Retail Therapy

October, 2011

Why I support it?

I support retail therapy because it makes us discard old for new, what has been with what would be. When we purchase a latest arrival of spring collection from our favorite boutique, it makes us look forward to when we’ll step out into the world feeling confident, refreshed, and beautiful.

I support retail therapy because it’s an action item. Go out, look around, see something, feel something, like it, not like it, try it out, buy it. When a careful purchase is made to our satisfaction, it is an exercise of both mind and body. It makes us feel important.

I support retail therapy because it helps us sync up our image projected to the world to who we are on the inside. There are actually two of us. What we show and how we feel are two competing urges. Our victory lies in making this inside out as seamless as possible. For that we need to find those items that truly represent us. Wear our signature clothes, buy our signature car, live in a signature space. It should have us written all over it vindicating who we are.

I support retail therapy because what belongs in the past can be donated away leaving us feeling less wretched and more carefree, appreciative of life, colors, and its many moods.

These are a few reasons in favor of why I support retail therapy.

Pay Your Bills Last

September, 2011

Ever thought of it this way? Pay yourself first is a sound advice up until we try to put it into practice. And can’t! Burdened with bills and payments, we don’t know how not to cave under pressure.

For that we need to adopt the mantra – Pay Your Bills Last. How does that work?

• How many months does it take for a biller to send a cancellation notice? Wait until then and even then, pay the minimum due to get them off my case.

• Don’t want unpaid bills to pile up. Then toggle the payment. Pay one month. Don’t pay the other month. Pay every other month.

• Where payment is due in full prior to next delivery, then wait to pay until the next delivery date arrives.

• Owe consumer debt on credit cards actively in use, then pay a fixed amount little over the monthly minimum.

The force of habit should be to put off paying bills with the windfall of money duly disposed in a preferred savings vehicle.

As Ben Frank says – a penny saved is a penny earned. Only then can we finally start counting the cost. And reward ourselves by catching up with National Grid. Or cutting Macy’s credit card debt by half.

Democracy in America

August, 2011

The Statue of Liberty holds a promise that is realized in the United States where the fundamental governing power resides on the smallest of areas known as a town. For example, the town of ________.

Each town is responsible for drawing up its fiscal policy and balancing the budget. This is possible by the help of tax payers who own property and pay into the coffers of the town in lieu of property taxes or town taxes. In return, the town’s administrative authority is able to maintain rule of law, better roads, fine schools.

This smallest of administrative body, also known as local body government, through its symbiotic relationship with property owning tax payers represent the democratic building block of a country that spans 2,680 miles from coast to coast.

This basic unit of government represents the bare back independence ingrained in the democratic culture enjoyed by all Americans.

The faith that they are at the helm of destiny. That they have a stake in deciding the future of their children.

It’s not smooth sailing. There are towns that are bankrupt. They are unable to cope with law and order or to keep up their schools.

Worsening situations call for electing effective leaders who can make a difference. This leadership rises from the ranks of the community of tax payers invested in the good of their town.

A virtuous cycle is born.

When this virtuous cycle is just as real to democracies in Pakistan and Egypt, Ukraine and Slovakia, only then the torch of Lady Liberty may shine on these lands as well.

Age Old Problem

July, 2011

Since job-loss crisis hit bread earners in the fourth quarter of 2008, the worst affected was the boomer generation. The obstacles to path of re-employment for this demographic have to do with high salary expectation, over-qualification, turn over due to retirement possibilities among others.

I got a wind of it back in 2009 at Right Management sitting in my make-believe office cubicle, while next door someone haggled with a HR Recruiter type. From the other end of the phone question veered on ‘How old are you?’.

The crisp and clear answer that I could certainly attest to was ’56′. The answer held a challenge, a note of defiance if not belligerency.

What lessons can I learn from this historical upheavel?

Don’t wait – that is my take away. Hedge against unemployment risk at all times to be sure. But never more so than when age creeps up on you as an old problem.

The solution is to stand out in one career choice. Be the software engineer, the marketer, this or that of this world. Make a name for yourself. Earn the respect of your peers. Envy of your enemies.

All along, diversify and develop skills and talents, connections and network that help you re-imagine yourself in related industries, new ventures if need be.

General Mccrystal, when he got fired, found a gig for himself in Yale University. That is, from the mess of a steamy battle field into the air conditioned class room of a genteel campus. If that is not diversification, developing a new talent, then what is!

When we have defined our earning potential in more ways than one, we negotiate job-loss from a position of strength. And that lets us get back into our career of choice. Age withstanding, we get back to being the software engineer, the marketer of this world.

Ship It

June, 2011

Two words, and the latest edition of Boston SPIN’s Summer 2011 newsletter was launched. How did it come about is the focus of this month’s blog. Because it almost did not happen. And therefore, the fact that it did, is what makes this story interesting.

With the softwares available for mass email distribution, including newsletters, sending one out is a no- brainer. Also available are newsletter templates that can be customized at will. So, why was failure an option here?

It turned out that ready-made templates could not be used in this case. The only other alternative was to create one using HTML for input. First reaction was that it just couldn’t be done. Only to realize after the smoke cleared, that I knew some HTML after all. So, off I went to design a template, albeit a modest effort on my part.

Another fog that mystified the process was how exactly to import the HTML document into the newsletter software. A quick email to Tech Support revealed that zipping it up along with images and other such essentials and importing the zip file would do just fine. Only to realize that I already subscribed to a web-hosting service.

The significance of this latter discovery meant that if I designed my template in the space provided by such a service, I could then import my completed work as a web link, a matter of a couple if not a few seconds. So, off I went to import the link.

In a nutshell, then, what appears to the naked eyes as a failed mission is achievable when we understand our potentials. It is not that our mission is a failure, but our inability to truly measure how resourceful we are, can thwart us from responding to challenges ahead. But when we do respond, our versatility wins over any remaining doubts.

Cut Credit

May,  2011

Cut up Cards.

Credit cards, debit cards, store cards.

Only if it was possible.

Face fact. It’s  no longer possible. In this day and age of on-line banking, on-line payment, it’s not possible to go back to cash only. For instance, the safest ID accepted by my local branch of Bank of America, is to swipe their debit card. I had to renew, that is pay for, my car registration under a deadline, and the quickest path was to pay online using credit or debit card. So, no, there is no going back from plastics.

In fact for years, I have used plastic like a religion. Not having the patience to count dollars and change (pardon me!). When one after another, every other businesses made functionality to use cards available, such as paying for movie tickets at the door, which seemed such a relief at the time, I shunned cash in favor of credit. Oh, no! Correction. Debit! Yes, I took a stand against using credit, a kind of funny money which puts you into a hole, in preferrence to debit, which withdraws from the real stuff.

So what has changed?

Let’s put it this way, say I had 5K in my account (zoinks!), and then it was gone within the month. Did I really crash and burn through the entire lot within so many, or in this case so few, days?  Not OK.  It was time to reevaluate my habits and subsequently I decided to put debit away, too. In short, it’s harder to track your spending when using debit because seemingly small purchases like buying two dollar coffees and one dollar candies has a big way of adding up pronto.

I’m rediscovering how to use cash. For instance, I’m realizing that paying for gasoline aside, every day I’m needing at least twenty dollars just to get through the bare essentials like stopping for a coffee. If I have more in my hand, I just find a way to spend it like running out to get a pedicure. How did this habit develop? Because I’m not used to having a limit perhaps. Hmm…

The Blues

April, 2011

What is an antidote to the Blues?

Blues in Americana means a sad melancholy. It is a quieter that masks a cheery soul with despondency. I equate this with a type of false fear Seth Godin speaks of in his book the Linchpin (2010). Our lizard brain sniffs negatives the like of danger, uncertainty and wa la: turns into a Blue Lizard that sabotages Nature itself.

Nature doesn’t suffer from the Blues because it always gets it own way. Nature is a survivor with zero self-doubt. We go against Nature when we doubt ourselves and welcome in the Blues. Nonetheless, fall victim to it we do.

The antidote lies in action. To slay the Blue Lizard, we must jump up on our feet and spring into a sprint with the gale force of a hundred meter dash. Action items like anger cuts and burns and cleanses cobwebs of old. When we lose sight of action, we fall into the Blues.

Three soothing lines for a Blues Owner:  “Take the first step.” “And then?” “Then you’ll be somewhere else, and you can take the first step from there.”

Dream Merchant

March, 2011

Tweeting up with Nick Noorani at HEBS breakfast brunch at Harvard Square’s Om Restaurant was a wish fulfilled. As serendipidity would have it, he was his same engaging self, re-enforcing the Twitter persona with gusto.

Nick Noorani is from Canada with a mission.  Top-most in his mind is to make every immigrant experience a success story. How is he making a difference on this hot-button issue of immigration and assimilation?

After India, Nick took his chances in places such as Dubai and Muscat. A serial immigrant, about twelve years ago, he with wife and family made it to bountiful Canada. Fluent in English, he also brought with him other critical skills such as business know-how, alongside middle-class values of thrift, education, and aspiration. Long story short, after much toil and labor, not to mention uncertainties, he made it. Want proof? For one thing, he got rich!

Nowadays he wants to make the Nick Noorani brand of success a Manifest Destiny in Monroe’s America. I call his message to immigrants The Lucky Seven and they are:

• Fall in love with your adopted country
• Learn English
• Have a Plan B
• Take risks
• Venture outside of your community
• Stay positive
• Volunteer, Mentor & Network (VMN)

He calls it the seven success secrets.

In the informal discussion around the table where we met, he brings up VMN when he asks someone if she volunteers?  Nick, in his own life,  had as many as twelve mentors.  Shaking his head, he emphasizes the impossibility of success without one.

The Success, however, doesn’t lie in the measure of English learned, or networking done. The Success is quite something else altogether. It’s measure is in dreams realized. In coming to Canada, Nick realized a dream of giving his children a Western upbringing with opportunities to follow. It is only to be hoped that he can be a Dream Merchant for many following into his footsteps.

Twitter Chatter

February, 2011

Tapping into a Twitter transcript makes for interesting scoops, both business and personal. Made of hopes, frustrations, achievements, failures, transcripts are a colorful repository of souvenirs and mementos outliving the living.

As such, they imitate the fabled tablet of Jove no less. Those not sure what is recorded on that particular Tablet only need peruse through the thousands of tweets over days, months and years for a likely answer.

What inspires the silent majority?

What to tweet is a common man’s quandary. For this Third Estate, the Needs Must paradigm supplies the necessary wherewithal. It sets a pattern to tweet away at events the like of #sidibouzid and #Jan25. In so doing,

• Tweeples  gravitate towards a community to call their own.
• Similarly, they curate lists and buy into silos that bring sanity to an otherwise topsy-turvy sea of cacophony.

In Seth Godin speak, this effect creates tribes. A tribe is a closed whole. Then someone like you and I peep into this whole. Use a Twitterer as a hypertext to access another. And before long find ourselves embedded in a nexus of Twitter Chatter with its unique cadence. The range of sounds running anything from strange to familiar, warm, even distraught to our ears.

What it leaves us with is a sense of the voyeur.

Relationship Matters

January, 2011

Relationship matters in LinkedIn.

Hence the dictat: Only connect to those you know well and who know you.

How can that boost our network? Especially when the world is full of strangers we haven’t met yet! If only LinkedIn could believe this, it would change its view of networking.

As it is, trust deficit is the raison d’être for the dictat. Relationship building it’s unintended victim.

Provided with a database where to park our business contacts, as in a 21st century rolodex, hardly makes for relationships to matter. Using these tips from the limited resources of LI, users can still make a modest effort at reaching out to their network:

• Send congratulations when a new role is added
• Like a pic
• Add a comment
• Share a link
• Send Happy- B Day notes
• Participate in Q & A
• Visit profiles
• Send out mass mailings 50 at a time

Scope of interactive interaction is limited. That is not to say that a surge in demand won’t move the supply-side to act! For now at least, these simple steps prevent entropy and saves the misguided dictat from a kiss of death.

Misguided, because once we put relationships to matter via building them, then we can trend the quality of our network towards a future where to form new ones, no past or present is needed.

Inspiration is all.