Ankur Sharma

David Hickey , the famous american art and cultural critic, once wrote a brilliant essay in his book Air Guitar: Essays on Art & Democracy . It's called " Romancing the Looky-Loos ". The essay was published in 1997 and basically talks about various different kind of audiences in music. A  recent post  by Seth Godin reminded me of the essay and "looky-loos". It was a term invented by Dave's father, a musician, for a particular audience who had come to the performance only to consume or as Dave Hickey says in his essay, "nonparticipants....They paid their dollar at the door, but they contributed nothing to the occasion - afforded no confirmation or denial that you could work with or around or against." Being a participant is different. It is as if your presence matters - you matter. Being a participant means, you give feedback. Being a looky-loo means you consume/absorb and go away. Groundswell has taught us that a wholesome c

Enabler OR Disabler? When I started working, my first job was with a services based organization and process was the Queen there. I had just started and somehow started developing this misconception (like many others around me) that processes are bad. The reality was, in fact, that the organization was able to put food on my table because of these processes only. You see, in any service based organisation, you need matrices to tell current and prospective clients that how your organization is executing projects and if it is justified to hire and pay freshers like me. These processes help you with those metrices and since they are employed industry-wide, they help clients too, to do comparative studies of useful parameters like quality and productivity. Its only when I went to start working with an acquired product organization of another organization, where processes are loosely implemented (not always though), I came to appreciate their holistic importance. And f

My experience with the mobile apps has been mixed both as a user and as a product guy. Most of the organizations, whom apps I have used, have created the apps more as an afterthought than as a planned strategy. As a result, these apps have become more like a broken and hanging limb off their body than a part of theirs. Usually, these apps are created thinking the target users being people who are connected with the Social brand. Now the intent is great, but the direction is flawed. The mobile apps are indeed are a part of your Social business than Social brand and hence there is a huge divergence in the way people look at it. I personally believe that with screen size of phone getting larger every six months, by 2015 we should see a movement more towards mobile websites from apps, since they don't need to be installed and with a bigger screen size and HTML5 adoption, most of their current limitation will get away. However, in this blog, I am dealing with one of the most c

(Photo credit: Illustration by Emily Marcus/Standard-Examiner) Dear You, You changed me when we met. You zapped me. You made me, me . You see, before, I was fat. With you, I am an athlete. Before I had a job. With you, I have a career. Before, I was ugly. With you, I am a lover. And I am a friend as well, and not lonely. I am not scared any more. I am alive. We are so much better as one, you know. As one, we work. Love, One Half of Us. Inspired from "Dear You" of Freaks

Around a month back, on 27th January 2012 I got an opportunity to be a part of a wonderful platform at Christ University in Bangalore . The stage was Drishti'12 -  a platform for the visionaries of tomorrow to envision where India would stand by the year 2020. I was really fortunate that they choose me to be one of the judges among the three. The other two eminent judges were Prof. C.S.Dikshit and Srinivas S. Bubbling with ideas and imagination, participants challenged their thought processes and presented on following topics: Banking and Finance Economy Science and Technology International Issues Social Issues Environmental Issues They painted a vivid picture of how India will look like in these areas by year 2020. To me, the whole exercise was significant since it showed how India is preparing generation next to dream, break out of mold and imagine things which may look like very far, but in reality, catching up - changing fast. A lot of work had gone by eve

we are eyeballs! But aren't we more than just unique traffic numbers? We are human beings who want the respect and treatment of a human being from the products we use. And that's why I don't want to see the results which Charlie Sheen sees. I want to see what I want to see. After all technology enables behavior, it doesn't cause them. Don't believe me? Hear out Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg

that they are "MASS" mailers. They are not written to me, they are not written for me and yet they land up in my inbox day after day, week after week, month after month.  So here is a solution: I need these mass mailers to be renamed as -mailers where denotes my name I need -mailers to talk to me Don't ask me how for #2. After all every time I transact with your website, your Facebook page, your Twitter profile; I leave so much of my critical information there like my name, browsing history, demographics - go and use that Make me partner in crime - use my information to benefit me.  See which city/country/hotel/airline I book and get deals on those for me at my -mailer See what do I read and publish that for me at my -mailer. Don't give all the junk authors I don't care about When you will do all this, may be our relationship can finally get better!