Campus placement interviews are the key to getting your career started on the right foot. The secret lies in giving out the right vibes and saying the right things at the right time.
Display a learner's attitude: The 'I know it all' attitude is not going to impress any employer. Considering campus interviewees are freshers, employers will be more impressed by hearing something like, "I know the basics and I am willing to learn the rest". Show that you will mould yourself to their company and not vice versa.
Don't be full of yourself: Arrogance and narcissism have no place in a campus placement interview. Do not brag about your qualities but rather subtly display them before the placement jury in the way you respond to their queries.
Do your homework: Knowing about the company's history and key achievements shows your interviewer just how much effort you are willing to put in. Read up about your prospective employer/s on their website and keep yourself updated on any new developments there.
Be articulate and confident: Speaking too much won't make a good impression, but neither will not speaking enough. The trick lies in answering the questions articulately, clearly, providing only as much information as needed, with oodles of confidence.
Dress appropriately: Whimsical fashion statements have no place at a corporate interview while you may be more creative in your attire (though still on the conservative side) if applying for a job in a creative field. Girls must absolutely stay away from skimpy clothes. Keep the overall look elegant and dripping of professionalism.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
American Born Confused Indian
India is the most frightening thing to have happened to this planet.Okay, now that I have your attention, let me save my life by clarifying I was just kidding. Actually, what people think about India is much more frightening. Surprisingly, many people out there do not know much about our country -- something that became evident to me when I moved to New York for a couple of months last year and was bombarded with questions about my origins.
India is poor. All Indians are Hindu. These are just some of the things I have heard in NY. And these are just two of the many stereotypes about Indian people and about India.
In one seminar , a friend once asked me if India was a land of "poor people." He had seen a video online that depicted the lives of people in India who were uneducated and under-nourished. My answer was a firm "no." I explained that although one can see poor people living on the streets, this was definitely not the case for everyone in India. India is full of smart and competent people who can rival the smartest in America. Not everyone in India is poor. There are many people who are very rich. India also has an influential middle class population. Poverty is more evident in India because it has one of the largest populations in the world (over 1 billion); if India had a lower population then it would probably have less poverty.
Another incident I recall was when I was reading in study hall and one of my best friend/colleague asked me if I could speak "Hindu." He was studying India in his history class and wanted to know more. It took me a while to understand what he was saying. I jokingly replied, "Yes. I can speak Hindu just like others can speak Christian and Muslim." He laughed and realised his mistake. I explained to him that Hindi is a language and Hinduism is a religion. I told him I am a Hindu but I speak Hindi. He looked somewhat confused and then asked me what the language "Indian" was. "No, 'Indian' is not a language," I replied. "Although there are hundreds of languages in India, 'Indian' is not one of them." That day I learned how little some people know about my country. They do not know much about the language and confuse it with religion. I wondered why the history teachers in my school neglected to teach the students about this aspect of India.
By now I thought I had heard it all; it turns out I was horribly wrong. I was eating lunch with my friends when someone from my previous class asked me, "Is it true that India has no electricity?" I must admit I was surprised. This was an unexpected question. I replied that some parts of India experience power outages often, but electricity is not a rare commodity. I told her that even though India has power outages the government is coming up with ideas to solve that problem.
"India has invested a lot of money into generating renewable power. It currently ranks as the 3rd largest wind energy producer and is advancing in other renewable resources," I added. She was a little shocked. I explained that I have been born and brought up in India and have noticed, over the years, that the number of power outages has significantly reduced in the capital city . Back then, the power went out many times a week, but now it is less frequent. In the end, she understood her views of India were wrong.
In three months of NY corporate experience, I have had some interesting experiences with my coleagues. Many people ask questions that can sometimes seem ridiculous, but almost every time it seems that something or someone had influenced their incorrect view of India. Whether it was a class or a video, the point is that India is not poor, has more than one language and does have electricity. Even though my classmates might have wrong views of India, I am glad they asks me these questions because I can quickly clear up their confusion that makes my country look like a 3rd world nation.
India is poor. All Indians are Hindu. These are just some of the things I have heard in NY. And these are just two of the many stereotypes about Indian people and about India.
In one seminar , a friend once asked me if India was a land of "poor people." He had seen a video online that depicted the lives of people in India who were uneducated and under-nourished. My answer was a firm "no." I explained that although one can see poor people living on the streets, this was definitely not the case for everyone in India. India is full of smart and competent people who can rival the smartest in America. Not everyone in India is poor. There are many people who are very rich. India also has an influential middle class population. Poverty is more evident in India because it has one of the largest populations in the world (over 1 billion); if India had a lower population then it would probably have less poverty.
Another incident I recall was when I was reading in study hall and one of my best friend/colleague asked me if I could speak "Hindu." He was studying India in his history class and wanted to know more. It took me a while to understand what he was saying. I jokingly replied, "Yes. I can speak Hindu just like others can speak Christian and Muslim." He laughed and realised his mistake. I explained to him that Hindi is a language and Hinduism is a religion. I told him I am a Hindu but I speak Hindi. He looked somewhat confused and then asked me what the language "Indian" was. "No, 'Indian' is not a language," I replied. "Although there are hundreds of languages in India, 'Indian' is not one of them." That day I learned how little some people know about my country. They do not know much about the language and confuse it with religion. I wondered why the history teachers in my school neglected to teach the students about this aspect of India.
By now I thought I had heard it all; it turns out I was horribly wrong. I was eating lunch with my friends when someone from my previous class asked me, "Is it true that India has no electricity?" I must admit I was surprised. This was an unexpected question. I replied that some parts of India experience power outages often, but electricity is not a rare commodity. I told her that even though India has power outages the government is coming up with ideas to solve that problem.
"India has invested a lot of money into generating renewable power. It currently ranks as the 3rd largest wind energy producer and is advancing in other renewable resources," I added. She was a little shocked. I explained that I have been born and brought up in India and have noticed, over the years, that the number of power outages has significantly reduced in the capital city . Back then, the power went out many times a week, but now it is less frequent. In the end, she understood her views of India were wrong.
In three months of NY corporate experience, I have had some interesting experiences with my coleagues. Many people ask questions that can sometimes seem ridiculous, but almost every time it seems that something or someone had influenced their incorrect view of India. Whether it was a class or a video, the point is that India is not poor, has more than one language and does have electricity. Even though my classmates might have wrong views of India, I am glad they asks me these questions because I can quickly clear up their confusion that makes my country look like a 3rd world nation.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
The Travails of Single South Indian Men
Yet another action packed weekend in Mumbai, full of fun, frolic and introspection. I have learnt many things. For example, having money when none of your friends have any is as good as not having any. And after spending much time in movie theatres, cafes and restaurants I have gathered many insights into the endless monotony that is the love life of south Indian men. What I have unearthed is most disheartening.
Disheartening because comprehension of these truths will not change our status anytime soon.
However, there is also cause for joy. We never stood a chance anyway.
What loads the dice against virile, gallant, well-educated, good looking, sincere mallus and tams? (Kandus were once among us, but Bangalore has changed all that.)
Our futures are shot to hell as soon as our parents bestow upon us names that are anything but alluring. I cannot imagine a more foolproof way of making sure the child remains single till classified advertisements or that maternal uncle in San Francisco thinks otherwise. Name him "Parthasarathy Venkatachalapthy" and his inherent capability to combat celibacy is obliterated before he could even talk. He will grow to be known as Partha. Before he knows, his smart, seductively named northy classmates start calling him Paratha. No woman in their right minds will go anyway near poor Parthasarathy. His investment banking job doesn't help either.
His employer loves him though. He has no personal life you see. By this time the Sanjay Singhs and Bobby Khans from his class have small businesses of their own and spend 60% of their lives in discos and pubs. The remaining 40% is spent coochi-cooing with leather and denim clad muses in their penthouse flats on Napean Sea Road. Business is safely in the hands of the Mallu manager. After all with a name like Blossom Babykutty he cant use his 30000 salary anywhere. Blossom gave up on society when in school they automatically enrolled him for Cookery Classes. Along with all the girls.
Yes my dear reader, nomenclature is the first nail in a coffin of neglect and hormonal pandemonium. In a kinder world, they would just name the poor southern male child and throw him off the balcony. "Yes appa, we have named him Goundamani..." THUD. Life would have been less kinder to him anyway.
If all the women the Upadhyays, Kumars, Pintos and, god forbid, the Sens and Roys in the world have met were distributed amongst the Arunkumars, Vadukuts and Chandramogans, we would all be merry casanovas with 3 to 4 pretty things at each arm. But alas, it is not to be. Of course the south!
Indian women have no such issues. They have names which are like sweet poetry to the ravenous northie hormone tanks. Picture this: "Welcome, and this is my family. This is my daughter Poorni (what a sweet name!!) and my son Ponnalagusamy (er... hello... )" Cyanide would not be fast enough for poor Samy. Nothing Samy does will help him. He can pump iron, drive fast cars and wear snazzy clothes, but against a brain-dead dude called Arjun Singhania, he has as much chance of getting any as a Benedictine Monk in a Saharan Seminary.
Couple this with the other failures that have plagued our existence. Any attempt at spiking hair with gel fails miserably. In an hour, I have a crown of greasy, smelly fibrous mush. My night ends there. However, the northy just has to scream "Wakaw!!!" and you have to peel the women off him to let him breathe. In a disco, while we can manage the medium hip shake with neck curls, once the Bhangra starts pumping, we are as fluid as cement and gravel in a mixer. Karan Kapoor or Jatin Thapar in the low cut jeans with chaddi strap showing and see through shirt throws his elbows perfectly, the cynosure of all attention.
The women love a man who digs pasta and fondue. But why do they not see the simple pleasures of curd rice and coconut chutney? When poor Senthilnathan opens his tiffin-box in the office lunch room, his female co-workers just dissappear when they see the tamarind rice and poppadums. The have all rematerialised around Bobby Singh who has ordered in Pizza and Garlic bread. (And they have the gall to talk of foreign origin.)
How can a man like me brought up in roomy lungis and oversized polyester shirts ever walk the walk in painted-on jeans (that makes a big impression) and neon-yellow rib-hugging t-shirts? All I can do is don my worn "comfort fit" jeans and floral shirt. Which is pretty low on the "Look at me lady" scale, just above fig leaf skirt and feather headgear a la caveman, and a mite below Khakhi Shirt over a red t-shirt and baggy khakhi pants and white trainers a la Rajni in "Badsha".
Sociologically too, the tam or mallu man is severely sidelined. An average tam-stud stays in a house with, on average, three grandparents, three sets of uncles and aunts, and over 10 children. Not the ideal atmosphere for some intimacy and some full-throated "WHOSE YOUR DADDY!!!" at the 3 in the morning. The mallu guy of course is almost always in the gulf working alone on some onshore oil-rig in the desert.
Rheumatic elbows me thinks.
Alas dear friends, we are not just meant to set the nights on fire. We are just not built to be "The Ladies Man". The black man has hip hop, the white man has rock, the southie guy only has idlis and tomato rasam or an NRI account in South Indian Bank Ernakulam Branch. Alas, as our destiny was determined in one fell swoop by our nomenclature, so will our future be. A nice arranged little love story. But the agony of course does not end there.
On the first night, as the stud sits on his bed finally within touching distance and whispers his sweet desires into her delectable ear, she blushes, turns around and whispers back "But amma has said only on second saturdays..."
Disheartening because comprehension of these truths will not change our status anytime soon.
However, there is also cause for joy. We never stood a chance anyway.
What loads the dice against virile, gallant, well-educated, good looking, sincere mallus and tams? (Kandus were once among us, but Bangalore has changed all that.)
Our futures are shot to hell as soon as our parents bestow upon us names that are anything but alluring. I cannot imagine a more foolproof way of making sure the child remains single till classified advertisements or that maternal uncle in San Francisco thinks otherwise. Name him "Parthasarathy Venkatachalapthy" and his inherent capability to combat celibacy is obliterated before he could even talk. He will grow to be known as Partha. Before he knows, his smart, seductively named northy classmates start calling him Paratha. No woman in their right minds will go anyway near poor Parthasarathy. His investment banking job doesn't help either.
His employer loves him though. He has no personal life you see. By this time the Sanjay Singhs and Bobby Khans from his class have small businesses of their own and spend 60% of their lives in discos and pubs. The remaining 40% is spent coochi-cooing with leather and denim clad muses in their penthouse flats on Napean Sea Road. Business is safely in the hands of the Mallu manager. After all with a name like Blossom Babykutty he cant use his 30000 salary anywhere. Blossom gave up on society when in school they automatically enrolled him for Cookery Classes. Along with all the girls.
Yes my dear reader, nomenclature is the first nail in a coffin of neglect and hormonal pandemonium. In a kinder world, they would just name the poor southern male child and throw him off the balcony. "Yes appa, we have named him Goundamani..." THUD. Life would have been less kinder to him anyway.
If all the women the Upadhyays, Kumars, Pintos and, god forbid, the Sens and Roys in the world have met were distributed amongst the Arunkumars, Vadukuts and Chandramogans, we would all be merry casanovas with 3 to 4 pretty things at each arm. But alas, it is not to be. Of course the south!
Indian women have no such issues. They have names which are like sweet poetry to the ravenous northie hormone tanks. Picture this: "Welcome, and this is my family. This is my daughter Poorni (what a sweet name!!) and my son Ponnalagusamy (er... hello... )" Cyanide would not be fast enough for poor Samy. Nothing Samy does will help him. He can pump iron, drive fast cars and wear snazzy clothes, but against a brain-dead dude called Arjun Singhania, he has as much chance of getting any as a Benedictine Monk in a Saharan Seminary.
Couple this with the other failures that have plagued our existence. Any attempt at spiking hair with gel fails miserably. In an hour, I have a crown of greasy, smelly fibrous mush. My night ends there. However, the northy just has to scream "Wakaw!!!" and you have to peel the women off him to let him breathe. In a disco, while we can manage the medium hip shake with neck curls, once the Bhangra starts pumping, we are as fluid as cement and gravel in a mixer. Karan Kapoor or Jatin Thapar in the low cut jeans with chaddi strap showing and see through shirt throws his elbows perfectly, the cynosure of all attention.
The women love a man who digs pasta and fondue. But why do they not see the simple pleasures of curd rice and coconut chutney? When poor Senthilnathan opens his tiffin-box in the office lunch room, his female co-workers just dissappear when they see the tamarind rice and poppadums. The have all rematerialised around Bobby Singh who has ordered in Pizza and Garlic bread. (And they have the gall to talk of foreign origin.)
How can a man like me brought up in roomy lungis and oversized polyester shirts ever walk the walk in painted-on jeans (that makes a big impression) and neon-yellow rib-hugging t-shirts? All I can do is don my worn "comfort fit" jeans and floral shirt. Which is pretty low on the "Look at me lady" scale, just above fig leaf skirt and feather headgear a la caveman, and a mite below Khakhi Shirt over a red t-shirt and baggy khakhi pants and white trainers a la Rajni in "Badsha".
Sociologically too, the tam or mallu man is severely sidelined. An average tam-stud stays in a house with, on average, three grandparents, three sets of uncles and aunts, and over 10 children. Not the ideal atmosphere for some intimacy and some full-throated "WHOSE YOUR DADDY!!!" at the 3 in the morning. The mallu guy of course is almost always in the gulf working alone on some onshore oil-rig in the desert.
Rheumatic elbows me thinks.
Alas dear friends, we are not just meant to set the nights on fire. We are just not built to be "The Ladies Man". The black man has hip hop, the white man has rock, the southie guy only has idlis and tomato rasam or an NRI account in South Indian Bank Ernakulam Branch. Alas, as our destiny was determined in one fell swoop by our nomenclature, so will our future be. A nice arranged little love story. But the agony of course does not end there.
On the first night, as the stud sits on his bed finally within touching distance and whispers his sweet desires into her delectable ear, she blushes, turns around and whispers back "But amma has said only on second saturdays..."
Soap Suds for the Soul
Source:A fantabulous article
End of the year. I am sitting alongside of Janus, staring at the Ghost of the Christmas Past. The future won't begin until two days go by, where I stare from. Lessons from the previous year, whispers the apparition, so tell me. Ghosts are hard to exorcise. Ask
anyone who was ever in love. So I am forced to reflect.
Let us start with Madeleines. Yeah, the sweet, sea-shelled concoctions eternalized by Marcel Proust in his Remembrance of Things Past. Not that I have ever dared to read Proust. I get by happily with the essays on him. But first, the Madeleines. I encountered the existential version in reality and simply fell in love. Got to hand it over to the French, I say. From Chanel to chic, from cooking to cuckolding, no one beats the French. (Pardon, but wasn't Madame Bovary French after all?) Yes, Ghostie, I discovered the sweet bliss of biting into a milk soaked-fifteen seconds microwaved-and melting in the mouth-ambrosia. Amen for that.
It was Sarah Ban Breathnach who showcased that rare gem of a poem. A poet, obviously a woman, had discovered God in soap suds. The writer had been washing plates, as her soul traversed into its own heaven. So did I, this passing year. I discovered God in not just soap suds, but also in changing diapers. God just happens to be a kind Domestic Goddess for ordinary mothers like me. She understands how impossible it is to tune in to the intellectual proclivities of a higher order when there is that stubborn tomato sauce sticking onto the wash basin. Orhan Pamuk can wait a bit - I am Red - with exasperation; now that the stain has gone, what about Istanbul, sir?
Ah, Ghostie. After French cookies and domestic bliss, comes essays. Now, that is fodder for the craving heart and soul. Never judge an author by his novels, I say, but by his essays. Orhan Pamuk is a sheer joy to read. Brevity, he knows, is the soul of wit and wisdom. Besides, that earns him fans like me, who cannot afford to sit and read calmly for fifteen minutes at a stretch. In between two toddler nap times, three Pamuk essays (Other Colours) can be comfortably consumed.
Not so with Coetzee (Inner Workings). I struggled with his erudite essays and concluded that Disgrace had been a better read. I am just not into dense intellectual matter now. But still I tried Fuentes (This I believe). That man has charm and wit. If I cannot understand his metaphysics, I make do with what he writes of Women and Amor! After all, he finishes his essays in two pages. I am going to quote a line from one of his essays, which I have taken to heart. "Aun a pesar de las tinieblas, bella/Aun a pesar de las estrellas, clara." (Even in the face of darkness, lovely/Even in the face of stars, luminous.)
I also encountered a terrific writer called Judith Thurman, who introduced me to 39 forms of desire in a brilliant collection of her New York Times articles called 'Cleopatra's Nose'. And a slim volume called 'Learning to Drive', by Kathy Pollitt.
Humour gets to me any day. But really, Jorge Borges is wonderful in his non-fiction. I had to reprogram my brain which had only the name of Umberto Eco as the Intellectual It! It really sounds so cool and superior, Ghostie mine, to spout those famous names.
By the way, I did read a novel by Paul Auster - the first of his New York Trilogy. I grabbed it because his photograph was as handsome as that of the young Arthur Miller. Haunting, it certainly is - the face and the novel. But not for me the Code of Babel and abuse of innocence - even in the name of intellectual sublimation. However, I enjoyed Paulo Coelho's Zahir. For lilting poetry in prose, try him any day. Now, apart from Little Lulu and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which my elder daughter sometimes allows me to share, I don't much remember anything else.
My Ghost looks disapprovingly at me. Arre bhai, I am not old Scrooge by the way. I need not pack a whole life time into one year, need I? Films, murmurs the apparition. Psheeew, man Ghostie, you got me this time. So after madeleines, domesticity and essays, comes films. Lord, what burns in Sidney Poitiers' eyes? Any person who loves the magic of films should watch "In the Heat of the Night" and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner". If screen presence can be equated to a single actor, Hallelujah! And when one gets time, it is worthwhile to watch Gregory Peck enact Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mocking Bird".
Ghostie is doing his calculations. That leaves an unaccounted 362 days, he coughs. Very boring existence, you seem to lead, my dear. Oh, but one lives intensely only on some days, I counter. And what we remember of those good times will help us plod on the rest of the year. Take it or leave it, Friend Casper.
Didn't a philosopher once define happiness as the feeling of being comfortable wherever you are, doing whatever you are doing, at the moment? I wish that feeling to all of you this new year. May all things bright and beautiful come your way, I pray. May our ordinary lives be blessed with the extraordinary gifts that are scattered abundantly around us. May we have the eyes to see and ears to listen to the whisperings of the soul. They came to me in soap suds, essays, Poitier films and madeleines the past year. And I am as thankful as can be.
Be blessed, the new year.
End of the year. I am sitting alongside of Janus, staring at the Ghost of the Christmas Past. The future won't begin until two days go by, where I stare from. Lessons from the previous year, whispers the apparition, so tell me. Ghosts are hard to exorcise. Ask
anyone who was ever in love. So I am forced to reflect.
Let us start with Madeleines. Yeah, the sweet, sea-shelled concoctions eternalized by Marcel Proust in his Remembrance of Things Past. Not that I have ever dared to read Proust. I get by happily with the essays on him. But first, the Madeleines. I encountered the existential version in reality and simply fell in love. Got to hand it over to the French, I say. From Chanel to chic, from cooking to cuckolding, no one beats the French. (Pardon, but wasn't Madame Bovary French after all?) Yes, Ghostie, I discovered the sweet bliss of biting into a milk soaked-fifteen seconds microwaved-and melting in the mouth-ambrosia. Amen for that.
It was Sarah Ban Breathnach who showcased that rare gem of a poem. A poet, obviously a woman, had discovered God in soap suds. The writer had been washing plates, as her soul traversed into its own heaven. So did I, this passing year. I discovered God in not just soap suds, but also in changing diapers. God just happens to be a kind Domestic Goddess for ordinary mothers like me. She understands how impossible it is to tune in to the intellectual proclivities of a higher order when there is that stubborn tomato sauce sticking onto the wash basin. Orhan Pamuk can wait a bit - I am Red - with exasperation; now that the stain has gone, what about Istanbul, sir?
Ah, Ghostie. After French cookies and domestic bliss, comes essays. Now, that is fodder for the craving heart and soul. Never judge an author by his novels, I say, but by his essays. Orhan Pamuk is a sheer joy to read. Brevity, he knows, is the soul of wit and wisdom. Besides, that earns him fans like me, who cannot afford to sit and read calmly for fifteen minutes at a stretch. In between two toddler nap times, three Pamuk essays (Other Colours) can be comfortably consumed.
Not so with Coetzee (Inner Workings). I struggled with his erudite essays and concluded that Disgrace had been a better read. I am just not into dense intellectual matter now. But still I tried Fuentes (This I believe). That man has charm and wit. If I cannot understand his metaphysics, I make do with what he writes of Women and Amor! After all, he finishes his essays in two pages. I am going to quote a line from one of his essays, which I have taken to heart. "Aun a pesar de las tinieblas, bella/Aun a pesar de las estrellas, clara." (Even in the face of darkness, lovely/Even in the face of stars, luminous.)
I also encountered a terrific writer called Judith Thurman, who introduced me to 39 forms of desire in a brilliant collection of her New York Times articles called 'Cleopatra's Nose'. And a slim volume called 'Learning to Drive', by Kathy Pollitt.
Humour gets to me any day. But really, Jorge Borges is wonderful in his non-fiction. I had to reprogram my brain which had only the name of Umberto Eco as the Intellectual It! It really sounds so cool and superior, Ghostie mine, to spout those famous names.
By the way, I did read a novel by Paul Auster - the first of his New York Trilogy. I grabbed it because his photograph was as handsome as that of the young Arthur Miller. Haunting, it certainly is - the face and the novel. But not for me the Code of Babel and abuse of innocence - even in the name of intellectual sublimation. However, I enjoyed Paulo Coelho's Zahir. For lilting poetry in prose, try him any day. Now, apart from Little Lulu and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which my elder daughter sometimes allows me to share, I don't much remember anything else.
My Ghost looks disapprovingly at me. Arre bhai, I am not old Scrooge by the way. I need not pack a whole life time into one year, need I? Films, murmurs the apparition. Psheeew, man Ghostie, you got me this time. So after madeleines, domesticity and essays, comes films. Lord, what burns in Sidney Poitiers' eyes? Any person who loves the magic of films should watch "In the Heat of the Night" and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner". If screen presence can be equated to a single actor, Hallelujah! And when one gets time, it is worthwhile to watch Gregory Peck enact Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mocking Bird".
Ghostie is doing his calculations. That leaves an unaccounted 362 days, he coughs. Very boring existence, you seem to lead, my dear. Oh, but one lives intensely only on some days, I counter. And what we remember of those good times will help us plod on the rest of the year. Take it or leave it, Friend Casper.
Didn't a philosopher once define happiness as the feeling of being comfortable wherever you are, doing whatever you are doing, at the moment? I wish that feeling to all of you this new year. May all things bright and beautiful come your way, I pray. May our ordinary lives be blessed with the extraordinary gifts that are scattered abundantly around us. May we have the eyes to see and ears to listen to the whisperings of the soul. They came to me in soap suds, essays, Poitier films and madeleines the past year. And I am as thankful as can be.
Be blessed, the new year.
Welcome to the Click Society: The 2008 Mega Trends
We are simply not alone any longer, anywhere or anytime... not even in the most private rooms and quiet spaces that we so dearly cherish. All that beautiful décor and openness that we think is filled with fresh air is actually jam-packed with zillions of invisible
wireless messages, electronic signals, streaming videos, and all kinds of pulses that are fast forwarding our cyber-society of today. The special eye-wear that's currently under rapid-development to enable a three-dimensional spectrum view of digital flow in thin air, as seen in 'The Matrix', where free-floating, streams of digital information will surround us and shock our thinking. These digital signals cover us like a thick blanket, watching and awaiting every single electronic interaction of ours, recording, updating and profiling our habits and patterns based on consumption.
Deeply submerged in the cyber-ocean of information, there are two outcomes to this. Firstly, our existence as a hyper-consuming subject, the second is an interactive profiling system, built on super-sponge-technology that scans our present movements to predict our future ones, offering products and solutions which parallel the speed of our thinking. Sounds too sci-fi crazy, but in reality, it's yesterday's news.
There's more information about us out there this very second than we can imagine. After all, we're living under amazing times, like a very fast game of ping-pong, constant action and reaction to just about everything we act upon is being championed. It's so fast and so instant that it boggles the mind; any of your actionable pulses could go and come back around the globe in a split of a second. See? It just did. Technology has seriously flattened the earth and truly curved our daily lives; where cyber life-styles have us spinning into yogurt while the clocks seem going double the speed. It's hard to figure out with all the supposed ease of technology and open access where the time goes. Hours seem to be shrinking into minutes. Seconds? What seconds? The hamster-style mobility of the daily grind is keeping most of us from revolting. Even matters of distance have disappeared; you forget where you were few hours ago, which block, which airport, which Starbuck's, which country? The increasingly digital state of today's world has almost eliminated the dimension of time.
This digital miniaturization has blossomed into an interactive-hyper-connected world of mobile technology that has taken over as the most powerful of all new mediums so far. In this setting, the entire world becomes the largest shopping mall, the customer becomes the most powerful prowler, in search of deals, a universe of product and services opens up, and only those organization with commanding knowledge of global marketing response, cyber branding and cyber mobility are poised to make it in this curved space.
Also in the mix, a soup of multiple technologies and multiple skills combined to adopt multiple messages and unified under a master plan. These future products will hunt us down at the right time and opportunity, coming into play at that critical second just
before the purchase decision; striking like a moray eel when a little guppy gets closer. It's now like walking into thin air where you see absolutely nothing but the cyber blanket of invisible pulses and wireless information closely wrap around you; hugging you, having full access to knowledge about what credit cards you have in your pockets, your favorite magazines and your major purchases of the last year; all nicely alphabetically organized and manipulated to evaluate your taste, habits, preferences and even deep intentions. Your age, gender, habits and occupational profile are all digital blue-prints to decode your identity, style and spending. The cyber cloud hovers all around you as you approach various shops and your PDA beeps to inform you about a great offer on that watch you wanted, or will alert your bank about a potential overdraft when you enter a diamond shop. Failing to signal when changing lanes now appears on the balance of your next car insurance policy. No, this isn't a movie script, its old news.
Outbound Noise & Inbound Specificity
These zillions of day-to-day, small online interactions add-up, collectively developing your consumption profiles. The system can easily determine when you and how many of your friends are planning a trip to Rio, with what budget, and what airline. This information is a gold-mine to some in the travel business, while the same goes to hundreds of other various sectors. This highly-chicken for mequalified specificity has created a melt-down in the traditional world of advertising, which was historically based on creating wild outbound noise with bottomless budgets. A great thing century ago, but the online era is founded upon the specific pulse of inward consuming traffic.
The total change of old-media-structure is upon us. The last century gave us print society, where the printed word was power, and when only the literate could benefit from information, the ad industry started with a bang. The selling of goods and branding for mass consumerism become the bridge to most of the global economies and the concepts to produce and sell, earn and spend created the modern civilization. The conveyor belts of the process were managed by the ad industry and the herds of consumers were managed by the creative dangling of carrots by ads... Today, and each and every single day, the global ad industry easily spends over a billion dollars creating various types of branding and selling messages.
But now, most current online and cyber advertising techniques are meticulously precise, measurable and predictable. They have trimmed all the non-essential extra creative AD luggage and mega-budgets that allowed for the arrival of the 'MAD Men TV Series' produced
by the same team behind 'The Sopranos', correctly portraying the ad-machine that once created public hysteria and great consumer demands, but now lingers upon extinction like a dinosaur. This global rejection of the traditional ad-game is all over us, affecting newspapers, TV and all other ad-based mediums while a new trace-able, track-able, predictable, ROI model of one-to-one advertising sell-first-bill-later is getting a stronger hold.
The challenges are on two fronts. Firstly, a continuously modified mass scale selling of goods and services using traditional models which have fared well in the past. And Secondly, the urgent need of highly exuberant structures of specialized global service agencies, connecting customers on a one-to-one, per-need basis, using hyper-connected, cyber-marketing-processes. Both fronts are very serious and work towards creating a major shift. Ad shops have always excelled at the creativity component which separated them from the other related service sectors. They are once again required to come up with better ideas and solutions, as on the net, it now takes only seconds to copy, cut and paste the same recycled campaigns and their value being erased at cyber speed. The winners and losers will be determined based on speed to market response.
The 2008 Meltdowns
IBM's current study 'The END of Advertising as we know it' is a forceful document downloadable from their website. It clearly points how the old advertising models, crazy creativity that is now being replaced by highly organized pay-per-click formats, creating direct sales for clients on a sell-first, invoice-later basis. This creates a two-fold meltdown, one in which those agencies which remain still locked down in old models and other is the traditional free media worldwide which so far heavily relied on the Ad revenue.
The 2008 Boom
Clicks and more clicks. Anything that generates a click and results in a cascade of events will boom. There will be special gadgets to special services, from special click-based programs to special offerings. A kind of new click-sound to the click-economy, supporting search engine-based marketing, where the emphasis will be placed on finding a match between customers and immediate consumption issues is where advertising and marketing will park themselves.
The middlemen or the layer of services will offer clear, ROI-based campaigns and will, at times, have a huge surprise windfall for their highly productive campaigns as extra bonuses. Though, at the same time, the big drawback will be privacy, as there will be
extraordinary amounts of information made available to target customers.
The New Trends
A new emergence of a global desire to aim and create a Five Star Standard businesses is almost upon us. Just like a five star hotel, with services, quality and style, this desire to operate a business and offer services just like a five star standard hotel will reflect not only on the corporate brand and the product and services as goodwill ambassadors, but mainly in its hospitable services and 24-hour availability of staff to address those issues. The difference between a luxury home and a five star hotel is the hotel keeps an on-call staff, open switch-board, open kitchen the entire facility and the room service. This is how the corporations of the new era will have to function in order to earn the respect in a click-based round-the-clock society.
Asia is now beginning to offer 24-hour, fully-supported banking, buying and selling of properties, insurance, travel, and all kinds of hundreds of new services. Now, the customer demands and decides whenever, whatever and wherever the need is to be met. Only the players equipped to meet these spontaneous demands will have a chance. The creation of a fully-supported, 24X7 operation that will never close and perform transactions instantly is the new future. You would like to own those special glasses to see that blanket of streaming data hugging you right now... wouldn't you?
wireless messages, electronic signals, streaming videos, and all kinds of pulses that are fast forwarding our cyber-society of today. The special eye-wear that's currently under rapid-development to enable a three-dimensional spectrum view of digital flow in thin air, as seen in 'The Matrix', where free-floating, streams of digital information will surround us and shock our thinking. These digital signals cover us like a thick blanket, watching and awaiting every single electronic interaction of ours, recording, updating and profiling our habits and patterns based on consumption.
Deeply submerged in the cyber-ocean of information, there are two outcomes to this. Firstly, our existence as a hyper-consuming subject, the second is an interactive profiling system, built on super-sponge-technology that scans our present movements to predict our future ones, offering products and solutions which parallel the speed of our thinking. Sounds too sci-fi crazy, but in reality, it's yesterday's news.
There's more information about us out there this very second than we can imagine. After all, we're living under amazing times, like a very fast game of ping-pong, constant action and reaction to just about everything we act upon is being championed. It's so fast and so instant that it boggles the mind; any of your actionable pulses could go and come back around the globe in a split of a second. See? It just did. Technology has seriously flattened the earth and truly curved our daily lives; where cyber life-styles have us spinning into yogurt while the clocks seem going double the speed. It's hard to figure out with all the supposed ease of technology and open access where the time goes. Hours seem to be shrinking into minutes. Seconds? What seconds? The hamster-style mobility of the daily grind is keeping most of us from revolting. Even matters of distance have disappeared; you forget where you were few hours ago, which block, which airport, which Starbuck's, which country? The increasingly digital state of today's world has almost eliminated the dimension of time.
This digital miniaturization has blossomed into an interactive-hyper-connected world of mobile technology that has taken over as the most powerful of all new mediums so far. In this setting, the entire world becomes the largest shopping mall, the customer becomes the most powerful prowler, in search of deals, a universe of product and services opens up, and only those organization with commanding knowledge of global marketing response, cyber branding and cyber mobility are poised to make it in this curved space.
Also in the mix, a soup of multiple technologies and multiple skills combined to adopt multiple messages and unified under a master plan. These future products will hunt us down at the right time and opportunity, coming into play at that critical second just
before the purchase decision; striking like a moray eel when a little guppy gets closer. It's now like walking into thin air where you see absolutely nothing but the cyber blanket of invisible pulses and wireless information closely wrap around you; hugging you, having full access to knowledge about what credit cards you have in your pockets, your favorite magazines and your major purchases of the last year; all nicely alphabetically organized and manipulated to evaluate your taste, habits, preferences and even deep intentions. Your age, gender, habits and occupational profile are all digital blue-prints to decode your identity, style and spending. The cyber cloud hovers all around you as you approach various shops and your PDA beeps to inform you about a great offer on that watch you wanted, or will alert your bank about a potential overdraft when you enter a diamond shop. Failing to signal when changing lanes now appears on the balance of your next car insurance policy. No, this isn't a movie script, its old news.
Outbound Noise & Inbound Specificity
These zillions of day-to-day, small online interactions add-up, collectively developing your consumption profiles. The system can easily determine when you and how many of your friends are planning a trip to Rio, with what budget, and what airline. This information is a gold-mine to some in the travel business, while the same goes to hundreds of other various sectors. This highly-chicken for mequalified specificity has created a melt-down in the traditional world of advertising, which was historically based on creating wild outbound noise with bottomless budgets. A great thing century ago, but the online era is founded upon the specific pulse of inward consuming traffic.
The total change of old-media-structure is upon us. The last century gave us print society, where the printed word was power, and when only the literate could benefit from information, the ad industry started with a bang. The selling of goods and branding for mass consumerism become the bridge to most of the global economies and the concepts to produce and sell, earn and spend created the modern civilization. The conveyor belts of the process were managed by the ad industry and the herds of consumers were managed by the creative dangling of carrots by ads... Today, and each and every single day, the global ad industry easily spends over a billion dollars creating various types of branding and selling messages.
But now, most current online and cyber advertising techniques are meticulously precise, measurable and predictable. They have trimmed all the non-essential extra creative AD luggage and mega-budgets that allowed for the arrival of the 'MAD Men TV Series' produced
by the same team behind 'The Sopranos', correctly portraying the ad-machine that once created public hysteria and great consumer demands, but now lingers upon extinction like a dinosaur. This global rejection of the traditional ad-game is all over us, affecting newspapers, TV and all other ad-based mediums while a new trace-able, track-able, predictable, ROI model of one-to-one advertising sell-first-bill-later is getting a stronger hold.
The challenges are on two fronts. Firstly, a continuously modified mass scale selling of goods and services using traditional models which have fared well in the past. And Secondly, the urgent need of highly exuberant structures of specialized global service agencies, connecting customers on a one-to-one, per-need basis, using hyper-connected, cyber-marketing-processes. Both fronts are very serious and work towards creating a major shift. Ad shops have always excelled at the creativity component which separated them from the other related service sectors. They are once again required to come up with better ideas and solutions, as on the net, it now takes only seconds to copy, cut and paste the same recycled campaigns and their value being erased at cyber speed. The winners and losers will be determined based on speed to market response.
The 2008 Meltdowns
IBM's current study 'The END of Advertising as we know it' is a forceful document downloadable from their website. It clearly points how the old advertising models, crazy creativity that is now being replaced by highly organized pay-per-click formats, creating direct sales for clients on a sell-first, invoice-later basis. This creates a two-fold meltdown, one in which those agencies which remain still locked down in old models and other is the traditional free media worldwide which so far heavily relied on the Ad revenue.
The 2008 Boom
Clicks and more clicks. Anything that generates a click and results in a cascade of events will boom. There will be special gadgets to special services, from special click-based programs to special offerings. A kind of new click-sound to the click-economy, supporting search engine-based marketing, where the emphasis will be placed on finding a match between customers and immediate consumption issues is where advertising and marketing will park themselves.
The middlemen or the layer of services will offer clear, ROI-based campaigns and will, at times, have a huge surprise windfall for their highly productive campaigns as extra bonuses. Though, at the same time, the big drawback will be privacy, as there will be
extraordinary amounts of information made available to target customers.
The New Trends
A new emergence of a global desire to aim and create a Five Star Standard businesses is almost upon us. Just like a five star hotel, with services, quality and style, this desire to operate a business and offer services just like a five star standard hotel will reflect not only on the corporate brand and the product and services as goodwill ambassadors, but mainly in its hospitable services and 24-hour availability of staff to address those issues. The difference between a luxury home and a five star hotel is the hotel keeps an on-call staff, open switch-board, open kitchen the entire facility and the room service. This is how the corporations of the new era will have to function in order to earn the respect in a click-based round-the-clock society.
Asia is now beginning to offer 24-hour, fully-supported banking, buying and selling of properties, insurance, travel, and all kinds of hundreds of new services. Now, the customer demands and decides whenever, whatever and wherever the need is to be met. Only the players equipped to meet these spontaneous demands will have a chance. The creation of a fully-supported, 24X7 operation that will never close and perform transactions instantly is the new future. You would like to own those special glasses to see that blanket of streaming data hugging you right now... wouldn't you?
MEAN MESSAGES FOR MANAGEMENT!!!
Having chanced to read many an erudite article on " How to Retain Employees", I couldn't resist penning down some of the more common reasons in IT industry, which succeeds in driving out the talented - in droves.
Management not having a learning loop - In Engineering we call it the control loop. It makes sure that the feedback is constantly received, and used to adjust the inputs which reduces discrepancy in the optimal output.( Well, doesn't that sound deep?)
It translates into answering questions from Freshers like these:
Why am I, an IIT topper, put into a project on Mainframes?
Could you tell me some justification for recruiting so many when the transportation is in the primitive stages, still?
Could we not have as a part of the Induction phase, support, wherein the management helps us relocate, considering that we are from different parts of India dumped into this city?
Pray, what is the criterion, in putting us into different streams of technology?
I joined to work in exciting technical fields -but I am on bench. Worse, many are on bench but the management is still on a recruiting spree. Shouldn't I feel insecure?
Any answer is better than no answer at all. (Remember the zero stroke theory vs. Negative stroke theory?) But hardly any one bothers to answer intelligently. And the questions are repeated in every batch!
There starts the disillusionment of the young! Welcome to Corporate Life!
Work Profile Mismatch - Often the Management Graduates face a role mismatch, having been lured by the excellent compensation packages, and not too bothered by the profile. However as the days pass, Maslow starts grinning from the pages of that obscure OB book, and one chaffs at work which one feels can be done by any layman.
Recognition-to the Visible - Can't blame anyone here -that is the politik of company life. But often, in this industry, the best need not be the most vocal, the genius prefers to work away on his computer, the nerd who truly brings business is often a poor presenter.
But Awards go to the vocal, the visible, the loud. So do promotions. How many companies have a dual career track with different competency based assessment done for the twin ladders? So finally, the quiet engineer gets an "Average", on Presentation skills and the loud one an "Excellent". Marks to the loud one-isn't communication skills the crux of them all?
And since all the animals have to do all the things the eel who can do a little bit of everything wins in the end*.
Work-Life Circus - It is not a mere circus anymore. More and more couples feel the strain of life in IT, with deadlines, pressures and travel taking its toll on home and balance. And if you have a young child, God save you!
When the Factories Act, 1948 was envisaged and amended, they never visualized an industry like IT. No one had dared (Correct me if I am wrong) to challenge many a practice of IT companies under the Factories Act. For it says for every 30 women working in a industry, there has to be a crèche. We have gyms, tennis courts, bars and coffee shops, golf clubs, but crèches? After all young women will forever remain young and childless in IT companies. Aren't they liberated? Out goes the young mother. (Who aced her B.E/MBA?)
Lost Identity - Maslow grinning again. While all of us cannot be Gurcharan Das, who could pen masterpieces along with managing an MNC, one still aspires for self-actualization.
True, many IT companies help in getting that dusty guitar out and shake a leg, and kill a fellow debater, but how many help channelise all that youthful pizzazz into something more meaningful to the individual?
It is more than " Small-Is-Wonderful", which drives the guy out to a dotcom or startup. It is the need to be recognized as himself/herself and not just as another face in the mess queue. Solutions, anyone?
Hierarchy and Bureaucracy - As an organization gets bigger, it loses all the advantages of being lithe, young, and agile. It is the Crisis of Bureaucracy, which will step in to control huge amounts of data and personnel. However, even after having achieved SEI-CMM Level 5 as a company, when service departments like maintenance or personnel, fails to respond to an immediate query, one feels like stranded in the sands of Indian civil service. How soon to that standard?
Chronic haters of hierarchy (There are software companies which insist on calling your superior Sir and fine you for talking your mother tongue though you are forty years old) make a beeline for exit when they face these twin monsters.
It is time that we address many issues like these, with sensitivity and intelligence. For more often than not, it is neither the hot pay packet nor the foreign trip that attracts the brilliant techie/MBA out of the company. It just could be something related to dear old Maslow.
Management not having a learning loop - In Engineering we call it the control loop. It makes sure that the feedback is constantly received, and used to adjust the inputs which reduces discrepancy in the optimal output.( Well, doesn't that sound deep?)
It translates into answering questions from Freshers like these:
Why am I, an IIT topper, put into a project on Mainframes?
Could you tell me some justification for recruiting so many when the transportation is in the primitive stages, still?
Could we not have as a part of the Induction phase, support, wherein the management helps us relocate, considering that we are from different parts of India dumped into this city?
Pray, what is the criterion, in putting us into different streams of technology?
I joined to work in exciting technical fields -but I am on bench. Worse, many are on bench but the management is still on a recruiting spree. Shouldn't I feel insecure?
Any answer is better than no answer at all. (Remember the zero stroke theory vs. Negative stroke theory?) But hardly any one bothers to answer intelligently. And the questions are repeated in every batch!
There starts the disillusionment of the young! Welcome to Corporate Life!
Work Profile Mismatch - Often the Management Graduates face a role mismatch, having been lured by the excellent compensation packages, and not too bothered by the profile. However as the days pass, Maslow starts grinning from the pages of that obscure OB book, and one chaffs at work which one feels can be done by any layman.
Recognition-to the Visible - Can't blame anyone here -that is the politik of company life. But often, in this industry, the best need not be the most vocal, the genius prefers to work away on his computer, the nerd who truly brings business is often a poor presenter.
But Awards go to the vocal, the visible, the loud. So do promotions. How many companies have a dual career track with different competency based assessment done for the twin ladders? So finally, the quiet engineer gets an "Average", on Presentation skills and the loud one an "Excellent". Marks to the loud one-isn't communication skills the crux of them all?
And since all the animals have to do all the things the eel who can do a little bit of everything wins in the end*.
Work-Life Circus - It is not a mere circus anymore. More and more couples feel the strain of life in IT, with deadlines, pressures and travel taking its toll on home and balance. And if you have a young child, God save you!
When the Factories Act, 1948 was envisaged and amended, they never visualized an industry like IT. No one had dared (Correct me if I am wrong) to challenge many a practice of IT companies under the Factories Act. For it says for every 30 women working in a industry, there has to be a crèche. We have gyms, tennis courts, bars and coffee shops, golf clubs, but crèches? After all young women will forever remain young and childless in IT companies. Aren't they liberated? Out goes the young mother. (Who aced her B.E/MBA?)
Lost Identity - Maslow grinning again. While all of us cannot be Gurcharan Das, who could pen masterpieces along with managing an MNC, one still aspires for self-actualization.
True, many IT companies help in getting that dusty guitar out and shake a leg, and kill a fellow debater, but how many help channelise all that youthful pizzazz into something more meaningful to the individual?
It is more than " Small-Is-Wonderful", which drives the guy out to a dotcom or startup. It is the need to be recognized as himself/herself and not just as another face in the mess queue. Solutions, anyone?
Hierarchy and Bureaucracy - As an organization gets bigger, it loses all the advantages of being lithe, young, and agile. It is the Crisis of Bureaucracy, which will step in to control huge amounts of data and personnel. However, even after having achieved SEI-CMM Level 5 as a company, when service departments like maintenance or personnel, fails to respond to an immediate query, one feels like stranded in the sands of Indian civil service. How soon to that standard?
Chronic haters of hierarchy (There are software companies which insist on calling your superior Sir and fine you for talking your mother tongue though you are forty years old) make a beeline for exit when they face these twin monsters.
It is time that we address many issues like these, with sensitivity and intelligence. For more often than not, it is neither the hot pay packet nor the foreign trip that attracts the brilliant techie/MBA out of the company. It just could be something related to dear old Maslow.
CHAT ABBREVIATIONS!!!
AFAIK -- As Far As I Know
AFK -- Away From Keyboard
ASAP -- As Soon As Possible
BAS -- Big A** Smile
BBL -- Be Back Later
BBN -- Bye Bye Now
BBS -- Be Back Soon
BEG -- Big Evil Grin
BF -- Boyfriend
BIBO -- Beer In, Beer Out
BRB -- Be Right Back
BTW -- By The Way
BWL -- Bursting With Laughter
C&G -- Chuckle and Grin
CICO -- Coffee In, Coffee Out
CID -- Crying In Disgrace
CNP -- Continued (in my) Next Post
CP -- Chat Post(a chat message)
CRBT -- Crying Real Big Tears
CSG -- Chuckle Snicker Grin
CYA -- See You (Seeya)
CYAL8R -- See You Later (Seeyalata)
DLTBBB -- Don't Let The Bed Bugs Bite
EG -- Evil Grin
EMSG -- Email Message
FC -- Fingers Crossed
FTBOMH -- From The Bottom Of My Heart
FYI -- For Your Information
FWIW -- For What It's Worth
GAL -- Get A Life
GF -- Girlfriend
GFN -- Gone For Now
GMBA -- Giggling My Butt Off
GMTA -- Great Minds Think Alike
GTSY -- Glad To See You
H&K -- Hug and Kiss
HABU -- Have A Better 'Un
HAGN -- Have A Good Night
HAGU -- Have A Good 'Un
HHIS -- Hanging Head in Shame
HUB -- Head Up Butt
IAE -- In Any Event
IC -- I See
IGP -- I Gotta Pee
IMNSHO -- In My Not So Humble Opinion
IMO -- In My Opinion
IMCO -- In My Considered Opinion
IMHO -- In My Humble Opinion
IOW -- In Other Words
IRL -- In Real Life
IWALU -- I Will Always Love You
JMO -- Just My Opinion
JTLYK -- Just To Let You Know
KIT -- Keep In Touch
KOC -- Kiss On Cheek
KOL -- Kiss On Lips
L8R -- Later
L8R -- G8R Later 'Gater
LHM -- Lord Help Me
LHO -- Laughing Head Off
LHU -- Lord Help Us
LMAO -- Laughing My A$$ Off
LMSO -- Laughing My Socks Off
LOL -- Laugh Out Loud
LSHMBB -- Laughing So Hard My Belly is Bouncing
LSHMBH -- Laughing So Hard My Belly Hurts
LSHTTARDML -- Laughing So Hard The Tears Are Running Down My Leg
LTNS -- Long Time No See
LTS -- Laughing To Self
LUWAMH -- Love You With All My Heart
LY -- Love Ya
MTF -- More To Follow
NRN -- No Reply Necessary
NADT -- Not A Darn Thing
OIC -- Oh, I See
OL -- Old Lady (significant other)
OM -- Old Man (significant other)
OTOH -- On The Other Hand
OTTOMH -- Off The Top of My Head
PDS -- Please Don't Shoot
PITA -- Pain In The A**
PM -- Private Message
PMFJI -- Pardon Me For Jumping In
PMP -- Peed My Pants
POAHF -- Put On A Happy Face
QSL -- Reply
QSO -- Conversation
QT -- Cutie
ROFL -- Rolling On Floor Laughing
ROFLAPMP -- ROFL And Peeing My Pants
ROFLMAO -- ROFL My A** Off
ROFLMAOAY -- ROFLMAO At You
ROFLMAOWTIME -- ROFLMAO With Tears In My Eyes
ROFLUTS ROFL -- Unable to Speak
RTFM -- Read The F****** Manual!
SETE -- Smiling Ear To Ear
SHID -- Slaps Head In Disgust
SNERT -- Snot-Nosed Egotistical Rude Teenager
SO -- Significant Other
SOT -- Short Of Time
SOTMG -- Short Of Time Must Go
SWAK -- Sealed With A Kiss
SWAS -- Scientific Wild A** Guess
SWL -- Screaming with Laughter
SYS -- See You Soon
TA -- Thanks Again
TGIF -- Thank God It's Friday
TCOY -- Take Care Of Yourself
TILII -- Tell It Like It Is
TNT -- Till Next Time
TOY -- Thinking Of You
TTFN -- Ta Ta For Now
TTYL -- Talk To You Later
WAS -- Wild A** Guess
WB -- Welcome Back
WTH -- What/Who The Heck (or sub an 'F' for the 'H')
YBS -- You'll Be Sorry
YG -- Young Gentleman
YL -- Young Lady
YM -- Young Man
:-| -- Ambivalent
o:-) -- Angelic
>:-( -- Angry
|-I -- Asleep
(::()::) -- Bandaid
:-{} -- Blowing a Kiss
\-o -- Bored
:-c -- Bummed Out
|C| -- Can of Coke
|P| -- Can of Pepsi
:( ) -- Can't Stop Talking
:*) -- Clowning
:' -- Crying
:'-) -- Crying with Joy
:'-( -- Crying Sadly
:-9 -- Delicious, Yummy
:-> -- Devilish
;-> -- Devilish Wink
:P -- Disgusted (sticking out tongue)
:*) -- Drunk
:-6 -- Exhausted, Wiped Out
:( -- Frown
\~/ -- Full Glass
\_/ -- Glass (drink)
^5 -- High Five
(((((name)))) -- Hug (cyber hug)
(( )):** -- Hugs and Kisses
:-I -- Indifferent
:-# -- Lips are Sealed
:~/ -- Mixed Up
:-O -- Mouth Open (Surprised)
(_) -- Mug (coffee, beer)
@[_]~~ -- Mug of HOT Coffee or Tea
**** -- Popcorn
&&&& -- Pretzels
@}--{--{-- -- Rose
:-@ -- Screaming
:-O -- Shocked
:-) -- Smile
^ -- Thumbs Up
:-& -- Tongue Tied
:-\ -- Undecided
;-) -- Wink
|-O -- Yawning
c[T] -- cup of tea
c[C] -- cup of coffee
(%> -- pizza
,,l, -- the finger
>^-^< -- cats
(_\_)(_|_)(_/_) -- dancing ass off
:-Þ~ -- drooling
?€?€ -- hiding, staring in the dark.
{\o/} -- angel
:-------) -- Viagra smile
AFK -- Away From Keyboard
ASAP -- As Soon As Possible
BAS -- Big A** Smile
BBL -- Be Back Later
BBN -- Bye Bye Now
BBS -- Be Back Soon
BEG -- Big Evil Grin
BF -- Boyfriend
BIBO -- Beer In, Beer Out
BRB -- Be Right Back
BTW -- By The Way
BWL -- Bursting With Laughter
C&G -- Chuckle and Grin
CICO -- Coffee In, Coffee Out
CID -- Crying In Disgrace
CNP -- Continued (in my) Next Post
CP -- Chat Post(a chat message)
CRBT -- Crying Real Big Tears
CSG -- Chuckle Snicker Grin
CYA -- See You (Seeya)
CYAL8R -- See You Later (Seeyalata)
DLTBBB -- Don't Let The Bed Bugs Bite
EG -- Evil Grin
EMSG -- Email Message
FC -- Fingers Crossed
FTBOMH -- From The Bottom Of My Heart
FYI -- For Your Information
FWIW -- For What It's Worth
GAL -- Get A Life
GF -- Girlfriend
GFN -- Gone For Now
GMBA -- Giggling My Butt Off
GMTA -- Great Minds Think Alike
GTSY -- Glad To See You
H&K -- Hug and Kiss
HABU -- Have A Better 'Un
HAGN -- Have A Good Night
HAGU -- Have A Good 'Un
HHIS -- Hanging Head in Shame
HUB -- Head Up Butt
IAE -- In Any Event
IC -- I See
IGP -- I Gotta Pee
IMNSHO -- In My Not So Humble Opinion
IMO -- In My Opinion
IMCO -- In My Considered Opinion
IMHO -- In My Humble Opinion
IOW -- In Other Words
IRL -- In Real Life
IWALU -- I Will Always Love You
JMO -- Just My Opinion
JTLYK -- Just To Let You Know
KIT -- Keep In Touch
KOC -- Kiss On Cheek
KOL -- Kiss On Lips
L8R -- Later
L8R -- G8R Later 'Gater
LHM -- Lord Help Me
LHO -- Laughing Head Off
LHU -- Lord Help Us
LMAO -- Laughing My A$$ Off
LMSO -- Laughing My Socks Off
LOL -- Laugh Out Loud
LSHMBB -- Laughing So Hard My Belly is Bouncing
LSHMBH -- Laughing So Hard My Belly Hurts
LSHTTARDML -- Laughing So Hard The Tears Are Running Down My Leg
LTNS -- Long Time No See
LTS -- Laughing To Self
LUWAMH -- Love You With All My Heart
LY -- Love Ya
MTF -- More To Follow
NRN -- No Reply Necessary
NADT -- Not A Darn Thing
OIC -- Oh, I See
OL -- Old Lady (significant other)
OM -- Old Man (significant other)
OTOH -- On The Other Hand
OTTOMH -- Off The Top of My Head
PDS -- Please Don't Shoot
PITA -- Pain In The A**
PM -- Private Message
PMFJI -- Pardon Me For Jumping In
PMP -- Peed My Pants
POAHF -- Put On A Happy Face
QSL -- Reply
QSO -- Conversation
QT -- Cutie
ROFL -- Rolling On Floor Laughing
ROFLAPMP -- ROFL And Peeing My Pants
ROFLMAO -- ROFL My A** Off
ROFLMAOAY -- ROFLMAO At You
ROFLMAOWTIME -- ROFLMAO With Tears In My Eyes
ROFLUTS ROFL -- Unable to Speak
RTFM -- Read The F****** Manual!
SETE -- Smiling Ear To Ear
SHID -- Slaps Head In Disgust
SNERT -- Snot-Nosed Egotistical Rude Teenager
SO -- Significant Other
SOT -- Short Of Time
SOTMG -- Short Of Time Must Go
SWAK -- Sealed With A Kiss
SWAS -- Scientific Wild A** Guess
SWL -- Screaming with Laughter
SYS -- See You Soon
TA -- Thanks Again
TGIF -- Thank God It's Friday
TCOY -- Take Care Of Yourself
TILII -- Tell It Like It Is
TNT -- Till Next Time
TOY -- Thinking Of You
TTFN -- Ta Ta For Now
TTYL -- Talk To You Later
WAS -- Wild A** Guess
WB -- Welcome Back
WTH -- What/Who The Heck (or sub an 'F' for the 'H')
YBS -- You'll Be Sorry
YG -- Young Gentleman
YL -- Young Lady
YM -- Young Man
:-| -- Ambivalent
o:-) -- Angelic
>:-( -- Angry
|-I -- Asleep
(::()::) -- Bandaid
:-{} -- Blowing a Kiss
\-o -- Bored
:-c -- Bummed Out
|C| -- Can of Coke
|P| -- Can of Pepsi
:( ) -- Can't Stop Talking
:*) -- Clowning
:' -- Crying
:'-) -- Crying with Joy
:'-( -- Crying Sadly
:-9 -- Delicious, Yummy
:-> -- Devilish
;-> -- Devilish Wink
:P -- Disgusted (sticking out tongue)
:*) -- Drunk
:-6 -- Exhausted, Wiped Out
:( -- Frown
\~/ -- Full Glass
\_/ -- Glass (drink)
^5 -- High Five
(((((name)))) -- Hug (cyber hug)
(( )):** -- Hugs and Kisses
:-I -- Indifferent
:-# -- Lips are Sealed
:~/ -- Mixed Up
:-O -- Mouth Open (Surprised)
(_) -- Mug (coffee, beer)
@[_]~~ -- Mug of HOT Coffee or Tea
**** -- Popcorn
&&&& -- Pretzels
@}--{--{-- -- Rose
:-@ -- Screaming
:-O -- Shocked
:-) -- Smile
^ -- Thumbs Up
:-& -- Tongue Tied
:-\ -- Undecided
;-) -- Wink
|-O -- Yawning
c[T] -- cup of tea
c[C] -- cup of coffee
(%> -- pizza
,,l, -- the finger
>^-^< -- cats
(_\_)(_|_)(_/_) -- dancing ass off
:-Þ~ -- drooling
?€?€ -- hiding, staring in the dark.
{\o/} -- angel
:-------) -- Viagra smile
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