Author: Abhinav Bhatt

  • Getting Viral is Good/Bad?

    Getting Viral is Good/Bad?

    Don’t worry. I am not going to post the latest (as on date you read this) meme here which just went viral on social media. You might have already got fed up with it and 10000s of versions of it. It might have been done and dusted by now. Or you might not have encountered that yet. It will hit you soon then. With this Viral popularity, someone would get a huge exponential surge in their follower’s list. Some viral people would get economic benefits too. Some will try to be viral explicitly by sharing explicit content, or dead bodies in a Japanese forest, or just by playing with one eyebrow, they will get unexpected fame. Even my content had gone mildly viral once. I felt generally happy out of it for some time surely. But that also leaves me with a question.

    Something else will get viral tomorrow and the older viral thing would be less viral. Once the hoopla goes down, once people are done with you, once your stardom has seen the end of the curve, how do you deal with it?

    I have a concern about the younger people (as well as the older people) regarding this subject. If you don’t know about the most recent viral thing, have you missed out badly? FOMO and all. How does that work out on campuses nowadays? How are you treated if you are not on all the hip-social-media-sites? Or maybe if you are not on anything, maybe that’s hip. Such a difficult time to be a student nowadays.

    Concern about older generation is that they were slightly late to jump on the bandwagon but they are finally everywhere. So, when some new viral thing comes, or a new tech comes, how do they deal with this? Is it just cynicism and general contempt about the new generation or do they also feel that they have missed the bus already so at least now they should feel updated?

    A few days back I saw a tweet from Amitabh Bachchan worrying about his Twitter follower count.

    Or maybe, when one gets older, they become more childish.

    I am now neither old nor young and I have not even hit the mid-life crisis yet. And my viral days are already over. What do I do now to stay relevant? Heh.

    Photo by Alice Donovan Rouse on Unsplash

  • What’s Your Password?

    What’s Your Password?

    It doesn’t matter how long it is. What matters is how powerful it is. Is it a weak one, moderate one or so strong that it is almost unbreakable?

    I am talking about passwords, of course. Here’s a short story about it:

    Location: Basement of a friend’s house.

    Date: Sometime in the late 90s or early 2000s, when not everyone had a personal computer or a phone. So yes, long ago!

    So, I was in school and one of my friends had just bought a new shiny personal computer. A couple of more friends and I had come to witness the beauty. Although, it was not like we weren’t familiar with computers. I am not a Dinosaur but it was still a good thing to have one for personal use. And to show off.

    We were happily enjoying it and randomly surfing the applications and The Internet (using Dial-up connection so anything which opened was a bonus). Then, the friend who owned the computer got a call from his mother. So, he locked the computer and went away. He told us not to try passwords else it would get locked after few failed attempts. Yada, yada, yada and he went upstairs.

    Once he went away, we thought of trying the available attempts. We ran our minds to guess what the password could have been! One friend suggested the house’s fixed line number, another suggested his nickname. I just typed in few letters and voila! It had got unlocked. I didn’t do anything special of course as I had just typed in the name of his suspected crush. Poor fellow, now this had got doubly confirmed. He returned and saw us chuckling and giggling. He then blasted us for this mischief but couldn’t do much as we were already into splits and we ended up laughing our guts out for next 30 minutes or so. (We were still in school then and young boys as you know, are idiots).

    Moral of the story is that almost everyone had a password which could be socially engineered out of them if you knew about the person a bit. I can recall one more instance when I asked a friend about some name and could log into his account by using the forgot password option. Easily! But, don’t worry, I am not that evil and I didn’t do anything bad after logging in as I was such a saint that I told the friend that it was a cakewalk to hack your account. Better up your passwords game. He didn’t talk to me for few days though.

    Nothing much has changed since then. People still use easy words as their passwords. Moreover, due to the exponential increase in applications we use, the number of passwords to remember has also gone really high and difficult to manage. There are surely many good password manager tools but then someone has to set master password eventually. And if that’s done, again you are doomed. With growing worries about UID and possibility of data being sold/hacked or compromised, we should ideally be more concerned about our privacy, than we are right now.

    I remember one instance when there was a conference call happening with screens being shared. One of the participants had to share the screen. Before the person could switch on to the application to display, a notepad app was visible by chance. It had all the passwords for all the things one could imagine, written down and visible for over 2 minutes.

    Fact is, however strong your password is, if you cannot remember it and depend on writing it down somewhere, the cause is lost. If we move towards biometrics completely, there will still be some scope of hacking. Rather, if you remember the passwords properly and they are really random, nobody can hack it or it becomes very difficult. Unless they kidnap you and you have to tell it at a gunpoint.

    So, what’s your password? Still your crush’s name? C’mon both of you have already got married, to separate people. Change it to something better people!!

    If you want my personal opinion, change your password to some name of the person you hate and add your date of birth to it in random fashion and then add a character which you think is of no use being on the keyboard.

    Here are two comics from XKCD about passwords for your enjoyment.

    https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/password_strength.png
    To anyone who understands information theory and security and is in an infuriating argument with someone who does not (possibly involving mixed case), I sincerely apologize.
    https://www.xkcd.com/792/
    It’ll be hilarious the first few times this happens.

    Featured Photo by John Salvino on Unsplash

    (more…)
  • So I recently watched: Trapped

    So I recently watched: Trapped

    Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours had James Franco stuck in a ditch in the middle of nowhere. There was nobody in the vicinity and no means of communication whatsoever. That was actually based on a real story. I don’t want to spoil the movie ending for you in case you haven’t still watched it but it was a decent ‘one-time watch‘ for its entertainment and thrill value. A similar theme of human endurance, eagerness to live and never give up attitude was seen in The Martian. Although, there as well, the protagonist was so far and away from humanity that it was almost impossible to come out alive. All in all, it was a treat to read/watch, chuckle, hope for the hero’s struggle and feel inspired. In both of the above 2 movies/books, it could be said that the person who got stranded or stuck had no other option but to fight for their survival. Also, they had themselves knowingly placed their own life in known danger. As in, they were quite aware of the issues and perils, one could face when they go away into the unknown isolation.

    Vikramaditya Motwane’s ‘Trapped’ starring Rajkumar Rao is different as well as same from both of them. Same but different, you understand? It also has one guy stuck somewhere plot but here, the protagonist gets locked alone in a newly constructed building’s 35th floor, a building right in the middle of one of the most densely populated places on Earth, Mumbai. He even has a Mobile Phone with a low battery at his disposal (our real-life problems), although the building has elongated power outages (again our real-life problems) that can go on for days, as we know, this being India. So, basically, this guy is just stuck in an apartment in a new high-rise building in an urban setting but cannot call for help, as he is, you know, too high altitude-wise.

    The plot is straightforward, and many a time predictable. I didn’t particularly feel thrilled as much I should have been. I should have cared for the protagonist but there were certain judgments I feel that could have been made better. For instance, throwing away cardboard to no avail, phobia of the rat, etc. I could think of some more ways to call for help. Also, a glaring goof in the scene when he actually gets stuck. He puts the keys in his pocket and then the keys were not there, or something of that sort.

    However, there are certain nuances which brought multiple smiles to my face. Certain names, some foreshadowing, and funny name references were quite nicely done. Above all, since this was mostly a one-character story, Rajkumar Rao shone like anything. He created an almost flawless depiction of a slightly hyper person (which he did in his initial few movies and can do this really well) who don’t know what to do in such drastic situations. Kudos to him. He felt most real as a person stuck in a dire situation with really bad luck.

    ‘Trapped’ showed that for getting trapped, one doesn’t need to travel far and wide. One can be stuck in one’s apartment, into one’s life, into one’s work, and into one’s mind.

    By the way, I am now 1 year into this apartment where I am staying right now. And I’ve already been and seen people trapped in it because of faulty locks. Since then I have learned 2 lessons:

    1. Remove faulty locks at once.
    2. Always take your mobile with reasonable battery left in the bathroom. For safety, of course.

    I recommend watching any of the 3 movies mentioned in this post: 127 Hours, The Martian, and Trapped as all three have a one-man podcast kind of scenes. All three have a man trying desperate measures, risking the life, just to get out of these precarious situations. But, while 127 and Martian are eventually really inspiring movies, Trapped is a reality check movie.

    So, next time you leave your house, keep your keys safe. Not too safe as well.

  • So I recently watched: Arjun Reddy

    So I recently watched: Arjun Reddy

    A Question first

    How do you consider whether a movie is good or not? If a movie is really well made and makes sense technically most of the times but you don’t agree with the actions of the characters or feel that the story missed on some aspects, would you still like the movie? Or say, you loved the story, but the treatment could have been improved. The production quality, technicalities, VFX could be better? What’s your take on that?

    Back to the Review

    *This review has SPOILERS*

    I recently watched the Telugu movie ‘Arjun Reddy’, which was claimed to be a mature and path-breaking of sorts. For those who haven’t, it is available on Amazon Prime with subtitles in English. This movie is from a debutant director Sandeep Reddy Vanga and stars Vijay Deverakonda as Arjun Reddy Deshmukh and Shalini Pandey as Preethi Shetty in lead roles.

    I was particularly intrigued by some discussion on Twitter about some folks not liking some sexist aspects of the movie. Usually, such discussions on Twitter bear no fruit but since the movie was available and the trailer made sense and had a good background song, I just watched it anyway.

    This movie can be seen as a more realistic take on India’s ever favorite story of the loser, Devdas. The guy likes a girl but she gets married to someone else. The guy is not able to cope up and falls prey to alcohol and in this case, drugs abuse. The guy, however, is quite a prodigy in the medical field. He is the top student, amazing sportsman and good-looking, etc. But also suffers majorly from Anger Management issues.

    Now, we have seen many Devdas movies and I am not at all fond of such genre. But this movie has a basis in reality so this made it an interesting watch. The way Arjun Reddy woos a fresher girl (Shalini) can be easily termed as patriarchial and borderline-abusive but then that is in the context of the movie and passable to an extent. But then, again and again, Arjun imposes himself on Shalini and she gives in every time which made me cringe. Eventually, this movie proves yet again the Indian Movie Theory of Wooing a Girl that, if you persist and stalk and threaten and don’t give up on a girl, she will eventually give up and be yours forever. But I will shut myself up and give credit to this movie as all was shown in the context of the story. Some people are like that in reality too so I understood the intent. The acting of the leads, as well as supporting characters, was really good. Overall, the movie continues to tell the story of this guy who has not been able to move on with life. He starts taking drugs. He leaves his home. He starts womanizing but in a weird way in which he just sobs/drinks in front of them and doesn’t care about doing anything positive about his life. He totally doesn’t believe in any usual-society rules about lovers getting separated due to caste and regional issues.

    I would even appreciate the portrayal of this realistic Devdas by Vijay. He does everything which made me think of slapping him with a bat and bringing him back to normalcy. So, I guess he did justice to his role.

    Now the major issue part. Devdas movies might be fake, grand and everything dramatic but they do one thing right. In the end, the Devdas character drinks so much that he loses his health, mental state and eventually dies on the road. He is never able to move on and ends up only in shambles and disaster. SPOILER ALERT but this movie has a happy ending. Not only this abusive, angry, junkie, loser, etc finds the girl back, she comes back to her as if their love was 100% Dettol Pure types kosher. This means that whatever happens, if you still don’t move on from your lover, even if you spend months and years away from them, the lover herself has not even tried to contact you at all, eventually, in the end, all will be well and you will get what you always wanted. Even if that love was partly just lust.

    Seriously?

    I will give all marks for the production value, non-linear storytelling, technical details, core in realism, really good acting, decent background score, but if this movie ends up as a happy ending movie, it will only make me delete half of the marks I gave earlier.

     

  • Toastmasters ACB Speak to Inform 2 : Clicking Better

    Toastmasters ACB Speak to Inform 2 : Clicking Better

    Speak to Inform Project 2: Resources for Informing

    The following is my speech for the Project 2 of Speak to Inform Advanced Communication Manual. I spoke about a topic which I have interest in; Photography.

    [Opening]

    Fellow Toastmasters and welcomed guests, a very good afternoon to one and all!

    Show of hands please, how many of you take Photographs regularly?

    Almost everyone, right?

    Do you use your Mobile Phone Camera?

    Or a Point and Shoot one?

    Or you use your DSLR?

    So, the overall consensus is that, obviously, almost everyone takes photographs. Some use properly dedicated cameras while most others use their phones. Everyone nowadays knows how to click and shoot. There are billions of photos taken daily. There are millions of photos shared on Instagram, Flickr, Facebook, Whatsapp, etc daily.

    We all take Photographs daily. But not all of us are called as Photographers. Professional or Hobbyist. Today, I am going to share with you, some composition guidelines, tips, and tricks which you can use to improve your photography. These are some basic rule of thumbs, which can help you become better photographers, than just ordinary-photo-clickers.

    Disclaimer: I am not a Professional or Commercial Photographer myself, but I have been learning this art for a long time now and this is just me sharing some of that learning with you.

    [Body]

    Slide 4: 3 Guidelines for Better Composition

    I am going to discuss the 3 most common guidelines for better composition. Can anyone tell what Composition means? CoThe compositions the placement of objects and subjects in your photograph. This is basically how the elements in your photos have been placed. So, the 3 most common composition guidelines are:

    1. The Rule of Thirds
    2. Leading Lines
    3. Less is More

    I will start with the Rule of Thirds

    Slide 5: The Rule of Thirds

    For this, I would request you all, to take out your phone and open your camera. Can you see a grid there? That grid divides the viewfinder into 9 parts.

    The Rule of Thirds states that if your subject is placed at one of the intersections of these grids, that composition would look better than those in which subject is placed without any thought. Scientifically, this kind of composition conforms to the Golden Ratio. You might have seen this curve before. Without going into this too much, I would just say that this curve or ratio pleases the eyes.

    This would mean is that when your subject is placed at the intersection, it would give the photograph much more dynamism and a professional look.

    I will share a couple of examples to depict this.

    Slide 6: Sweet Farm

    Slide 7: Sweet Farm with Grid

    Slide 8: Busy Bee
    Slide 9: Busy Bee with Grid
    If you noticed, here the subject was placed at the intersections that made the photograph appear slightly better.

    Now, we will understand the second guideline i.e. Leading Lines

    Slide 10: Leading Lines
    ‘Leading Lines’ is another guideline, which you may consider while shooting a photo. It helps the viewer to scan your image from a point to a point. It also gives us a sense of depth, size and, distance. I will again show you some examples.

    Slide 11: Hampi Temple
    Slide 12: Hampi Temple with leading lines shown
    Slide 13: VV Puram Street
    Slide 14: VV Puram Street with leading lines shown
    Now, the third guideline, Less is More

    Slide 15: Less is more
    When we want to click, we want to cover as much as possible. We worry about getting all the details of the scene onto our image. However, sometimes the opposite might make sense. Sometimes, having a minimal number of objects in the image can give it a better look. Let me share some examples for this.

    Slide 16: The Moon
    Slide 17: Birds on a wire
    There is a sense of calmness and serenity in these pics. It still depicts a lot, by depicting very less. If we can try minimalism in our photography by giving some white space, that can help us to compose our shots better.

    [Conclusion]

    Slide 18: Break the rules

    I have just talked about Rules. But, the actual rule of Photography is that there are no rules. There are just guidelines. For creativity, we are often encouraged to break the rules. So, if you ignore the above 3 guidelines, you can still create some good compositions. Some more examples for you.

    Slide 19: Attack on Hampi (A combination of Rule of Thirds and Minimalism)

    Slide 20: Choose a Side (A subject which is totally centered in the frame)
    Slide 21: Buy some Balloons (With colors selectively removed)

    Slide 22: Another Balloons seller (It just tells a story)
    You can try your own styles and bring the best photographer out of yourself. Always remember, it is not the tool which is used to click your photos, but it you who is more important.

    Happy Photography!

    Back to Toastmaster!

    (more…)

  • Blog Speed Breaker Update

    Blog Speed Breaker Update

    When I blogged/ declared/shouted from the mountaintop, that I was going to blog every single day this year, I was pretty sure that I won’t be able to do that.  *Wink* Life is too smart you know! Still, I wanted to try. So, barring few weekend breaks for leisure and life, I posted last on Jan 18th and disappeared.

    The first reason was that I wasn’t well. I had gone to Goa for 4 days and the change of weather from Goa to Bengaluru did nothing good to my sensitive nose and vulnerable throat. Secondly, I had some visitors at my home (The ILs) so I couldn’t blog at night. Thirdly, everything one does in life, has a very serious correlation with the mood one is in. Mood again is directly dependent on the health and well being of oneself and one who cares about. To summarise, some of my loved ones weren’t well. Moreover, I wasn’t even equipped in any way that I could do something about them. So, I did nothing about continuing with writing as I could do nothing about other’s health issues.

    But now everything has come back on track or as they say, I’ve understood that this is how it is going to be. People are eventually going to get better and life will move on.

    In short, I will try my best to continue with keeping writing alive. This blog post is just a means to get fingers acclimatize to the process again.

    We will return to regular programming soon. See you all (millions and millions of you readers) shortly.

  • How to look cool with cool Spectacles

    How to look cool with cool Spectacles

    Back in 2011, I wrote this: The World is Round. It was not only badly written obit for Steve Jobs but also very vague. Not that I have improved a great deal since then but I will go ahead and write another post about glasses.

    I have been wearing Glasses or Spectacles since 2001 as I suffer from myopia. Most others also suffer from this and they don’t know it but I mean that figuratively. I will digress if I go in that direction more. Coming back, my story of how they came into my life is kind of weird.

    Around that time, a Hindi Movie Kaho Na Pyaar Hai had released. That movie had Hrithik Roshan donning spectacles and probably for the first time a protagonist who could be said good looking, looked good with the glasses. Till then, rarely any Hero used to wear glasses. He somehow made wearing specs look cool and not come off as a nerd. So when I complained that I might need glasses, it was more so because of trying a new look for myself, instead of actual vision issues. Vision and Mission are to be ignored.

    http://www.filmfare.com/media/content/2016/May/11_1463052529_640x640.jpg
    http://www.filmfare.com/media/content/2016/May/11_1463052529_640x640.jpg Not the best image of course #teamKangana

    So, funnily, when I got my eyes checked, I got +0.25 as the number, or whatever the terminology is, for both the eyes. That’s hyperopia actually! The ophthalmologist said that I can skip using glasses and if I eat healthy, leafy and green veggies, soon my eyes would be 6/6 again. But I had to look good. I went to the Optician and got myself a pair.

    After a few months, when I got frustrated of wearing them and I had no hopes of looking like Hrithik, I went to get eyes checked again to see if I actually need them. That time, I was told that my eyesight actually requires something in the order of -0.50! <pause of comedy music>

    Since then, I have to wear glasses while driving, watching TV/Computer and in general. Now the number has further increased and I have to wear them most of the times. I should have eaten those healthy, leafy and green veggies more. After wearing them for more than 15-16 years, I thought that I had become sophisticated enough to switch to contact lenses now. Also, because, somehow I still feel that my face is incompatible with wearing glasses but living with what you are most uncomfortable with is what makes the character, they say. They only make me look more sophisticated which is kind of redundant.

    After trying the contact lenses for a day and putting them on and off a couple of times and failing miserably, I gave up. I have no patience to spend 1000 minutes in putting them on and taking them off every single day. People do it but they might have long-term plans about their lives. Not me!

    I shifted back to good old spectacles and I am satisfied with my looks with them because I stopped caring about it early in 2001 itself.

    But, the point of the post is none of the above. Sorry for wasting your precious time. Rather, I have to share 2 new kinds of glasses which are on the market watch nowadays.

    Sunglasses by Snapchat

    https://www.spectacles.com/uk/features/

    Snapchat made these sunglasses which have a camera inbuilt. You can make stories for your Snapchat, if you have an account, still. Or act like a funky futuristic but old James Bond from 1950s.

    Via https://medium.com/@zachlieberman/daily-sketches-in-2017-1b4234b0615d
    Via https://medium.com/@zachlieberman/daily-sketches-in-2017-1b4234b0615d

    The above is an epitome of redundancy.

    ThinOptics 

    Now, this is something Matrix-y. This company makes glasses which are so easy to wear that you will even forget that you have them on. Since I have failed with the contact lens, the next thing I want to fail with could be these. Check out their video on the link above.

    Google Glasses

    Hehe, no nothing to see here. This also failed to take off like Google+.

    That’s all folks. If you try the above innovations, kindly let me know your review so that I see if I look any better with them. Nobody has called me chashmish yet as I still don’t wear glasses all the time but some might have thought of saying.

    Photo Credits:

    Photo by mari lezhava on Unsplash

  • Shoot for the moon

    Shoot for the moon

    In case you have been following this blog lately and have noticed a break in the blogging streak so early, please note that I was out vacationing and all. So, kindly excuse. I said I will blog almost daily. 1-2 days off in between should be okay, I guess!

    A few days ago, I came across an article/ news that ISRO and Indus Moon Mission have parted ways in a not so happy manner which means that India’s first ever private moon mission and in fact India’s very first mission with a Lunar Land Rover is in danger of getting scrapped.

    This was heartbreaking. For those who are unfamiliar the Indus Moon Mission is a private firm based in Bengaluru which is competing in a brilliantly conceptualized Google Lunar XPrize contest.

    As per the contest:

    The competition’s $30 million prize purse will be awarded to teams who are able to land a privately funded rover on the moon, travel 500 meters, and transmit back high definition video and images.

    This is the future we see in the movies. Private firms competing to land their spacecraft on different planets.

    The deadline for this is March 31, 2018. But due to this fallout between Team Indus and ISRO, it seems bleak that India’s entry would have much chance, as of now. Fingers crossed. Not only that, PSLV of ISRO was also slated to carry another competitor of XPrize Japan’s HAKUTO.

    I have always envisioned our country (no sarcasm) as one which will always be at the forefront of space missions. Despite our economic conditions, I strongly believe that if we put aside some budget to aim for these gigantic scientific feats and put trust in our able team of scientists, it would always work in the end. For those who argue against this and put forward the notion of spending money only in uplifting poor should understand that the amount of inspiration a young poor kid can get by seeing their fellow countrymen sending things in outer space on a tight budget but with an unmistakable accuracy, that amount of inspiration is unfathomable and can lead to an amazing future generation. Each such mission could mean putting seeds of inspiration in young kids minds who would turn up and be the next Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.

    This setback for Indus Mission was quite a shocker as all these days, they were very much enthusiastic regarding this partnership made in heaven. However, things might not be that bad as Indus Team is still marching ahead with their plan and looking forward to another partner.

    It would have been doubly great with ISRO but if they are able to sustain and maintain their zeal, hopefully, they will shoot for the moon and hit the target (via a soft landing).

    I wish them the best and hope to write another congratulatory blog post after March 2018. Also, ISRO is planning for their own Moon Mission pretty soon as well. Kudos to them as well, as always.

    You may read more on Indus Moon Mission here:

    • https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/team-indus-the-first-indian-space-start-up-drops-out-of-moon-race-1797928?amp=1&akamai-rum=off&__twitter_impression=true
    • https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/isro-teamindus-deal-falls-apart-japanese-moon-mission-delayed/articleshow/62502748.cms
    • https://sputniknews.com/asia/201703021051195419-india-moon-mission/

    Update on Jan 24, 2018

  • Last Presidential Address

    Last Presidential Address

    The script for my last presidential address at my Toastmasters Club. I didn’t deliver it exactly as the script but you can still read it for free:

    Today is my last Presidential Address. Please don’t cry at the end of the speech. For the last 25 odd Toastmasters Meetings, I used to prepare something for each week.

    How many of you read the December 2017 edition of the Toastmasters Magazine? (How many of you know that there is a Toastmasters Magazine published monthly?)

    On the very first page, there’s a line by International President DTM Balraj Arunasalam, where he is quoting Mark Twain,

    “A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read”

    In the same way, he says that

    “A Toastmaster who won’t lead has no advantage over one who can’t lead”

    It means that if you have an opportunity to lead a group of people, for your and their betterment, you must grab that opportunity with both hands. As Robin Williams said in ‘Dead Poets Society’,

    “Carpe diem”

    First of all, I would like to state that Trailblazers Toastmasters Club is not my baby as in I wasn’t a charter member or part of the executive committee until January 2017. But, when I had joined it in June 2016, soon I did adopt it as my baby. I saw it as a place which had huge potential for me to grow as a person. It was a place where I could meet new people and develop my communication skills. I tried my best to capture the moments I had in the club. Over the course of last one and a half years, I have seen this club grow from a novice club to a sophisticated club now. We now have proper standards, practices, procedures, and processes to run the club. In the recently held elections, we not only got the 7 officers elected on time, 3 more people stood up and took the responsibility of Associate Officers.

    During my time as acting VP-Education, VP-Membership and then as President, with the help of the executive committee, we tried to do whatever I could to make the club beneficial to everyone. I hope that our efforts were useful to all the members. I said this in my Presidential Acceptance speech 6 months ago and I will say it again that if we take our role in Toastmasters a tad bit seriously and see it as an opportunity to help others, we can do wonders. I will share a small story about helping others which I had read in a book some time ago. I hope you see some lesson in it:

    In 1892, at Stanford University in the US, there were 2 poor students who were not able to pay their college fee. So they approached a pianist Paderewski to perform in their college. Paderewski was quite the superstar at those times. They thought that they would raise enough money from the tickets that they would be able to pay the pianist as well as pay their fee. They asked him to perform for $2000. He agreed and performed.

    But, they could raise only $1600 from the concert. With their heads hanging in shame, they went to the pianist and said that they will give the rest of $400 later when they will be able to pay for it. Currently, they said that they were not even able to pay tuition fees. So, they gave him a cheque for $400 and requested him to encash it later. Instead of shouting and scolding them, to their surprise, Paderewski told them that they don’t need to worry. He will not only deduct his fee for this concert but also agreed to pay their tuition fee for them.

    Years passed. It was the time for the First World War. The pianist Paderewski had now become the Prime Minister of Poland. Poland was ravaged due to the war and was in dire needs of food and ammunition. He approached the United States to help them. US President Hoover quickly sent food supplies and helped Poland during the war. When Paderewski went on to thank President Hoover, Hoover said that he needn’t thank him. He was just returning the favor. He said he was one of the 2 students whom Paderewski had helped a few years ago to pay their tuition fee.

    Think of your Toastmaster role as a role of not self-improvement but helping others. Improvement will happen automatically if you come to the meetings. By helping others, by doing small things, can have a huge impact on others lives. Like taking up roles in a Toastmasters meeting. Your role as Ah-Counter can help someone stutter less and become a better speaker. I could go on and on.

    Before I sign off as the president, I would just request all of you, the new officers and the members to try to help each other. I am always there to help. You just need to be proactive and ask for help. You just need to capture the moment before it is too late. You can take my adopted baby now and help it grow more into an awesome person in the future.

    (more…)

  • Saying Thanks

    Saying Thanks

    This question might sound rhetorical but please tell me how many of you buy things online?

    Have you read the order confirmation email when you receive it? Doesn’t it sound so automated and without any emotion right?

    There was/is a company which used to sell CDs online. When someone used to order CDs, they used to send the confirmation email like this:

    Thanks for your order with CD Baby!

    Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow. A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing. Our world-renowned packing specialist lit a local artisan candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy. We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved “Bon Voyage!” to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day.

    We hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. In commemoration, we have placed your picture on our wall as “Customer of the Year.” We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

    Thank you, thank you, thank you!

    Sigh…

    We miss you already. We’ll be right here at store.cdbaby.com patiently awaiting your return.

    Noticed the difference? See in whatever way you connect with people, it might change their perception of you and vice versa. I had read this in Tools of Titans in the profile of Derek Sivers. I thought this email confirmation story might have been then in the past but apparently, it is still on.

    How many times have today you said Thank You to someone with honesty? When was the last time, you were said thank you by someone else which was genuinely heartfelt? The thank you which genuinely moved you?

    Thank you are just 2 small words which, if said genuinely, mean a whole lot to someone.

    In my email signature, it always used to be ‘Warm regards’ or ‘Thanks’. But I saw one colleague of mine who had the longest 2 words ever: ‘Thank You’ for his signature. If you read it a couple of times, it would genuinely appear better than our usual stock replies.

    I changed mine to ‘Thank You’ as well. When I am actually not thankful, I make it back to post-millennial ‘ty’.

    Featured Photo on Visual Hunt