sathish Sir memory came a few days before our Board exams. He was a wonderful public speaker and had his own trademark style. We were used to listening to memorable anecdotes every time he took up the mic. But this time, he chose to take a different approach. Quite a few of us were nervous about the upcoming exams and I remember him look at us with a grin and say ‘Boys, when you are writing the exam and you come to a question to which you don’t know the answer. Don’t worry! .. Because if you don’t know it, the whole country probably doesn’t know it.’  (Yes, our school was rather elitist.. :)) 

It became a bit of a standing joke among us for the next few days.. but the point was made  and that line did wonders for us confidence. He had tremendous faith in the system he lead..

10. Mom :): I had the privilege of being my mom’s student for an entire year. And that year was nightmare-ish.. in every sense of the word. In fact, I can think of very few teacher’s who treated me the way she did – in her attempt to be partial. It makes for a wonderful wonderful memory now because I probably spent more time punished (and hence, outside the class) when she taught me than I did ever. 

The good news is that we got past that. And I’ve had the fortune of being her son for 21 other very memorable years. There is a nice quote on education that says ‘The purpose of education is to take empty minds and make them open’. My mom lives that quote with all of her characteristic passion and zest for life. An incredible human being..

And with that, I’d like to take this moment to send a thank you wish to these 10 special people.. and many many others who made the proverbial difference. This blogger can never express how much what you have done for him means.. for there are some feelings of gratitude that can’t be expressed in words. And thank god for that.. because words would never do them justice anyway..


Happy Teacher’s Day to all teachers. You ARE the real leaders and hope of the world..

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To all readers who couldn’t relate/get through my essay.. Sorry, but this one is a special edition. :)

On Nomad Shifts

Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of the very first nomads on earth.

These nomads had a fight for life every single day. They woke up in the morning and had a simple question in their minds – ‘How do we get to food and water?’
Asking themselves this question, they moved from place to place. And as long as they asked themselves this question, they remained nomads.

One nomadic free-thinker decided to flip the question around. She began encouraging her group to ask ‘How can we get food and water to us?’

In response, they started digging up and forming the first irrigation systems and followed it up with the start of farming. Now, they were ready to settle down and form communities, a huge step in the progress of our species!


Since reading this book 3 weeks ago, I have already gifted it to 8 people, and this is only the beginning.

My biggest learning from the book is – if we are feeling negative, it is probably because we are asking ourselves ‘judger’ questions. The moment we become aware of this negativity, we need to switch into ‘learner’ mode by asking ourselves ‘learner’ questions. (See the Choice Map). VERY Powerful Stuff!

Here’s to switching our questions when we find ourselves stuck this week!

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Source: ‘Change Your Questions, Change Your Life’ by Marilee Adams

Alexander’s Week on Planet Earth

My name is Alexander.
I was Emperor of the world once.
I was granted a wish.
To travel the world for a week.
And see how it had fared since my time.
I was amazed to see how far the world has come.
The roads, the cities, the technology.
So many things to be positive about.
An incredible way of life has been made possible.
But.. I found less enjoyment and happiness than I was used to.
The poor were envious of the city folk.
The city folk were always in a hurry.
They looked unhealthy, unfit and unhappy.
And most importantly, I found so much decay.
No, not of physical things.
But of the human mind.
For I found many wandering without purpose, uninspired.
They had long forgotten the pure joy that came from playing games and from running abound.
They spent more time looking at people on their tiny laptops than actually spending time getting to know the ones around them.
And spent more time watching programs on their televisions than experiencing life.
They worked for the money and spent more time complaining about it than singing it’s praises.
It smelt of decay.
There are so many more people in the world now than there were in my time.
But, it felt like there was only more existence… less living.
Perhaps all this technology has provided too much comfort and ease.
All of a sudden, entertainment sits at our desks right in front of us.
There is no need to seek, to ask.. for the answers are all searchable.
The children seemed more obsessed with the right answers than with the right questions.
And I felt myself look back at my times as a child.
I had so many questions – Does the world end? What does the sea look like? What do people look like outside of Greece?
They drove me and my fellow adventurers to travel and conquer the world.
What is life without those questions after all?
While I was worrying about the state of the world, I also realized that we humans always find a way.
Things are always better than they seem.
And they will only get better.
For there are many who are working hard to make it so.
That said, I am still worried.
For our greatest asset has been our mind.
And in a time of unparalleled comfort, I found myself hoping that the world is reminded that what brings happiness and change is not finding the right answers
But asking questions.. in multitude.
For the day the whole world wakes up without that curiosity and zest for life will be a sad one indeed.
For decay would have won.
And technology’s true purpose would have been lost.
But I have faith.
We will pull through.
The children will show us the way.
As they always do.
By playing games, laughing, caring, loving and asking lots of questions.
I just hope the grown ups have time to stop and look,
And learn.
For death and decay don’t happen when we stop breathing,
but when our curiosity, passion and zest wither away.

Making a Commitment is Easy

Re-committing to it and getting it done is the hard part.

Committing to a long term goal like going to the gym every morning is fairly easy. All it takes is for us to sign up for a membership.

Re-committing to it every single morning (rain or shine) is the hard part.

Committing to be happy is easy.

Re-committing to it when lots of little things are not going our way is the difficult part.
At this moment, I am dealing with a whole bunch of screw ups from British Telecom in getting my broadband up and running and dealing with a broken fridge – both of which don’t look like they will be fixed any time soon. These are domestic nuisances. It is very annoying when few of the basic assumptions (i.e. availability of food, decent service and fast internet) are rendered invalid. We stumble over pebbles and not mountains, after all.
This is where re-commitment comes back in. I’ve allowed myself to be in a very foul mood for a good 2 hours now. Time to re-commit to taking it easy, being happy and moving on.
There’s a weekend waiting to be enjoyed! It’s time to turn up the music..

The Man, The Elephant, The Crocodile and The Mice

Imagine a man running away from a wild elephant.
The wild elephant is gaining on him.
He sees a well, and decides to jump in.
As he is making the jump, he notices a crocodile in the well.
Desperate, he clutches on to a few roots of a banyan tree that happen to be reaching into the well.
He looks up.. the elephant is waiting.
And then looks down.. the crocodile now has it’s mouth open in anticipation.
All of a sudden, a few drops of honey fall on his lips.
He feels a sense of bliss as he tastes them.
For a few moments, he forgets the elephant and the crocodile.
And then he tries looking for the source of the honey
and finds the honey comb only to be dismayed.
Right below the honey comb, he sees a white mouse and a black mouse slowly, but steadily nibbling away at the branch he’s clinging onto..
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That man symbolizes us.
The elephant is time.. we are always rushing, trying to get ahead of it.
The crocodile is death.. always waiting – even if we prefer living life pretending it doesn’t exist.
Luck helped the man find branches. After all his hard work running away from the elephant, he was bound to find some assistance from Lady Luck.
The drops of honey symbolize moments of happiness. Happiness makes us forget time and death.
And the black and white mice are night and day respectively, slowly but steadily calling time to our lives.
This story likely touched some sort of chord. I think it touches a different chord for each one of us. Happy reflecting..