Using "Boiler Plate" text to overcome Writers block

Recently I had writers block for more than 3 weeks. That too, on a task that is critical, important and binding upon me to complete. This is one task that cannot be delegated and is my core responsibility.

Till this task hit me I was under self-belief that given constraints and pressure, I would get myself moving and get things done. I have my standards for output and that when I apply myself whichever be the way (voluntary or forced) I would get the desired output that I am satisfied with.

This time, it was not to be. No amount of tools came to my help. I tried talking my way to get some force act on me, but they discouraged me further this time. I informed my boss hoping his mild censure will motivate me. Well, it was not to be.

The situation was strange. If I had not heard the word "writers block" I would have been frustrated at the state I was in. Here is a task where the end date is near but not too near to stretch on time crunch and with no other priorities at hand. You would exclaim, "Ideal time to be a manager." and I would agree. Yet not able to do the one thing that is the focus at the time and get it accomplished is a huge let down.

As usual, the end date got near and there was no way I could let the end date pass yet I still am far from the finish line.  And then Eureka, I found myself going at it with ease, pace and confidence. The first draft looked decently dressed and on track for a proper finishing in subsequent reviews. The magic that eluded me was: "Boiler Plate Text".

As I had to get the job done, I tried some random scribblings that I could repetitively use. The flow started to show itself. And then the scribbles fell into a pattern. I could see my writing show itself up in:
1. A conversational style.
2. Initiate my pitch from where the protogonist ends their story.
3. Giving a summary and then moving into the specifics.

Lo!. The exact phrases were in place. All I now needed to put my head on was to create the descriptive specifics. Well, that could be handled with less pain as these missing pieces were easier to visualize for the uniqueness.

And this gave me the way out of writer's block. Has "boiler plates" helped you overcome writer's block. I would be interested to know perspectives.

Agile is not synonymous with Un-preparedness

Many a times, in name of agile, I have heard that

1. Planning isn't necessary, as we need to work on what comes our way.
2. Control of work is to be eliminated as members will pick the next story once they finish their current load,
3. Clients are free to submit the changes they want and move it to iterations or extend the schedules of Sprints,
4. Technology and architecture (code in software/IT) can be modified at later time and redone as the requirements evolve anytime during the course of the project.
5. Team members can come and go and will only be retained for the part they need to spend their timeand many similar stories...
6. These are perceptions that are difficult to change and are needless to be associated, just because the word "agile" loosely means "flexibility".

In fact to be agile, it requires a great amount of preparedness. Each stakeholder (Client, Sponsor, Reviewers, Consultants, Vendors, Developers, Designers, Testers, Support staff) all require to posses in themselves:

1. Attitude, Alertness, Adaptiveness, Swiftness, Resourcefulness, Decisiveness on the job
2. Abilities to present, praise, practice, preach and be with passion through to the job sign-off
3. Accept self-introspection, Admit faults in open, Assess the future state continuously
4. Channelize the learning, Champion a cause, Customize their skills

It will be great to see results from agile implemented as a people practice and the team transforming their project and results experience rather than the other way around.

8 costly wastes to eliminate in Money matters

Lean principles aren't just for corporate settings. It could make us as efficient personally as the productivity and quality improvements we see in organizations and teams. In knowledge world, personal Kaizen is an important tool as much as practicing Kaizen and Continous Improvements in the worksphere.

A major focus area of Lean to achieve improvements in quality, productivity and thereby boosting business, employee morale and group innovation is the relentless attack in eliminating waste. Theory states that there are 8 types of waste identified in Lean.

In financial world, money is lost for every mistake done. We pay more for every day delay to correct the mistake. No waivers on this. Applying the Lean principles and with recent repeated losses, I started realizing these 8 costly wastes that could have been easily avoid with simple discipline.

1. Interest and penalty payments: All this takes is to set reminder alerts and ensure funds are available and done on time. Be aware of bank holidays which can make just in time plans go awry. So better is to alert self 2 days in advance and force execute them to avoid hassles of wasting money on interests and penalties.
It is good to allow for auto payment schedules. However, make it a rule to check if the payments are debited on time and there are funds in the account. Otherwise the fortunes of 2 companies at same time are improved at cost of "you".

My resolution is to never make an interest payment.

2. Discretions vs recurring expenses on Credit: We all love to shop. I love to de-stress with mall hopping and splurging for myself on occasional times. After joining professional world and moving out far from family, I find shopping pleasurable not during festival or off season sale times, but when I find myself strained, stressed and the random "where is my life headed?" thoughts.
We are so used to home and car loans that they are by default advised to be acquired as assets through loans and EMI than blocking own complete capital. Makes sense as far as cash flow arguments are concerned. However beyond them, discretionary purchases on home care, luxury goods, items beyond needs and immediate use goods will be smarter if paid from savings and not using credit.
Credit is a wise way to use on recurring monthly spends so that patterns could be un-covered and the self-control to afford them becomes a habit. So far, I resisted the urge to live life on credit. These days I have 3 loans going on that drains my income by 10th of every month.

Splurge, Spend, Live a good life, but please, not on credit but through  savings.

3. Paying upfront service charges or subscription amount: I made this mistake recently. Luckily it was a bearable amount. It was my weakness to be benevolent at all times that made me the "bakra" (scape goat) for this sales team. Thankfully I negotiated to a far less amount that I could experiment with.

Wiser from experience, I would recommend learning to say a curt "NO", when some one is saying that for a better service or lesser running charges, they need advance fees. Who pays us like that? Why should we encourage it for others ? It is a interest free loan that we extend at our expense and it is not good for our pocket. E.g. Brokerages, Time-share holidays, etc. Unless the clause is easy to pro-rate the advance against the services we would use/consume and it is just a means of parking the funds for mutual benefit.

4. Maintaining balances: Scourge on market for bank products that allow us to maintain zero balance in savings but allow you to have a high relationship value. These days banks offer schemes that allow you to have better facilities on relationship value than savings account minimum balance. Zero balance accounts are good. But when your account is needed to debit funds through ECS or auto-payments, then you need to maintain balance in your account on said dates.

5. In-secure or hedged spending: We spend in hope to buy cheaper products or services buy alternate services that are cheaper than current provider. Well, this is sensible and a financial savvy thing to do. However, in this competitive world, please check with current service provider on a competing offer that their competitors have offerred. Ask them if they would like to match it for the offer. If so, the problem is solved. Otherwise, terminate your current relationship before taking on other relationship. Evaluating 2 services or products simultaneously makes you pay for the same value twice.
I did this with datacard service providers and have just managed to exit after rental loss of 3 months.

6. Multiple Investment Options: Too many eggs in one basket is diffcult to count and too many baskets with one egg is difficult to manage.

Choose investment options that is comfortable for self. Meaning the investment is understandable to operate, grow, and the downsides. In financial advisor terms, determine your risk profile. If you are told that the instrument is best suited for fast track growth or an instrument is safe, invest in your understanding on how they work.

I was advised that Options and Commodities are exciting ways to manage downside of holding stocks. Hence little investments in these instruments will be desired in my portfolio. I did listen, as I always do but never understood how they work and what is needed of me to make them work.
As expected, they resulted in waste of my precious resource - money. Not to say they are undesirable means, but just that it never was easy for me to learn.

7. Losing Attention: Coming from middle class background with emphasis on education to ensure working in adult age, the drive was to excel at work. For excelling at work we make adjustments, compromises, decisions, focus on our careers thinking they would give us a good retired life. It does and will do, but this focus will not enable your money and investments to appreciate.

Just as careers improve due to focus and attention for most part of waking time, investments and financial conditions can only improve with focus and attention to this important sphere. Investing and forgetting them is sure way of not reaping fruits when they are ripe but picking them up after they fall to ground.

I learnt to attend to money matters as much as I care for work. It is not a dichotomy but an essential truth that both are required to succeed and improve our living conditions.

8. Inventory at Home: There are so many things in our house that when we put a cost to each and the utility of them, we know what we have on hand. Alas, many of them are lying assets that are aging and losing their value.

So, as in lean, maintaining inventory is a waste in money world. We keep substantial investments in physical assets that lying unused they are an under utilized capital. These cannot be done away with, but they can be thought of utilized better to recover the value of inventory.

Give a thought to charity and joy of giving, if possible.

Without Love or Care to do

Without Love or Care to our duties, we will never know how the actions hurt others. It is not the indifference that gets others irritated. It is a state chosen to be in, which though a crib, doesn't per se become a concern. What comes out of delegation from an indifference to the job is escapism at expectation of others to do your biddings. This becomes an irritant par expression. Escapism is the state of being a sadist.

All of us are self-centered creatures. In business, we are trained to address "What is in it for Me" as a motivator. This is not a selfish view at the cost of others but a view centered around the accurals for self with the benefit to others.

Not sharing a love or care for doing a duty, is the most depressing human tendency to address.

Grit

The nations grace is the girl

Who had the true power

To rally the people for a cause

 

Sob that she needed to be the sacrifice

To teach the respect that we forego to apply

 

Summon the courage, to power:

 The voice, that is not spoken

 The peace, that will never shatter anyone else

 The name, that spurred us to invoke justice

 

May Santa reach you girl to gift a life of anonymity, potent power to guide generations to respect life and body.

15 Lessons South Indian Fan Clubs can teach any Marketer.

I come from southern part of India where filmstars command a great following. Infact, we are so used to personality led culture that we awe, rever and worship them whenever they are sighted in public. Many a times people are so fan-crazy, travel long distances and wait at the gates just to catch a glimpse. This, imagine, when the families would be struggling for one time food, next time work and loads of family commitments simply slighted just for this one cause.

The key part in the life and journey of filmstars and leaders of political parties from the area I come from, in particular is the way they nurture fan clubs. In fact it is seen that great careers and high successes in successive films is no guarantee for lifetime employment of an actor in the field. You would see that flops and hits continue with the actor who has an active fan club.

As a child I was infatuated to the fan club culture. It is really hard to miss the palpable action and talks around you. The craze to be part of crowds, the reverence that is commanded not in front of the living soul but by a 12-24" inch larger than life hoardings ("cut-outs" in our lingo), the urge and the high to see the first day first show, the creativity in the promos (these aren't done by paid publicists of the movie company but by a motivated crowd(fans) out of competition to vie for attention) and the way the buzz is created around the movie to bring in audiences for giving the movie a decent shelf life in the theaters, all attracted me much. However, owing to adolescent fear relished all of this action from fringes.

Fast forward to my professional life, having travelled multiple cities, I miss these old days of single screen theaters and the splash of posters in city wall-scapes and the charm of watching a movie in a sea of fans animated from their seats. If you watch it a week later, you can see your neighbours uttering the dialogues synchronized with the screen play.

Thanks to this child hood exposure, I realized many good lessons in marketing.

1. Paid promos or self promotions cannot create buzz. They at maximum can give you the reach. It is your users who can get you the mass you need.
2. The intrinsic value of product and the reach alone cannot guarantee a commitment from your customer. There needs an eco system which the customers need to be a part for gaining the commitment.
3. What is projected in professional world, needs to be practiced in personal life as well. There have been careers in film industry with good fan following which have been way-led due to wavering ways or controversial decisions behind the cameras. In short, be responsible in all facets of your life - be it in glare or off it. Remember, "how" is as important as "what".
4. No doubt, critical mass is important. However, critical mass is not numbers. The number needs to be with right mix of people who could carry you along untiringly towards your success. It is who you connect with (segment), how many (target) and in what ways (position) they sign up for you determines the longevity of life.
5. Giving is the best form of taking back. The salaries, revenues and lifestyles - for fans gives little room for jealousy. In fact fans talk more about the philanthrophy than the multiplicity in riches. Practice to give - may be portion of sales to charity, or free samples to a sample population or your work/product/service to a cause. It aids in positive image associated with the offer you sell.
6. Fan clubs need to be active all the time and so should be your marketing engine. During movie release season fan clubs are hyper-active. There is never a dull moment nor an opportunity created that makes one think of alternatives or comparisons. When movies are not around, fan clubs keep themselves busy in taking part in events or conducting them around festivals in the locality, in the interim period where there is nothing external, they conduct elections, reorganize their structures or conduct membership/collection drives to keep them energized for the peak season work. Actors are canny managers and adept at planning their movie releases to make sure they retain the flock intact.
7. It is important to keep contacts. In world of technology everything is seen and watched in 2D. But it is clear that keeping contacts and mingling with crowds is still a potent marketing technique to establish the connect and renew it once in a while.
8. Appreciate others and be kind with words for equal work of others in your field. The higher you grow the more you need to display genuine appreciation for juniors in the field. Promote products or services around you. Encourage an eco-system than being the end-all of doing everything. It helps you grow insulated from prying eyes.
9. Display human tendencies at times. While we, in Tamil Nadu, consider our filmstars - god, we subtly understand and feel happy when they express natural emotions. Offer the softer side of your personality. It associates with the product or service you offer.
10. Help budding performers and promote them in your field. It makes you a god father and reduces the number of people in opposite camp waiting for your downfall. Sponsor early talents is a great way to promote and spot talent who could help you.
11. Even in stereotypes, mix in variety for freshness. Superstar Rajinikant movies are loved for his style. However every movie is watched for his variety that he brings in his inimitable style that is unique in every creation. What you represent might be boring. But how you present them in various mediums determines the freshness.
12. Enjoy power responsibly: As a potent force, as a live wire who can change scores of lives, impact a large following who seek you as the leader and waiting to seize the command, comes a great responsibility and accountability to not use power the wrong way. And great stars never go beyond the limits they understand is a no-crossing zone. For marketers wield a great power to seduce mind about the products they market. Be careful to not promote a faulty one.
13. Handle criticism: A flop movie gets face time of critics more. You are written off. Events surrounding the failure generates stories that sell on  pessimism. It is often said in industry circles that every friday a life is changed. It is constant change of fortunes that stars get used to. And fan clubs are a great stress-buster. Getting to spend more time with your users and feeding the news of improvements and excitements coming the way is a great way to stay the course.
14. Wary of Flattery: A great product gets rave review. But making it a formula and expecting the same every time is a flattery. Stars are surrounded inevitably by flattery. Staying to not falling prey gives the service and product a longer duration to fix issues and not gloat in glory.
15. Be an asset: In any field, your recognition is your reward. Your image is your asset. Be one who is useful for others. If your service is liked, you are liked by default. If you are hated, a great on-time delivery is still not good.

(Dedicated to #Rajnikant Ji on his birthday today, for whom at one point of time I was willing to go in direction along with scores of his fans without battling an eyelid).

Social Learning is not about using Social Media but how to learn Socially

Remember "Group Studies" we did in our school with friends? Well, it isn't important as to what we studied together, but neverthless they were enriching lessons useful for life. Atleast for me, the learning went besides text books that gave me confidence to approach people better.

The concept of "Social Learning" exists way back. In India, the dominant form of education referred to as "Gurukul" system passed on knowledge through multiple generations based on this system. If you look closely at "Gurukul" system, it is a group of students getting together in the teachers place (akin to boarding school). They learn not just by sitting in class room but by also by doing daily work and assisting the teacher in various chores.

While we know this, it is natural to visualize that the possibility of peers/classmates exchanging work, doing complex tasks together, talking about various topics of interest that allowed their learning to flourish in the multiple social contexts making them strong and experts at the subjects they mastered in when the teacher then played to guide to use them properly.

Other great facet of "gurukul" system that we often miss is the "group" chanting or reading scriptures (the religious places of learning practice this) exercise. It is by following the group that newbies pick the  pronunciation, accent and familiarity with the subject. The peers match recite together matching the rhythm of the group that they remember the details of intonation and memorize them well with various cues set by others. It is so heartening that this is still a prevalent practice to this day in temples all around India.

Another great example of Social learning is in sports training. It is by observation of fellow trainees and the insights shared by the group that sportspeople learn the tricks of the trade. In fact you play with your fellow sports companion to hone your skills. Ofcourse coach is important and necessary to share the observations, make corrections and give right set of motivation and key insights on winning. Most of the times coaches share them in public intending for others to assist and help in reinforcements. When I saw my daughter learning skating tricks from her seniors who translate what the coach guides them to do, it compelled me to think as to why is this being ignored as a formal channel by learning practioners.

An age old concept is getting a makeover now. However, can the makeover stop emphasizing tools over context. Can we focus on "social" contexts dissemination than looking at learning value in social media tools when they are not intended for the purpose ? When a new application/tool is becoming a mainstream media platform, it necessarily needs to stay away from learning arena. Adding learning as a goal in social media space may be great for social media tools marketing but under-values the purpose of real learning. While chat conferences, online forums for collaboration like discussion forums give much need information on any subject or point you to multiple sources and manage to sway your opinions, they need to still be evaluated on a time-value trade off as far as serious learning experience is concerned