Ek Chaha, Parcel!

And, A Few Days Earlier..

...the baby pigeon with her dad beside our clothes dryer!

Baby Pigeon Is Growing Up!

Innocence

The Four Musketeers

Magical Teddies

Movie Review: Ship Of Theseus

Finally, this week, I got the chance to catch this very highly rated movie, on DVD.

The theme of the movie, with three independent stories that converge at the end, is the paradox of the Ship of Theseus. According to Wikipedia, The Ship of Theseus, also known as Theseus's paradox, is a thought experiment that raises the question of whether an object which has had all its components replaced remains fundamentally the same object. The paradox is most notably recorded by Plutarch in Life of Theseus from the late 1st century. Plutarch asked whether a ship which was restored by replacing each and every one of its wooden parts, remained the same ship.

The characters in the film all undergo a transformation that raises the question - are they still the same person? Egyptian actress Aida plays a blind photographer who gets a gift of an eye transplant that allows her to see again - but destroys her photogrpahy skills. It is a brilliant performance that you will remember for a long time. Neeraj Kabi plays a monk who fights against cruelty to animal, but his resolve is severely tested when he needs a liver transplant that requires him to accept medicines that have been tested on animals, the cause he has been fighting so hard for.

The movie is technically brilliant - the camera work, the sound. Apparently, the movie was shot on a Canon DSLR!
Do watch the movie - but remember, it can be pretty heavy stuff - so make sure you are in the right mood for it!

Movie Review: A Hijacking (Danish)

Polar opposite of another movie in the genre (Captain Phillips), A Hijacking deals with another real life incident in which Somali pirates board and hijack a Danish cargo ship for a ransom of 20M USD. Negotiations between the company's CEO, who refuses to let other professional negotiators take charge, and the pirates, drag for months - until the company finally pays up around 3.5M USD to end the crises.

The two hour movie feels longer than the months the sailors would have actually spent on board! After all, how much can you wait for the inevitable, especially when you know, no Navy Seals are ever gonna come to the rescue? :)

Movie Review: Captain Phillips

Tom Hanks enjoys being in movies where he is stuck in one place - and this time, he chooses the American container ship, Maersk Alabama, hijacked by Somali pirates 145 miles off the coast, in 2009. From the word go, the movie is a pulsating action thriller, with the ship's crew captained by Phillips (Tom Hanks) engaged in a deadly game of wits with the desperate pirates led by the stunningly cast Muse (Barkhad Abdi), while the American navy seals prepare to end the standoff.

Giving an intimate and very real-like view of the rescue ops, stunning footage of naval ships and intense negotiation techniques, this is one movie you cannot afford to miss!

Movie Review: Pulling Strings (Spanish/English)

Pulling Strings is a delightful, heart warming movie about a single father's attempt to woo a pretty gringo girl working at the American Embassy in Mexico City, so that he can get a visa for himself and his young daughter, who he wishes to leave with her grandparents in the US.

After being refused a visa, luck turns in his favour when he finds her drunk at a bus stop after after a long party, and takes her home. He hides her laptop and then spends the day with her, helping her "find" it, while making sure there are enough signals being generated about his popularity as a singer, income and stability - essential for her to get convinced that he deserves a visa.

Will it finally get him a visa? Or does life have something else in store?

A light, breezy movie, with delightful Spanish songs - if you love Bollywood, you will love this one!

Oh, and yes, the pretty Laura Ramsey makes it all so much more worthwhile!

Movie Review: Queen

I have always believed Kangana Ranaut is one of the best character actresses among her peers in Bollywood, and Queen yet again demonstrates exactly why.

The Vikas Bahl-directed Queen is a wonderful, light comedy with a powerful social message, just perfect for Women's Day. Sparkling with power packed performances, a thoroughly enjoyable script, and perfect casting, Queen is a delightful mix of English Vinglish and ZNMD. It's a coming of age story, a story of a shy, reserved Indian girl in Paris and Amsterdam, two cities that are the polar opposites of her own Rajouri, as well as a wonderful exposition of how love and friendship transcends borders and nationalities, unifying everyone in one common bond.

Let's start with the story. Kangana plays Rani, a shy, young Punjabi girl whose life and heart is broken a day before her marriage, when her fiance walks out on her. Crestfallen and dejected though she is, she decides enough is enough - and sets off on her Paris honeymoon, alone. A journey that will transform the self-pitying, scared and innocent soul into a modern, confident and proud woman.

Kangana is perfect for the role, her liberal dash of craziness, her subtle sexiness, never really seen, but always lurking around, makes her adorable. A few of her scenes are going to stay with you for a long time - fighting with the street mugger, the amazing drunk scene with Haydon which I rank as one of the best ever drunk scenes with absolutely stunning editing, the scene in which she runs to the rock show - watch her transform from the scared, shy girl to the new Rani who knows exactly what she wants. Watch her for the subtle expressions, the look in her eyes, the dialogues (many of which, by the way, have been penned by her).

The rest of the cast is also spot on. First, the stunning Lisa Haydon as her friend in Paris, who supports and drives her when she needs it most. Lisa is smoking hot, but her relationship with Rani is so beautiful and enviable. Rani's Punjabi family - again, absolutely spot on. Raj Kumar Yadav as her fiance has a small but critical role - his transformation from her suitor, to her fiance to the guy who desperately wants her back in his life is stunning, which isn't surprising as he has always been great at what he does! Rani's friends in Amsterdam, and the Italian cook she falls for - and the way their relationship build up, leaves a very warm and fuzzy feeling in your heart, and you wonder, why can't we all live like this?

While it is light and fun, it is also relentless but subtle in pointing out the gender disparity in India, and will inspire more than a few girls to stand up for themselves - and for the way it achieves this, the movie deserves an ovation. And not once does it turn preachy.

For one of the best movies in it's genre from Hollywood, huge applause from me - don't miss it this weekend!

My Article on Social Samosa on SMA for Digital Marketing

I  recently wrote an article on Social Samosa on the need for social media analytics to look beyond statistics, which present a very limited perspective.

The Indian middle class is becoming increasingly urbanized, with regular access to opinions and trends from around the world through the Internet. There is a big opportunity and a very urgent need for marketers to engage the urban Indian on the Internet. Also, not surprisingly, with the explosive rise in mobile penetration, the rural Indian is not too far behind.

With information and reviews quickly and increasingly moving to social networks, people are now more empowered and in a better position to judge and decide. For marketing strategists, simply knowing so much more about their target audiences through their social conversations, puts them in an excellent position to develop focused campaigns that resonate with each individual – something that wasn’t possible a few years ago.

Unfortunately, most social media watchers rely on largely superficial statistical information that encourages a false sense of confidence in the marketing strategy, while denying digital marketing strategists the tools needed to dig deeper into what the social networks are desperate to reveal!

Read the whole article reproduced on my Musings blog.

Movie Review: Highway

A young, impulsive girl is kidnapped,and finds love and freedom in captivity. Highway is not really a road movie - it's a journey about discovery, about finding your true calling.

Backed by power packed, endearing performances by Alia and Randeep, an excellent script, and some outstanding sound engineering and camera work in stunning locales, Highway will mesmerize you with the sounds and sights of dusty Haryana, the rolling fields of Punjab, and the sparkling mountain ranges of Himachal. You will laugh, you will be shocked into stunned silence, you will enjoy the breath of fresh air, the cold water on your face, and wake up to the beautiful sounds of the earth.

Alia shows she is no longer just the Student of the Year, she has matured into an actress of very high calibre - all she needs is the right script and a director who sets her free. Fear, desperation, innocence, impulsiveness, anger, sadness, confusion, ecstasy... Alia displays a range of emotions rarely seen in any single Bollywood character in a long, long time, and for most part, excels at their portrayal. Randeep is perfect as the brooding kidnapper with a golden heart. The supporting cast is also spot on.

AR Rahman's music is haunting, while the live sound adds tremendous authenticity, notching up the technical brilliance by several degrees. The sounds of crickets, the sounds of the highway, the roar of the river... for me, the sound was an equal partner in the wonderful Highway experience. The use of light and angles brings the best out of the stunning locales, and you wish you could get out of the damn seat and join them out there - in the lap of nature.

Not your standard Bollywood dish - but if you appreciate good film making, this is one movie you really need to soak into.

And while you are at it, think about your own highway moments in life...

Gamification Myths & Reality

Here's one of my articles that recently featured on enterprise-gamification.com.

In 2011, Gartner predicted that more than 70% of global 2000 organizations would have at least one gamified application by 2014. A year later, in Nov 2012, Gartner also predicted that 80% of the current gamified applications would fail to meet their business objectives, primarily due to poor design.

Going by what we are seeing at dozens of customers we have talked to in the last 12 months, both these predictions are coming true! While there is a huge buzz among senior leadership on adoption of gamification techniques, there is also a growing disillusionment among those who jumped on to the bandwagon and deployed a plethora of leaderboards that promised to infuse efficiency and excitement in dull and boring jobs.

In an earlier article on HR Examiner, we laid out some ground rules to ensure the success of your gamification initiative. In this article, we look at three prevailing gamification myths, and get a quick reality check!

Myth & Reality #1

Myth 1: Points, badges and leaderboards encourage competition and enhance performance
Reality: Points, badges and leaderboards motivate top performers, but can have a deeply negative impact on the vast majority of “players”

An overwhelming majority of gamified applications and gamification product vendors depend on the troika of points, badges and leaderboards as a means of incentivizing performance, encouraging healthy competition, and “leveling up players” through well-meaning and well-timed signals. Designing good leaderboards is a science as well as an art, giving more players a fair chance of getting up there and getting noticed. Unfortunately, our experience has shown that even the best designed and well-meaning leaderboards incentivize only a small fraction of employees, and can have a terribly negative impact on the vast majority, and it is important for the game designer to evaluate whether the risks of turning off most “players” are worth taking.

I experienced this first hand recently (and that is what actually triggered this article!), when my daughter and I started taking Spanish lessons on a very nice, gamified language learning portal.

For the first week, we gave each other pretty serious competition, and the thrill of beating the other to the top of the “frenemies” leaderboard ensured that we really pushed ourselves, something that wouldn’t have happened without the gamification on the site. However, by the end of the week, I had stolen a march on her, primarily because she had an exam and couldn’t “play” against me for a couple of days. And while my motivation levels have stayed high ever since, being at the top of the table, I have seen a steep drop in hers, knowing it will be very difficult now for her to catch up with me.

Myth & Reality #2

Myth 2: Gamification is simple – assign points and badges, and you are done!
Reality: The real challenge and benefit of gamification is in providing an alternate mechanism and mapping of boring and difficult tasks into a gamified, virtual world

While points and badges have provided social recognition and motivation to millions of users through gamified applications, their novelty is quickly rubbing off, and users are getting points fatigue. Unless the points and badges lead to real career growth and monetary rewards, unless the points dovetail into appraisal systems and find their way into promotion recommendations, employees realize they are nothing more than Monopoly dollars – a lot of fun, until it’s time to pay the bills in the mailbox!

The real benefit of gamification will be seen when gamification vendors start taking business problems and mapping them to game play, increasing trainability, effectiveness and results of core business-related actions and decisions through game play.

Consider an application that maps the process of short-listing opportunities in a CRM database to a game of fishing. How easy and intuitive it is to decide whether you want to catch a goldfish (an account that will be a showcase for your product, but may not bring in too much revenues), or a salmon (a decent sized opportunity that is fairly easy to net), when you need to have some quick food for dinner (the quarterly revenue targets need to be met)! And, if you are a novice, would you really go for the whale (the really big, fat opportunity that will need some serious work and skills to bag!)?

This is where gamification can revolutionize the way we think and work. Mapping complex business problems and decision making to an alternate environment enables our brain to think and decide instinctively, and the game takes over the complexity of doing an appropriate mapping.

Myth & Reality #3

Myth 3: Gamification increases participation and productivity of employees in boring, mechanical tasks
Reality: Gamification is an excellent mechanism to improve engagement around tasks and workflows that are necessary as part of the job responsibilities, but fails to visibly increase adoption of non-essential initiatives

Like any other game, any application that is gamified will interest users for a while, but as soon as the novelty rubs off, participation drops rapidly. Unless the “game” is continually refreshed and users see new challenges and experiences, it will be very difficult to sustain involvement and interest. We have seen many well-meaning initiatives around knowledge sharing and community learning come to naught a few months after being launched with much fanfare using gamified apps, simply because, fundamentally, employees did not see the core activity as being central to their job responsibilities, and no effort was made to make them feel so.

However, this does not mean gamification is useless. In situations where a workflow or activity is necessary anyway, gamification can have a positive impact. At Persistent Systems, a, IT services company with 7500 employees across the world,eMee’s gamified appraisal system has been in use for almost 4 years now. Game elements like virtual gifts and avatars provide employees with a platform to showcase their skills, achievements and contributions while "living" their virtual lives. Employee appraisal, which was time-consuming and took two to four weeks to complete at the end of every year, has now morphed into a continuous assessment and mentoring activity, taking inputs from each employee's avatar and their position in the "game". This has resulted in saving the company thousands of productive hours every year, while ensuring timely feedback and corrective action in cases of low performance.

Wrapping Up

Gamification holds tremendous promise in fundamentally changing the way enterprises and brands engage with key take holders and audiences, but an over-simplified engagement strategy focusing only on points, badges and leaderboards, can do tremendous harm to the organization. Points and badges can be the fundamental building blocks, but we need to look very carefully at their impact on the motivation and psyche of the vast majority of the employees. The advantages may not be worth the risks!

Movie Review: Instructions Not Included (Mexican/Spanish)

INI is a touching Mexican movie (in Spanish, but also available in English audio) about a serial bed hopper who suddenly gets saddled with a baby girl, by one of his ex-conquests, who dumps the baby in his hands and disappears.

Forced to take care of the baby, and now madly in love with her, the father migrates to the US, and takes the job of a stunt man. His daring acts pays him enough to shower all his love and attention on his baby, who grows up to being 6 years old. All this while, he hides the real story of her mother from her, creating a fantasy web where her mother "writes" to her every week, about her "missions to save the world".

Then, at a doctor's appointment one day, the doctor shakes his head and gives the bad news. The treatment isn't working and you have only a few days left. 

Desperate and scared of losing the wonderful life he has painstakingly built up, life takes another dramatic twist when the mom calls up, and comes over to visit her daughter, who she hasn't seen in years. As the mother-daughter relationship builds up, she returns to New York to her gay partner, promising to come back soon - and instead kicks off a custody battle with the father, discrediting him for his risky job and inability to speak English. While she loses the battle, she then pulls out her ace - a paternity test, which comes negative. But when she comes to take her daughter away, she realizes both dad and daughter have flown the nest - back to Mexico.

And that's when she (and you) come to know the truth. The girl, with a hole in her heart, has just a few days left to live. 

A beautiful, though painful, ending, some great dad-daughter moments, an awesome cast, and a poignantly humorous story make this a very beautiful movie. 

Movie Review: Ek Cup Chaha (Marathi)

I have realized that Doordarshan shows some really nice movies at night - and Ek Cup Chaha was one such gem.

Set in contemporary Konkan, ECC is a story of an honest ST conductor who gets an enormous electricity bill and feels helpless against the corrupt government machinery, until a lady activist introduces him to the power of RTI, and uses it effectively to empower him to fight the injustice.

Wonderfully scripted, with an excellent nameless cast, the movie was quite enjoyable, even though a lot of the script seemed written by one of the well meaning babus in the social welfare department!

Movie Review: Gunday

2 impressionable boys escape from the clutches of the Bangladeshi army in the aftermath of the 1971 war, and grow up to be the biggest "gunday" of Calcutta. Their thicker-than-blood relationship is tested to the limit when they both fall in love with the same girl, and with a no-nonsense police officer on their tail, it looks like their game is finally over. Or is it?

The movie starts off with some great cinematography, and shows promise in the action scenes, but as soon as Priyanka makes an entry, the story meanders aimlessly. While Arjun Kapoor puts in a decent performance, and Irrfan Khan sizzzles in his police officer role, Ranveer quickly melts into his now-increasingly-arrogant and girlish/pansy character protrayal, and the movie quickly deteriorates into an endless orgy of liberally oiled and shaved male torsos, with an added dash of coal and grime. Not to forget some excellent candidate footage for dandruff shampoos.

I have heard mixed reviews from critics, but as far as I am concerned, this movie was a disappointment :(

Disillusioned, Disoriented

PCMC's Double Decker Flyover

Pune-PCMC's first double decker flyover was inaugurated yesterday by Ajit Pawar, just a couple of hours before I had the pleasure of driving over it. Two massive decks, including BRT lanes and footpaths, cross the old Pune-Mumbai highway, then the railway tracks and finally the Pavana River, connecting Nashik Road to Wakad and Aundh, opening onto a impressive 10 lane road, flowing gently through spanking new constructions on both sides.

Meanwhile, for traffic headed from Pune to Nashik, the double decker arm rises gently, over the old highway, and then the two parallel Nashik - Wakad decks, and curves to the right, joining the Nashik road.

Here are some pics, some from my own phone and some from newspaper reports...

Real or Unreal

This was clicked in my garden in Goa - can you guess which of these are real, and which is the odd one out? :)