If you are launching a new website or app, you should have a distribution strategy beyond just “people will love it and tell their friends about it”. Your strategy should probably involve at least one major platform. And you should think through the distribution characteristics of the platform and decide if they are a good fit for your product and how best to mitigate the risks.

So simple but so true. This becomes more important when you think you have the coolest idea for your web service or app and people are going to love it and you don’t need any marketing efforts. Yes, people will love it but only when they can get to know about your website or your mobile app. In this cluttered world have a strategy that till be more than word of mouth marketing.

Talking about marketing, Seth Godin’s recent post is just in time as well.

As a philosopher Socrates once said, the unexamined life is not worth living. But the opposite is also true. The unloved life is not worth examining. – Swami Beyondananda

These are some of the questions you might have heard or asked someone at some stage or at least wondered about. I definitely get asked some of these questions [or at least get the looks as if someone is begging for a response or irritated with my activities on Facebook or Twitter].
This blog post is an attempt to answer the question as to why I use Facebook and Twitter and why I use the way I do. I will keep this post as a work in progress post and may update the content or add to it at a future date if I can add anything or more value.
I jump on technology and web services bandwagon even if I have slight interest. Key things for me are:

1. I am curios and want to find out more
2. I want to learn more about the technology and how it is going to impact/improve my life and want to get in early
3. I want to learn about the business model and the motivation behind the web service and the future possibilities

I remember trying to sign up for Facebook when it was only allowing University email holders and this week I finished 5 years as a Twitter member.

5 years spent as a Twitter member

To me Facebook is more personal and the core element of the service to is the connection with my local and overseas friends and make them part of my life and be a part of their life. Twitter on the other hand is a firehose of information, knowledge and entertainment that I can dive in anytime I want or need to.

So here are the reasons why I use Facebook and Twitter service and I spent the time I do:

Be Myself

Photo Credit -Dani Vazquez on Flickr

On both Facebook and Twitter, I can be myself. I don’t have to pretend what I am not and express my views without worrying too much if people will like it or not. If they don’t they are free to express their views, ignore me or worse unfollow me.

Connections

I am a people’s person and like to be connected. Bonding more with existing connections and creating new links. Without Facebook I won’t have found all the old school and college connections that I have found or at least there was no easy way for me to make them part of my life in the way they are today.

Photo Credit - jk+too on Flickr

Using this tools I get a chance to connect with my existing friends in the way traditional get togethers do not allow for. Facebook allows me to witness aspects and qualities of my friends which  is not very apparent through face to face meetings. I get the opportunity to see more emotional and human aspect of them. Using Twitter and Facebook I get an opportunity to tap in to personalities  that would be difficult to connect with otherwise. Read this as connecting to writers, superstars, artists,  CEO’s and founders of the companies. How else do you propose to easily tap into the likes of Big B, Tom Peters and Rajesh Shetty and engage with them?

Getting to know my friends and contacts

Because of Facebook and Twitter I know much about what my friends are and the choices they stand for. Now I have to assume less.

Motivation

So my friends and contacts are supportive. I can get motivation and support when I need it the most. Guess what, this is most of the time genuine support from the people who like me. When I get more likes and retweets to my posts, pictures I get motivation to post more often and I have done that consistently.

Learnings

I get to learn a lot of other people.

I have committed to life long learning. In this fast paced race where time is less and subjects are more, I can tap into the vast knowledge pool from Twitter and learn and learn quick from the people and ideas and resources shared on the service. Apart from my time, most of the learnings I receive are free. Where else can you expect to learn from the experts for free?

Photo Credit - mendhak on Flickr

In my bid to constantly learn from other people and their experiences, one thing that Facebook and Twitter has helped me big time is to learn more about myself. Through self observation and observing my own interactions over time, I am learning more about myself.

Identify and possibly eliminate weakness

At times through observations and self observations, it is easy to identify and possibly eliminate a weakness when seen  in a a person other than you. Facebook and Twitter both have helped me in this. Again I can become my own critique and improve on myself.

Correct my own assumptions and perceptions

I am a strong believer that by myself I will have a limited understanding of matters of this world and will have a limited perception of the events that interests me and the things that I am interested in. Through interacting with people at a national and international level on both the platforms it has helped me correct my own assumptions onto matters and for better changed/improved my perceptions of a lot of things. An recent example of this would be I corrected some of my own basic assumptions about the interest rates and economy in Australia.

Getting answers to the questions when I need answers

Google is good for searching but Facebook and Twitter assist  me in getting personalised answers. The people on these services know me and when I ask a question, they will give me a personalised answer. I ask from spiritual to shopping related questions and a lot of nonsense questions and the answers I get it from the people who know me.

Getting priority access

Ah, did I tell how much I like to live no the cutting edge! I need access to a service, beta software etc, all I need to do is shout out on Twitter and a good person on it will respond to my request. Recently I wanted to trial out Bitcasa sooner than getting my turn on Bitcasa’s waiting list, I requested for it and I received the invite. At the same time, if I got something that people want, I can provide them access as well.

Exploration of ideas and subjects

Through reading and interacting on Facebook and Twitter, I have read and learnt a lot and as a result this has allowed me to identify ideas and opportunities [what I do with them is for another post]. Sometimes there are couple of times in a day when I have my eureka moments.

One of the common things I hear about Facebook and Twitter is the networking factor. My experience tells me that it is not about the network creation but interactions. Do generate awesome interactions and provide value to myself and the person interacting. When one does a lot of these, networks are formed anyway!

What are your thoughts? What are your reasons for using Facebook and Twitter?  Or the reasons for not using Facebook or Twitter?

Battling with people to keep our ego’s satisfied causes a lot of pain and grief both in the short and long term. It makes us restless.  It annoys us and makes us angry. Maturity is in first accepting the people and celebrating the fact that they are what they are.

Celebrate with people for who they are rather than who they are not. No one is ever going to be who you want that person to be.

Once you truly accept this, dealing with that person/group/organisation will become easier. Don’t accept this and you will be constantly fighting and blaming and tearing each other.

Don’t Cry to Win, Try to Win

These were my words to my 4 year old daughter who started crying as she did not become the ‘king’ by finishing her dinner first. The competition was about finishing up the meal first and the person who does that becomes a ‘king’. While I was trying to match her pace and was eating slowly, at some stage she let her efforts go down and incorrectly  assumed that she can be winner by default all the time for just playing.

As I uttered these words, I realised that not only children but adults too cry when they don’t win. Winning can have many meanings but to put it simply in this context, when something does not go as per the wishful thinking of the person. The crying is in the form of abusing the system, authorities, seniors, blaming fate etc. Just because of wishful thinking, does not make anyone a winner by default. The person under this wrong impression most probably does to win and starts crying. To win, people need to try first, take action and that too bold actions.

Even following this mantra is no guarantee that you will win, but at least you know that you tried. The people involved will also know that you tried and  just not crying of failure on your wishful thinking. That is what makes a difference.

If you make crying your strategy to win whatever you are trying to win, it may work for one time or two but eventually people will get sick of it and leave their goodness hat aside . And there is a name for such people – Crybabies.

I hope you always find a reason to smile

It made me think. Yes, we need to be optimistic in life and from good or bad events, we need a reason to smile everyday. We need to be grateful for what we have and for what we don’t have today. But after providing ourselves a reason to smile everyday, won’t it be great if we

Give someone a reason to smile

At times I feel as if people have forgotten to smile and laugh. Look around you in offices, in trains and buses, in cars, when meeting someone face to face, how many genuine smiling faces do you see? And I genuinely hope that there is a bigger number here. Make someone smile. I can count on at least two people that make me smile everyday and that too a genuine one. My 4 year old daughter and my 16 month old son. No matter how many day has been, they give me a reason to smile.

Smile yourself and make some else smile.

People in Customer Service should know that they can give each person they deal with a reason to smile and they can do it by providing the best service possible. By making dealing with them as painless as possible. Receptionists can give a person reason to smile by providing a really warm welcome on the phone or face to face. I can provide my manager a reason to smile by performing my best and making him look better. Prime minister can give people reason to smile by following up on their promises and making people proud of their decision to vote for them.

And I have a reason to smile everyday and thank God for the lovely family I have.

This story is of Joe. Joe was a busy and hardworking immigrant working in Australia. He worked hard climbing the corporate ladder and was a shining star in his eyes and eyes of his peers. One day while in a meeting he gets a call from an unknown number. He ignores it. After seeing someone desperately call for 5 times, he finally answers the call. “Hello, Joe speaking!” He hears a question from the other end “How are you son?” in a slow but firm voice.

“Oh mother, I am good. I am in a meeting, will call you back in few minutes”, said Joe and disconnected the call and continued with his meeting.

Next day, in the afternoon he gets a call from unknown number again. He answers and before the person on the other end can finish saying something, he blurts “Ahhh, I am busy right now, will call you back soon” and disconnects the call.

After two days, when he checks in to his Facebook account, he see a lot of wall posts and private messages. One message said,  ”Sorry for your loss Joe”, another read “Heart felt condolences. Your father was a good man. RIP.” The sky crashed on Joe and he felt as if lights have been turned off and he’s sitting in complete darkness. He immediately realised that why his mother called him twice in two days and that he has not returned her call yet. He visualised his mother walking 3 kilometres just to make the phone call from her village without phone lines or mobile phones. He had neither words nor excuses. It was already too late.

He later finds out that the first call he received was when his father became really sick and was still alive and second call was when his father left this world.

Image credit to Fazen @Flickr

This is a tragic story. I can only begin to imagine that what would Joe go through for the rest of his life. There are few lessons from this story but the important and simple lesson being “Call Back” when you said you will. When you promise someone that you will call back or sent an email, do so and do it as promised. Make it a matter of discipline.  Make it a matter of choice and do it every time.

You never know how desperately someone is waiting for your call or the information that you can provide. You might not understand completely how much your loved ones miss you and want to hear back from you. Keep on your words on calling back.

I have to admit that I am no saint at this and I miss sometimes calling people back, but I am constantly working on it. Do you call back? Do you do it even more when you don’t need anything from the person at the other end?

This post is part of Improve Your World series of posts and this is post #3  for year 2012.

Allowing ourselves to generate idea is easy compared to hear other people talk about their ideas. I see this a lot in meeting rooms and offices. An energetic and enthusiastic person comes up with a hot idea on what to do on the project/next bbq or something else and the manager or one of the colleagues would be prompt to intervene and shot the idea or cut it short. Focus is important, but don’t kill the idea. Neither your’s or someone else’s.

Next time when someone proposes an idea, acknowledge the idea and if it is not the appropriate time and the place to discuss it, park it with an aim to come back to discuss that idea further. Rather than just cutting the person in the middle of her sentence and the idea off, give an appropriate reasoning. Add something to the idea that will make it work. Let the creative juices flow within yourself and others.

When you think of an idea next time, rather than just ignoring the idea, acknowledge it. This will allow your brain to bake the idea in your subconscious mind.

I think of myself as an ideas person and I get loads of them. What I have learn’t over the years is not to shut my mind up when ideas are popping. I receive them, write them/note them/record them and then move on with my current activity. I have allowed my mind to keep thinking and sometimes out of the box.

Knowledge is Power

Similarly we know that Knowledge is Power. Having the right information at the right time empowers us in making the right decisions and coming to appropriate conclusions. One way we can get this knowledge is consuming the right information. But consuming data randomly and over indulgence of information without focus can confuse us, distract us and does not assist in achieving results.

To improve your world in 2012, have some kind of diet routine for the information that you consume. Go on an information diet. Once you form your routine and can feel the benefits for yourself, share the concept of information diet with others.

Information is everywhere around us and we consume information through TV, books, Internet, our music players, e-readers, talking, newspapers, tablet devices, games etc. It is only going to benefit us if we selectively consume the information that is going to benefit us in the near and long term.

By the way, do you remember all the YouTube videos and sports scores that you watched last week, or for that matter yesterday?

This post is part of Improve Your World series of posts and this is post #1 for year 2012.

The image above is one of my favourites from what I have seen so far and that I will remember for a while. Although I can count the number of print books that I buy in a year on one hand now [buy loads of digital books], I love the fact that my study has a bookshelf full of books [well it was full till last week, when I did a spring clean up to bring in more books this year].

Someday I will show you my digital bookshelves on iBooks and Kindle.

What does your bookshelf porn look like?

Over the years I have realised that it is the small actions/ideas/habits (good and bad) that have made a lasting impact on my life. For something to stick and made a lasting effect, I need to practice it and practice it regularly. To achieve this I either make a mental note or document these actions/ideas/habits in various formats – from post-it notes to journals to making it part of my daily routine.

Moving forward, I am going to document the matters that improve my world on this blog and share it with the readers as well.

I would encourage readers of this blog to add to the dialogue by telling things that have improved your life. Do this by either commenting here or posting your ideas on your blog/Twitter/Facebook feed. I am going to use the hashtag #IYW.

Sincerely looking forward to learning more.

Motivation vs. Doing

People are motivated for the most part, but they just don’t do it! Motivated by Peter Bregman’s article.

I wish all follow up on this true story when they become sad. For me, I try it to my best.

“For of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest of these, ‘It might have been.’ “~ John Greenleaf Whittier

January 4, 2012 8:31 PM via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@TejasTPatel

Tejas Patel

This quote sums up a lot of frustration that individuals and businesses have. I know and you might remember the times when someone said ” If I had … it could have been …” or “Only if I had done this sooner then ….”. So what is the plan for this year? Power yourselves to follow up on your dreams and empower others to fulfil their dreams.