Wonderful Quotes

Hey please feel free to send in quotes that you like, so that we can build a reservoir of some wonderful quotes out here:

"Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well."
~ John W. गर्द्नेर

The way to achieve excellence and perfection is through experience. And experience is filled with mistakes. If it were not, we would not learn very much from it.

It is admirable to aspire to perfection, but foolish indeed to expect that it will come quickly or without mistakes. It certainly pays to expect the best of yourself. It also pays to be realistic and patient.

Perfection in any endeavour is an aiming point, not a starting point. Let the desire for it push you, but don't let the absence of it stop you. If you're ever going to get anything done, you must start somewhere. More specifically, you must start where you are.

Even in our world of instant fortunes, instant communication and instant gratification, it is still true that anything of true and lasting value takes time and effort. Aim for perfection, and follow the less-than-perfect road that will get you there.
~ Ralph Marston

Dare to Dream...

People display a magical quality the moment they decide to fulfill a compelling vision of the future. An unmistakable aura of enthusiasm surrounds them.

Their eyes begin to sparkle and their entire posture changes. Their vocal inflection becomes lively, and they feel the change. They feel it because the magic is inside of them. They feel intention, resolve, and faith in their ability.

James Allen (1864-1912), wrote, "Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be. Your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil."

Can you remember a moment when a dream first came to life within your heart and mind? Perhaps you have a new dream tugging at you now—a desire that you cannot forsake.

If so, focus your attention on your vision. You have the first ingredient for achievement: a dream. It's all you need to start with—a blueprint for the future.

Then do not ever quit. Move forward, undeterred by circumstances and obstacles.

The future you create, is the future you dare to dream.

~ Steve Brunkhorst

Beyond Oneself….

Yesterday I saw this movie U Me n Hum starring Kajol and Ajay Devgan. So, what’s the big deal about watching a movie? Well I also saw another short film of about 30 mins which is a Telgu movie and is revolving around two friends who collect waste and obsolete products from the street. So am I trying to boast that I managed to watch two movies yesterday?

I guess a big NO. Then what’s the fuss about? Read on…..

What moved me is the fact that both the movies were based around the central theme to look beyond oneself. Generally, we are so lost in ourselves that we really don’t want to bother ourselves with problems and sufferings associated with another person, especially if we don’t know that person.

In U me n HUM, they showed that how kajol, Ajay’s wife, suffers from Alzheimer and with the onset of each day, how her situation becomes worse. Poor Ajay feels that it’s too difficult for him to take care of Kajol at home and their child is unsecured in her custody. So he takes her to a private clinic where she can get better treatment. Mind you I am not saying that he doesn’t love her, however, somewhere ‘ME’ becomes bigger than ‘U’ unintentionally. Let me not complicate it, in short a lot of times we feel that though we love a person, it will be difficult for us to take care of him/her due to the disease or age, however, we forget that what that person needs apart from medications is the support of the near and dear ones. It will be difficult to manage the show, however, once we can let our central tendency to think of ourselves aside and think from the other person’s point of view then we shall be able to make some headway in our relations.

Coming to the other movie, two boys who are very good friends and are living in a dilapidated condition, finds a little girl who has no one of her own. One of the boys whose name is Kachra feels that he should not leave the girl alone like how they were left alone in life in filth. He wants her to go to school and live a normal life; however, his friend is skeptic about them being able to manage her living, education and food expenses. Kachra feels that one needs to look beyond the cocoon of self comfort and try to do our best for the happiness of others, often we forge close relations with people we never knew from birth.

To be precise, what I learnt from these movies is to look beyond ourselves and constantly increase the diameter of the circle of quality relations in our lives and now onwards, will atleast make an attempt to look beyond myself to help another individual. I guess that’s the least we can do to safeguard humanity on this planet.

Food Wastage -> Food Crisis ???????????????

Recently I went for a marriage where the only thing I could see was food, food and more food, which made me mull over the fact that our country is supposingly going through a food crisis.

Having said that why is it that a country like India that use to export food grains till recently has started importing the same? There are innumerable reasons that have been cited in the magazines, newspapers and other media sources.

Nowadays, farming has become unattractive due to lack of assistance from the government. Seasonal changes have been erratic. Farmers find it much more feasible to rent out their land or sell it off. SEZ’s have been growing in numbers. There is lack of awareness amongst the farmers about the modern ways of farming. Per hectare yield is very less in comparison to the developed countries. Population is growing at an alarming rate, which was always the caseJ

These are some of the reasons responsible for the food crisis; however, having said that there is shortage of food in our country, what are the measures that we as individuals can take to reduce the sufferings of the people.

On an individual level we should be more responsible about our actions and attitude. If we can move from the attitude of ‘I’ to the attitude of ‘We’ then we can make a significant difference to the problems prevailing in our country. We generally feel that I am paying for it so how does it make a difference whether I eat or not. We tend to take it lightly when there is easy availability of food or when we have enough money to blow. When we will start respecting the fact that we have access to food and have gratitude towards that then we shall be able to reduce the food wastage on a personal basis.

Having said that there are many NGO’s and group of people working to collect food that is wasted on a daily basis. If we can keep their numbers handy then it can definitely help all of us combat this problem and help people in need of atleast one square meal.

Whereas the support to farmers is concerned, we can hope that the government wakes up and provides the necessary incentives, technology and fertilizers to make farming attractive.

Hope we all will atleast make an attempt to be more responsible on an individual level with our food wastage habits.

Consumer Insights – Online Matrimonial (India)

Online matrimonial market in India has seen a significant growth rate in the past one year. It has opened a new frontier for people to seek alliances globally.
To get an insight into how consumers feel about online matrimonial, respodents are divided into two groups 1) People who want to get married 2) People who have already got married.

a) People who want to get married:
Registered on the website –
1) They are looking for a transition in their life to move from the traditional way of searching for a match to the new way of criteria based search.
2) In cases were they register on these websites by themselves, respondents prefer to tell their parents only after they find a suitable match since they don’t want their family members to get anxious about it.
3) In cases where respondents themselves have not registered we have generally seen that father registers for daughter or brother or cousin registers for sister and sister registers for the girl respondents. Basically, some one from the family registers and takes it ahead till some body responds.
4) Infact most of the time friends register for the respondents since they don’t want to tell their parents or they are scared of their parents.
5) Few people who do not get the liberty to select their match due to family pattern and traditions, like to experiment and check what is available for them online.
6) Few feel that if the society is open to a boy girl relationship from the beginning then people will not need such websites as they will have their soul mate with them.
7) Some say that since they could not get a match easily through offline that’s why they opted to register online.
8) People who are working and living by themselves away from family tend to believe in these websites since it saves them time and it is according to the current trends.
9) They do not find the details authentic and that’s the biggest fear that people have.
10) Some people who have been used to saving money tend to opt for free membership as they are not sure of getting a suitable match and therefore value for money.

Not registered on the website –
1) They do not believe in online matrimonial.
2) Family traditions don’t give them the freedom to explore on their own.
3) They feel that the two families should know each other very well in order for a family bonding.
4) Online matrimonial is more like a self advertisement.
5) They prefer to follow their culture and traditions.
6) They feel that society will not accept an online match.

b) People who have already got married through online website:
1) They find it less efficient since there are so many profiles to explore.
2) It saves time since most of the respondents are working and don’t have the patience to go through the offline route.
3) Most of them tell their parents later on after they have found a match.
4) They feel that parents are generally concerned about the authenticity of the profiles.
5) Most of them are living a happy married life.

Consumer Insights Rural V/s Urban:
1) People from rural India feels that it gives them more options.
2) They can get some one educated
3) Since the person is well qualified that’s why the person is registered on the website and may get a decent job and has a good overall personality
4) People feel it gives them an option to look beyond the limited people they know
5) Generally they are bounded by the influence of the society, family culture and tradition when it comes to taking independent decisions for choosing their soul mate.
6) New generation in the rural areas wants to move on from the shackles of superstitions and get into the transition mode.

Thus we can see that online matrimonial is growing in demand, however, the biggest challenge it needs to tackle is authenticity of the profile data.There is need for innovation to design a model that ensures that the profiles are genuine.

Demystifying Basic SEO for your Website

Key words: Try to pen down as many words that comes to your mind w.r.t to your website. A must do thing is to check what all keywords are your competitors using.

Title for homepage: Idea is to include as many relevant keywords in the title itself. We need to ensure that each page has keywords relevant to that page and is included in the page title, images and links.

Do not name an image as image123.jpg rather use keywords for the same. More the number of keyword references on a page, more is the chances of getting a higher rank, however, PLEASE do not clutter your page with unnecessary references of your key words. Web spider will simply ignore your efforts and put you in the black list. It may happen that your website is not included in a web search result at all.

Place keywords in h1 header tag and place it on top left hand corner.

We should try to bold, underline or italicized some of the keywords throughout the copy.

It’s a good idea to keep keywords both at the beginning and at the end of the copy. Web spiders browse the page from the right hand top corner to the left hand bottom corner.

While including an image add an alt image tag to the code. Use keywords in the alt image tag.

Meta tags for descriptions and keywords. Meta tags are generally not considered for page rank; however, a well defined description can urge a searcher to click on the link.

Choose or create a website template built with tables instead of frames। The table tag allows spiders to easily breeze from block to block of text on any given page and read the entire page.

The most important method for SEO is getting other websites to link to your website; however, to start with building your website one must ensure that atleast some of the elementary steps mentioned above are in प्लेस.

Increasing Importance of Legal Aspects in the Current Communication Business Scenario

Internet has changed the way communication industry works। Today most businesses have a presence online. This has led to an increase in the importance of legal aspects in the current business scenario. Also, a lot of businesses have become global which makes it mandatory to have a common legal understanding.

A lot of companies are apprehensive of adopting ecommerce because of lack of legal knowledge as well as an increase in the cyber crime and cyber-hooliganism। Most of the time customers accept the terms and conditions on internet without reading it। These have legal implications. Customer as well as the company needs to understand when a contract is legal, whether the customer can be protected under the consumer protection act, what are the clauses for partnership, whether online auction is legal. Customers are in secured about providing personal data online. They need reassurance about data protection law. It is difficult to implement IPR’s (patent’s and copyrights) over the web.

There is growing need for legal protection for e-signatures and e-invoices. We can also see a need for legal support incase of cultural perceptions since today communication industry has globalized.

We have seen that in TV commercials, press, newspapers, television and other media’s that people try to defame competitors; this again has seen a rise in the 21st century. A good knowledge of law of defamation becomes essential.

India has very good creative talent which has led to initiatives like creative for advertisements being outsourced from across the globe to India; this again includes a number of legal formalities that both the parties involved should be aware and practice.

These days we see an increase in VC and Angel funding which involves parting with equity, this again leads to issues if not protected legally in the beginning itself.

There is a growing trend in marketing communications to involve customers in the brand building; this may involve contest, sweepstakes and frills. There are certain legal parameters that have to be met while implementing these; therefore it is mandatory for companies to be legally sound.

Businesses today have to ensure safety and health of their employees more than ever. Most of the businesses today use software’s in one or the other operations. Licensing is yet another legal issue to be met by companies.

Due to globalization businesses have to follow code and conduct of the other countries in order to meet the legal obligations of the trade. This requires generally hiring some legal consultant from that country or studying the legal formalities of the country involved.

With all the above examples and applications that we have seen, we can for sure conclude that increasing importance of legal aspects in today’s business scenarios. Negligence of legal aspects in business scenario can lead to either heavy compensation and damages or misuse of trademarks, logo’s, patents and other intellectual property.

An Introduction to e-Commerce for Small Businesses

In India there are many small entrepreneurs setting up an e-commerce model for their businesses. Ecommerce can be fruitful for an organization over the web only if there is a solution to an existing customer problem. This paper aims at introducing basic e-commerce concepts to entrepreneurs who wish to set up an online model (Internet).

To setup an online business one needs to get a domain name (for ones website), which is generally ones business name or generic word which also includes a dot com, dot net, dot org extension. One needs to check for the availability of the domain name using the domain search tools. While selecting a domain name one needs to keep in mind that the domain name is relevant to the business, makes marketing sense, its not too long, easy to recall and has the right extension i.e., edu for education sites, org for organizations, .com for commercial. After this buy space on the web for hosting the website.

While designing a website one needs to go through the following checklist:
1) Simple and consistent Navigation across various pages throughout the website.
2) Use a plain, sans-serif font, like Arial, on a white background.
3) Include an opt-in offer to collect email addresses.
4) Do not use lots of graphics and flash unless it adds value to the message.
5) Customer Friendly by customizing features for a particular customer, however, this could be a costly affair for a small business, therefore, use it wisely.

Once the website is designed for various offerings we need to take care of security issues with respect to personal data of our clients and payment for any transaction on purchase of any offerings. In order to conduct any transaction over the web once a payment is made over the internet, site owner should have a mechanism to collect funds and deposit the money into a bank. In order to collect funds, you need to have a merchant account and a payment gateway.

A merchant Account is for online retailers. Two kinds of transactions can be carried out through a merchant account i.e.,

1) To allow Non –POS (Point of sale) transactions using credit cards.
2) Without a card swiper.

An important point to note is that a Merchant account is not the same as a bank account. It acts as a middleman between you payment gateway and your bank account, accepting funds from credit cards which are then deposited into your bank. The bank takes funds from the buyer's account and deposits into your account. A payment processor takes care of checking for availability of funds and debiting from the credit card account. The bank issuing the merchant account is trusting that you will fulfill your end of the transaction by providing the product or service that the buyer purchased.

A payment gateway serves as the front end to your merchant account, allowing you to mange funds, transactions and the like. The payment gateway takes the data submitted via your secure order forms and presents it to your processing bank. The processing bank then approves or declines the transaction and sends it’s the response back to the payment gateway. It then turns around and provides the data back to the merchant bank for handling the transaction appropriately.

Another important issue that has become very important is Fraud prevention. Following are the popular methods to prevent a fraud:

1) Address Verification (AVS) – compares the customer’s address with that on file with the issuing bank.
2) CVV2 – Uses three digit security codes on the credit card.

Following two methods of integration are used:

1) First one takes the credit card details and the site POST a form to the gateways server. Transaction details are processed and then the results of the transaction are directed back to the owner’s website.
2) SSL Certificate – Security set is done on the owner’s website which is invisible to the customer. When the customer submits payment, owner’s site will securely and invisibly submit the information to the payment gateway.

Once we have made sure about a good security system on our website then we need to consider the followings points:

1) Use of search engines to motivate targeted buyers to ones website.
2) Use e-mail marketing to keep in touch with ones website visitors to turn them into potential buyers.
3) To start an affiliate program to maximize ones sales and revenues.

Online ecommerce can be supported with a lot of other devices like:

1) RF IDS – They are used for identification of products.
2) PDA – Personal Digital Assistants are handheld computers for multipurpose.

There are many other devices which are used to facilitate an online transaction as effectively as possible; however, there is an increase inclination towards ecommerce through internet. Potential source of secondary revenue is through advertisements on ones website.
Ecommerce truly gives small businesses an opportunity to grow exponentially if the basic metrics are controlled adeptly.