Be Prepared for your Social Media Presence !

Social Media is here to stay as more companies join the band wagon every day, many companies believe the first step in Social Media is to create their company presence with a  Facebook Page, Twitter Handle, LinkedIn company page, Pinterest presence and finally a Google Plus+ presence and maybe a few more to be safe !

Most companies do not have a social media strategy or a social media management agenda or team, most of the social media management is outsourced to ad agencies or social media specialists. Companies need to understand  they are best equipped to respond and support their customer through social media; customer engagement is too valuable to be outsourced ?

Business could use the services of social media strategists who can help them with their campaign and build a road map for their social media presence and  so train their team to handle social media in real time.

Companies who do not handle social media in real time are doomed and will stand  out as non-customer focused companies.

The Toddy Tapper - Social Media is Heady but Be Prepared !

The CEO must lead the social media charge with a Twitter handle and a blog page at the minimum, CEO's could learn from Sir Richard Branson  (@richardbranson) who has a great social media presence. 

Social media affects your company in multitude ways and is unforgiving, one social media gaffe could  be the death knell for your company. Companies need to understand that social media is  double edged sword, it can hurt and maim with equal ease as it can conquer and subjugate customers.

To get your social media strategy right, start in small increments, big bang does not work for social media, maybe start with a Facebook Page and Twitter handle, tend it well like a good gardener and reap the harvest in abundance. Like a good gardener you must know what to plant, when to harvest and when to leave the land fallow for best outcome of your social media strategy.

Be Prepared before you venture into social media; Be ever watchful like a good gardener and enjoy the benefits of your Social Media Presence!

The Milk man in Ole Bangalore

When Bangalore was still a sleepy town surrounded by villages, the villagers would supply the Bangalorean's their household needs.
One of them was the Milk man who would brave the cold weather and dew and land with his cow every morning to supply fresh milk for our household.
The milkman had  a designated area inside our garden near the gate where he would tether his cow, and if there was a calf it would also accompany its mother.
The cow would make itself at home and bless the patch of garden with its ablutions for the day of large quantum of urine and a generous quantum of cow dung.
and the area for the cow in the garden used to be quite a mess after the cow and milkman left.
The ritual was simple the milk man would start milking the cow after one of us had verified that his milking jar did not contain water,
but he had a trick, he would have the water in the jar and while feigning to throw it out he would always retain some water in it.
Someone had to keep an eye on the milkman at work and make sure he did not add water and that his container was empty before milking the cow.
But the milkman would still take a chance of adding water, since that was essential in his enterprise of supplying fresh milk.
There was a small clump of bushes where he tethered his cow while milking and he would always have a bottle of water ready there, though his claim was|
it was to clean the udders of the cow, but whenever he got a chance it was added to the milk.
He would patiently milk the cow and after milking the cow he would measure it in his half liter aluminium measure and here again he had a few tricks up his sleeves.
The milkman  had a way of handling the measure so that there was residual milk in the measure and all of it was not poured into the vessel provided for collecting the milk.
If there was any excess milk he would take away in a container which he always carried with him.
The milkman's haste was in emptying the vessel before milking the cow and also while measuring the milk, when he milked the cow he was in no hurry since he was
waiting to add water if ever he got a chance or the person given the job to keep an eye on him was distracted.
Over the years the milkman too moved on and my mother switched over to dairy milk which was half toned, full toned and one of the children had the honor
of stepping out in the  cold morning to buy the bottles from the milk booth which used be built with Aluminium sheets.
It was a challenge to get us to venture in the cold, so the milkman thrived for many years supplying fresh milk straight from the udders of the cow, with some
water added whenever the opportunity presented itself.
The milkman is a relic of the ole Bangalore which was unhurried and based on relationships, but today the city races on in a mad rush leading to nowhere and milk
booths have been replaced with malls with tetra pack milk which you can store for months.

Do you have a Snowden in your Organization?

As information technology becomes the core engine for Business the Board needs to review their understanding of the Risks posed by your team members.

It is clear today that Snowden though a low ranking officer in the NSA he was able to snoop and access classified data by using free ware tools.  When someone does the same to your organizations digital assets it will have grave repercussions on your business and could make it bankrupt. 

In one organization a few employees were monitoring email and were aware of management decisions and thoughts exchanged on email by the leadership of  including internal matters relating to finance, human resources and other confidential information. The leadership was clueless about the risk posed to the organization by this simple act of leakage of email. 

Who is the Snowden in this turbaned Group !

Most Boards and leadership teams allow the IT team to sit in an ivory tower little understanding their activities, they consider the IT team as a set of elves they need to deal with to give their wish list and it would be done.  Most leadership teams are happy with their collaboration tools and operational applications working for them, most often the CFO is the leader who interacts with the IT team and in many companies is also head of IT.  The CFO is most times is least qualified to understand the technology risks and the exposure of the organization from its IT team.

With cloud computing and large bandwidths large tranches of information can be moved from your organizations digital environment. 

In a world where digital tools are essential for business, it is time that the leadership and board woke up to the risk and realities of having  a Snowden clone in your team. This calls for introspection in hiring and also managing their teams and also a better understanding of information management. 

You can begin by sanitizing the entire team including outsourced resources, but you must also be vigorous and objective with your own  IT team.  Though there may objections to this exercise it is essential for the well being of your organizations digital assets to be protected and secured. 

How do you begin, the first step in this process is educate the Leadership Team and the Board on the need for weeding out Snowden's in your organization. This could be led by the Chief Risk Officer of the organization assisted by Human Resources Department. If you do not have the expertise you can take the help of experts who can help you with this activity. 

All the best in weeding out the Snowden in your organization.   

   

The Vegetable Vendor - Kai-Amma - in Ole Bangalore

When Bangalore was still a sleepy town surrounded by  villages, the villagers  would supply the Bangaloreans their household needs.

One of them was the Vegetable Vendor - KaiAmma ( Kai - Vegetable,  Amma- Lady) .

Kai Amma was a shrewd woman from a village known as Lingarajapuram, today a suburb or Bangalore.

She would take the first BTS - Bangalore Transport Service bus and reach the City Market in Town where she would buy the vegetables for the day and fill her round basket made of cane.

She would return with a full Basket of Vegetables for sale, normally she used to come to my home during the end of her days efforts and had a great rapport with my mother.

My mother would listen to her challenges in managing a brood of kids and as the main bread winner of her family and the mother she was also ambitious for the future of her children and wanted them to be educated and comfortable. Her wish was that her children did not have to carry the heavy basket to earn their daily bread.

Kai-Amma was a great friend of mine and would humour me while she waited for my mother, she would always give me some green vegetables which I could eat, my favourite being pea pods.  She would be tired and was glad that she could rest in the shade of our veranda unhindered.

She was a persuasive sales woman and would normally leave my home with an empty basket thanks to my mother's kindness.

She had in her basket a weighing balance and a collection of weights and stones to weigh the vegetables. When there was any special requirement of vegetables she would bring them from the market for my mother.



The interesting sales technique of kai-amma was  she was a person in no hurry to conclude the sale, plus she had the habit of giving something more then what you bought as gratuity.  She was also willing to discount on the price if she wanted to empty here basket and go home to her family. She would choose  the customers to whom she sold her vegetables and did not visit every home on the street. Neither did she shout like other vendors who sold vegetables and fruits, she did it in a dignified and wonderful manner, knowing that her loyal customers would ensure an empty basket for the day.

The vegetables were fresh, clean, edible and tasty and seasonal, she had a knack of arranging her basket so that the weight was equally distributed to make it easy for her to carry the basket on her head.

Her grit and determination ensured that all her children did well in life and not one of them had to sell vegetables from door to door for a living.

She was my first encounter with a women entrepreneur, Kai-amma must have died many years ago, but her personality and determination still lingers in my memory  and  I  wanted to share it in this blog post.