Saravanan Sahadevan

I was walking the streets of Aberdeen yesterday and I was thinking if it was possible to form a city by my own with its own rules and regulation if I had a large piece of land. A place of a higher living standards. Providing a unique living space for unique people. 

Lets try to discuss this. On a fun brainstorming approach or even stressing on its possibilities. I’m just going to give a short list below of things that would be needed in my city. 

• Keeping it clean and beautiful
• Gated Security
• Keeping It Eco-Friendly 
• Astonishing Pedestrian & Transport System
• Virtual Technology That Meets Reality
• Shops & Restaurants - Keeping Style & Packaging Unique
• Good Local I.T. Infrastructure 
• Homes With No Grills - This is available mostly in western territories but not over at Asia.
• The City That Acts as an Outdoor Mall.

Im sure we all have dreams of constructing our own city. So what’s yours like?

I know we all have everything planned out very well in terms of our schedules. But somehow sometimes we tend to fail in keeping our selfs constant in work. As for me, blogging is part of my daily work but I recently have been unable to blog consistently. Even previous methods we discussed about on this blog failed me. I keep falling into a ditch. I keep becoming even more busy as time goes on, but that is of course not an excuse. I even procrastinated some of my other important work. Im sure that some of you might be on the same boat with me right now or sometime soon. Well, lets just dive in a little below and find out some solutions that could really work out. 

Over-planning is the key destroyer of progress. 

I guess this was one of the dumbest mistake I made. Packing up your schedule with task was not a good idea. I tried to be realistic. But I guess, I have to be even more realistic. When you cramp up task and when it gets overlapped with one another, that’s when we could be digging our own grave. Therefore, I approached to spread the tasks throughout the weeks with respective priorities and to keep more slots free. Besides that, Im going to even try to grab extra hours in the weekends for client case studies and strategy building. That would be times when you really do not feel like doing any editorial work perhaps. 

Schedule with a bit of emotions.

Feel free to move your task around according to your emotions but do insist on completing it. Sometimes its better to let your emotions do your scheduling but of course it has to make some sense and not lead into procrastination. People have various meanings for procrastinations but to me it simply means, “Finish it by the dateline”.

Systematic calendaring.

I thought my calendars were systematic enough but I guess I’m wrong. I used to separate my calendar to home and work. That again leaded into some problems.  I was mixing up my agendas. I think I solved it by splitting my calendars even further. This is what I have now. Home - general activities, Work - cliental work, Editorial - editorial work such as blogging, Study - assignments and case studies. Splitting it gives you a clearer look on your load and gives you a better chance in managing it productively. 

Future-proof while you can. 

Besides all the planning, I know how it feels when things really get out of hand. I would like to bring emotions here into count again. For blogging, If you have some free time in a day or simply have the mood to write, consider writing for the next day or even more and schedule it. This would not work for any time oriented post. For any other task, the concept is still the same, do it in advance.

Keeping synced with a rhythm.

When you are on the move, you need to have the right tools with you. For instance, the internet is a backbone to my tasking system. Besides that, my work relies on the internet as well. Without it, I am helpless in being productive in any sort. All your necessary tools such as a simple notepad for ideas to be jotted down or a gadget such a mobile phone needs to be with you at all time. By keeping things with you all the time, it helps you to keep yourself in an active rhythm as there would be no excuse to stop at any point. I remind you, once you stop your daily activity, you would loose your momentum and rhythm instantly. Avoid any interference or have a backup plan.

Having all this taken into count, I would also like you to visit back to an older post on Basic’s that improves productivity that should be taken into count as well.

Just as I had lunch yesterday over at Chutney Mary’s, I was having this in mind. Vicknes was telling me to start providing some facts that would show the advantages of social media. I would like to keep the example as basic as possible and effective for the common people. 

So, How about getting to know which restaurants are the best through the social media networks available. 

For instance, the food over at Chutney’s were pretty good. I shared my part over at twitter by informing that the food was delicious. Now think about this. We are going to use twitter as a platform. Having a huge follower list and friends may be benefiting. Im making this statement in thought that the audience are Malaysians. 

Alright, the scenario is this. Im desperate for a great Japanese restaurant as I need to take out someone at the particular moment. The social media is still growing at Malaysia. And the internet did not seem to be giving me much of an info. Google map’s did not highlight me any. Furthermore, I only have a mobile phone with me.(assuming you don’t have a data plan) So what do it do? 

Twitter! as it works well on text messages. Since I have a mutual list of followers & friends. They should be a help to me when I do need it the most. So I twitter. “Urgent guys, What’s the nearest Japanese Food in Bangsar Baru.” Instantly you receive flooded amount of replies suggesting you where to go and what’s best on the menu. Well. That’s a quick opener on the possibilities of the social media usage. I would go on with various series of explanation. Taking more common examples into count.

On another note.. I would be giving you my thoughts on Mutual Contacts Vs Random Contacts soon. That’s the core ingredient to an active social network. I believe its important. 

I would let go moderations if :

• The local community knew how to behave as I have some previous Indian content on the site. I am sad to say this but, its where I receive all the vulgar comments in discussions happening there that are simply not appropriate. 
• I would like freedom of opinions on the site, but some does not have the sense on what to comment and all they know is to go against without even thinking about the community that you are getting involved with. 
• Others have decided to come back to moderation again. I saw what they went through and I’m glad I did not change my decision yet. 
• If everyone could keep in mind on contributing to the community, I would open up the moderation. I’m open to anyone pointing out something sensible but while keeping it clean. 
• If Akismet detected some spams that tend to still get on comments. 

Well, I ask you. What’s your approach on letting go of moderations? Or if you have recently adopted moderations, share with us your story. I’m eager to hear. 

Another weekly dive into current buzz in the social media scene, productive lifestyle & current technology trends. 

• Fan’s of advertising networks, well there seems to be more good news for you this time around. Technorati have launched their own advertising network called the Technorati Media.
• Chris Pirillo gives an in-depth review on the best Adobe Air applications around till date. 
• Facebook takes a step forward at the chinese market by spreading its presence towards them.
• Had a thought on having domain extensions such as .sex , .monkey , .blahblahblah? Well perhaps your dream might come true as ICANN might consider relaxing on certain naming rules. Having said that, did a quick scan over the blogosphere and it looks like bloggers are not to happy over this issue. I guess you know why.
• Wordpress 2.6 Beta 1 is finally out. Do take it for a spin. Lot’s of notable changes. Direct download link

You have been hearing the rumors on the G-Phone or know as Google phone. But the rumors has come to an end as google unveils what was the buzz all about. Watch the video below for more..

For more details, check out the Android code page.

Do you still receive such crap? Well I received this a while ago. Seriously, I just cant stop laughing on the amount of forwards this mail has received. Huge list that stretches it self all the way down. 

This are called urban myths. Just like the one’s we get. Forward, forward, forward and forward. Sometimes people do get blindfolded with all this silly hoax going around. If you lived in Malaysia, recently about 2 months back, there was this hilarious hoax claiming that a mobile tower would be generating some huge amount of radiation and would hit all phones at 10.p.m above. And therefore do not on your phone from 10 p.m onwards. 

Such messages were forwarded on SMS and the best part, it was so convincing, many people fell for it. From switching off phone, I was monitoring blogs that night. I could see some hilarious same messages in various formats that were published by fellow bloggers. Thanks to Google blog search though.

Coming back to the email above, which are known as urban myths & legends. If you ever received such, I would suggest you to pay a visit to Snopes.com. A place I used to visit some time back to check on such emails. And guess what, the AOL/Microsoft tracking and payment issue is listed under the top 25 urban myths. If you ever stumbled across a new myth, feel free to register them at Snopes. By the way, the AOL/Microsoft myth started way back in 2004(record history on Snopes). 

Social media is known wide for its various applications till date. When the moment we say social media at the Silicon valley, Boston or so, things that come in mind would be a blog, a facebook profile, a twitter presence and more. But this is not the case elsewhere in the world. Being in a developing country, I guess I and people like me feel it the most. 

There is no social media when there is no local community in it. Of course there is the global reach. But how much would it be if our substance required a local attention? Social media strategist often fail to point out this areas, whereby we cant blame them too because they have a social media background at the place they are. 

So what do people like me, who call them selves little social web strategist would do locally.

The strategy that we use is more on awareness. Connecting people from the real world into virtuality. Preaching and guiding throughout the importance of the social media. Even it goes as simple as a “How to use twitter” screen-cast. 

But no matter how simple it is, the main goal for us in countries like Malaysia, is to get people to adopt the social media culture first and then talk about what I do as a web strategist and how the social web could boost your business and presence. 

Can we get people to adopt the social media culture? One-adopter-a-day.

The answer is all about time. But that does not give us the opportunity to just sit back and relax. If there is no preaching or guidance going on, then likely the culture would never be adopted much. We have been taking serious steps throughout the years. Now, once again another approach would be the SocialCafe project that I am co-founding with a blogger friend, Novinthen. 

What SocialCafe would try to do is simply organized a monthly meet-up that would assist social media preaches to reach a better audience. The meet-ups are in various forms. From just a networking session, right up to hosting a seminar or a conference as part of the SocialCafe project. Getting experienced local active social media enthusiasts to be our social media preaches are the priority of this project. At the same time getting the general crowd to participate and learn what the social media is all about is definitely a challenged to be faced. 

Social media is not extra headache. Its an extra activity and extra fun as well. Sometimes people do even get confused. You do not need to own a blog. Getting involved in social media is all about using the various application and getting used to a prominent culture. It starts from facebook, twitter,…. it never really ends. So let’s wake up and get the buzz moving. 

We have been playing a prominent role in communities at large or at medium. Each of us are some sort of contribution to a creation of a community. Communities exist everywhere. The same rule applies even on the virtual space. There is even no virtual space without a community. 

Why we say a community is important.

The fact is simple. We want to be heard as well we want to hear others. From students to employees, we have communities that interact with each other and the transfer of knowledge and information between people is what have been keeping any community alive. 

How communities are built and should I build one.

Communities are formed by people who have a common interest and taste. If their passion clicks, a community is immediately born. Communities are formed in various formats such as in a blog, social media profiles, networking and so on. But a creation of a community is up to you. If you would like to be preaching & spreading on a particular interest/product of yours, then creating a community is a go. The goal is to be heard. Spreading a thought is different from trying to dominate it by the way.

Joining a community, does that make any sense.

Of course it does makes sense. What a community is without people. We join communities such as blogs & various social media in the reason to network, listen and interact. We join a community not to be heard as a goal but to energize our thoughts through contribution. Getting recognized if far more less important than contributing. 

Inter-relativity between communities. 

Many seem to fail in this approach. We created too much but we often fail to contribute. Building a community is not enough. We must engage with other communities, providing contribution through comments and any other forms available. We carry a brand of our community around when we do that. But for many, the importance does not seem to be sticking with them.