When Facebook becomes a window to the world

I was drawn into Facebook partly for personal and partly for official reasons. In fact, I began looking seriously at social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin to actually look at ways to promote the sites I am working for. Initially, I too had a Facebook page with updates done once in a while and basically to further share some of the stories that Commodity Online (www.commodityonline.com), Bulliion Street (www.bullionstreet.com) published.

But now thanks to internet on mobile and my desire to keep up with what my friends and relatives are doing, I now check FB several times a day. Infact, when a small beep comes on my mobile signalling an FB update or notification I am tempted to immediately look into it- Just to find how others have responded to a funny post that I put or an interesting comment or a post I shared.

Still more as an editor who needs to keep track of Indian economy, global economy, markets and commodities in particular, FB as emerged as the best medium. You just need to like a lot of news sites across the world and immediately you have alerts of the best possible news and analysis published anywhere in the world. Some of my recent column ideas emerged from FB posts shared by my friends and some news breaks put by other news media sites.

Now waiting for your turn at a hair saloon, at a doctor's clinic or in any other place is no longer tiring as long as you have net connectivity on your mobile. Whatsapp continues to provide a medium for private communication and among groups. Some of the best and worst jokes, photos and videos are now being shared on Whatsapp.

Infact, when I have to communicate something even if it's a joke or an advice with my son, I find Whatsapp to be a better medium.Sometimes, when multiple messages appear on Whatsapp, Hangouts, Messenger apart from email reminders, your multi-tasking abilities will be put to test. (I sometimes envy my wife Aswathy who has recently attained a sort of stardom after becoming a Zumba fitness trainer and wellness-enthusiast as her mobile is never silent- with f\ans and well wishers wanting to chat and inundated with friend requests from across the globe. And this goes on well into the night until she switches off her data connection!!) As with most stars and celebrites, I told her she may well have to have a public FB profile that's accessible and the other that's private!!

As with any other medium, there are several reports of cyber crimes happening in social media and that's only to be expected with most of the victims being hapless girls and women. However, I feel our cyber laws are sufficiently well drafted to bring all such people to book but more importantly the police now employ the most sophisticated cyber solutions to frame a criminal.

Medium for positive thoughts
FB has also now become a medium for sharing positive thoughts and quotes from scriptures, religious books, philosophers, scientists like Abdul Kalam and gurus such as Sri Sri Ravishankar. It also becomes a vibrant medium to share human interest stories from across the world. Like this one I just read: A Chinese youth whose love proposal was turned down seven years ago by a girl saying he didn't have money to buy two movie tickets and has now emerged rich and bought the entire first day's ticket of a recently released movie. The youth said her former lover called her on hearing this news but was in no position to rekindle the relationship!!!

Or the interesting news that a man in Mumbai filed for a divorce saying his wife had put on weight. However, the Mumbai High Court turned down the plea saying it was not sufficient grounds for divorce.

On a personal note, birthdays, anniversaries, achievements are all for sharing on FB and so is mundane every day activities. For some, a favourite past time is changing their profile picture and cover photo every now and then.

A time-pass
It may appear that most of the activity in social media is being pursued just to while away time but that doesn't mean FB or Twitter can't be used creatively. In fact many politicians let known their views on a variety of topics through twitter and FB. For several others out there in cyberspace but not in FB or inactive in FB, I would only recommend to use these media creatively for their own benefit- businesses are realising so should individuals.

Power Point losing charm as a presentation tool

Thinking of making a Power Point to brighten your presentation before a large audience? Think twice. I have sat through many presentations solely backed by Power Point and found it disgusting. I think it could be the case with most people in the audience.

Last week, our company itself had an investors program in Kochi and speaker-after-speaker tried to use Power Point but with little effect. Some of the tables and points were hardly legible to an audience sitting in the middle to back of the auditorium. Even those sitting in the front rows had to struggle to see the fine print.

I think the problem crops up due to lack of knowledge on how to use Power Point in the first palce.

If you clutter your presentation with too much bullet points, each sentence appears smaller for the audience and hence has to take a lot of strain reading it.

If you are showing data in a table, and if it contains too many columns and rows, it's again a recipe for disaster. Most people may not be able to grasp the figures and understand your argument related to it.

I think Power Point works well in a small audience of 10-12 people in a discussion room provided you don't clutter it with too much words and data.

Pictures and video in Power Point can be effective provided it is very relevant to what you are talking about.Here again, clarity is a must-- if it's downloaded from You Tube or Google, poor resolutiion can spoil the show.

However, I have found many experts who don't use the Power Point at all gaining attention of the audience and with a little bit of humour, they can really keep the audience enthralled.

The benefits of PowerPoint are continuously debated. The term "PowerPoint hell" has been coined for long, tedious PowerPoint presentations that bore the audience, according to Wikipedia.

These points taken from WikiHow are worth noting:

-Don't use too much text in one template. Otherwise it would look too crowded and strenuous to the eyes. Not to mention boring.
-Don't use too many special effects as it can get distracting and annoying.
-Remember the more objects embedded in a PowerPoint, the larger the file. So if you're planning on saving it on a disk, you have to keep the file small unless saving the file on a thumb drive (jump drive) or burning it on CD.

Microsoft Power Point was launched officially on May 22, 1990, as part of Microsoft Office suite.It no doubt helps in creating presentations in no time compared to slides of yesteryears projected on slide projectors which consumed a lot of time and energy to produce. Properly used slide projectors had much more clarity and effectiveness to take the message across to the audience.

India's professional education: Are we Engineering a disaster?

My son now in 10th Std went for a foundation course for IIT-JEE while he was in 8th Std but gave it up after a year.

Many of his friends must be continuing it possibly on parental pressure. India has the largest workforce of engineers thanks to the proliferation of engineering colleges.

I met Arun, a Professor of Engineering while on my way to Chennai last week. He said Tamilnadu has about 500 or more engineering colleges of which only 100 may be of good quality.

When companies do recruitment of fresh engineering grads, they find only one-fifth of them are employable- the rest may not make it to their dream job and end up as clerks or in lowly paid jobs. The system of ranking of colleges by universities themselves has resulted in students and managements focussed on academic merits and not on practical knowledge or innovation, he said.

The IT boom, Y2K, offshore software development all led to a huge requirement of technical talent but now there seems to be an oversupply. This is the effect of Cobweb Theorem at work. Now upto 80,000 seats go vacant in Tamilnadu every year as neighbouring Kerala has also started self-financing colleges.

According to Cobweb theorem in economics, some industries such as education, plantation will attract more investors or participants based on current demand. But as more people start entering the industry, in course of time there will be oversupply or the industry prospects itself may diminish due to various factors. A new potential industry may have evolved by that time, but the pass-outs are not equipped for such a scenario.

Hence there is no reason why people should still run after engineering seats. It was heartening to meet Mr Vijayan Menon today morning on our return trip from Chennai, who has let his daughter to take a break after plus 2, do English orientation programmes and then decide future course of action next year. The other day we met Sucheta Pal, a leading Zumba fitness trainer in Chennai who quit a well-paid job at TCS to pursue her heart's passion- dance and fitness. The fact that her electrical and electronics engineering degree has gone waste or that her initial work in the engineering industry has gone waste did not deter her from plunging into a totally new career.

One of may old friends at college, who has now become an entrepreneur after doing his engineering degree asked me "why you also want your son to join the  engineering bandwagon?"  Surely, the engineers themselves are feeling engineering as a discipline is losing charm.

Earlier we had the screw driver technology- India colloborated with leading Japan, Korean, US firms to get technology and bring semi-knocked down (SKD) or completely knocked down (CKD) kits, assemble them and sell in their own brand.But now manufactures are getting the entire fabrication done in China which is the manufacturing hub of the world.

So why have such a huge engineering work force unless we are investing heavily in R&D that can be patented and sold abroad?. Arun said the sad part is that entrepreneurship is not promoted in the country. The techies who have bright ideas end up plodding all their lives in companies run by lesser educated people who can't understand the importance of technology.

He said there are lot of opportunities in the media industry which now lacks talent but awareness on this is lacking. Or in e-commerce and services sectors that requires a little of entrepreneurship and risk taking abilities.

That's why the title to this blog: Are we engineering a disaster? I remember people like Abdul Kalam and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who have campaigned for more funds for basic scientific research and more courses in basic science which is the need of the hour for India.

Tailpiece: In India, it is not uncommon for children to be forced into certain courses much to their dislike. My wife who had a passion for dance and home science ended up doing pharmacy but has now found her passion in Zumba and has become a qualified  instructor. Shouldn't we leave our children alone to pursue their passions or should we force something that appears to have good job potential?

Animal instinct in Rape-is it real?

There is a belief that animal instincts are base and man has evolved into higher realms of thought and spiritual thinking. Is there any basis for condemning rape as animal instinct and branding it in-human? Is there any evidence to show a male lion will pounce on the female without its consent or for that matter a dog. Zoologists have observed animals do have mating seasons when they tend to become aggressive. That's the time when males fight it out with each other to secure the company of females and not to hurt them.

On the other hand homo sapiens do not have a particular mating season and is fertile throughout the year.
I believe there are reasons to conclude rape is more a manly instinct and is not unique to animals. In many societies, there are not many opportunities for boys and girls to develop good friendship at a young age. We still have 'boys only' and 'girls only' school and even in co-ed schools like the one I studied, a boy talking talking to a girl was most often a taboo.

In the absence of healthy friendships between the sexes, both boys and girls could be overly influenced by half-baked knowledge of peers, pornographic books and videos, come to accept what ever is shared between friends. And they don't discuss this with knowledgeable persons or counsellors to verify whether what they have heard because that culture is alien to us.

If there are large number of rapes still happening after the Delhi incident and consequent punishment of offenders, there is something basically wrong with the way woman are seen and respected in Indian society.

That's why Amanda found it easier to travel alone in Pakistan than India or Bangladesh. In Indian buses, a woman is ever under threat of creeping fingers and lewd looks.(A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout, global adventures of a lady backpacker tourist)

I feel women and men do have their unique strengths and weaknesses. Strict laws alone can't prevent rapes- in Gulf countries the genitals of rapists are cut off in public and in the presence of the victim and in most cases in India-life imprisonment to death penalty awaits the sinners.

A more humane approach to healthier relationships would require a radical change in our thoughts and outlook. Boys should be told to have respect for girls-their feelings, security and independence. Girls should be made more bold and be ready to fight any attack on themselves and more importantly work towards healthier relationships in marriage.

If women are seen as mere sex objects, who's to be blamed? Man, provocative women or a male chauvinistic society. Can't we make women both bold and beautiful?

Tailpiece
A large number of rapes happen within marriages and victims are unable to speak out. Recently, the Delhi High Court ruled that there is no question of rape in a legitimised relationship and hence it won't entertain such cases. May be the court felt there could be an enormity of such cases and hence didn't want to put further strains on judiciary.