From last couple of weeks I have been conducting a survey of social media salaries that Indian professionals are getting. This is an in-house effort by my company just to shed some light over the matter cause me and some friends in the industry used to wonder about it. Instead of pushing it too much openly over here on the blog or Twitter, I chose to message people individually on Linkedin. This way I thought the results would be lot more qualitative as I would be messaging only social media profiles. Another advantage I felt was that it might lead to dialogue between various social media folk, which did happen. I replied to almost everyone who wrote back to me.

Along with the good stuff however there was some backfire, due to the fact that it is actually not possible to keep track of who I have already messaged and who I have recently come across. (It is possible but very tedious) It so happened that couple of them got the message multiple times, while one of them nicely replied back and I apologised and explained to them why it might have happened. This other person just called me a Spammer and threatened to remove me from their contact list. I removed them from my contact list, as anyway that person was not adding any value being there cause he couldn't even word his messages well!

His comments however got me thinking....
Work can be done to the degree of professionalism where every little detail is in place, however tedious we would take the road which would lead to no mistakes. Probably a very "Safe" path. Sure it might have taken more time if I had to cross check before I messaged anyone but at least there wouldn't be a repeat.

Now the thing is that I need to at this point re-visit why "I" was doing the social media survey in the first place. I could have hired someone and got them to do the messaging (its nothing too difficult) but I was doing it cause I like doing stuff on my own. I did take help from someone for a while but the answer is that I am really passionate about these things.

So the problem that comes up is that mistakes do happen. Many a times they are unavoidable. If I got scared of them, I would have to work like a computer and I would not be able to put my soul into my work. My passion, my love for the work I am doing is the drive not some 'Safety' rules and procedures.

Another example, is my Happenings newsletter. This newsletter started as an expression to communicate with friends, family and even some not so close friends. What happens is that a lot of them are not tech savvy enough so I can't ask them to subscribe to my newsletter but they would read my emails. So when I started my newsletter I scanned through my entire email database where there are a lot of people... I ticked all my relatives, friends and even some with whom I had lost contact but I wanted them to read these letters from me.

Now the thing here is that since I had not 'technically' asked them to sign up for the newsletter some idiot could call it spamming. The thing is that if I listened to these people, whether they are right or wrong, I would not be able to work with passion and 'रूचि'

At some point I think everyone needs to ask themselves Do I have passion for what I am doing? And if I really feel for it just go ahead and do it. If in the process someone who is not interested in my life gets the newsletter or if a social media professional gets the same message multiple times they need to have the grace to just unsubscribe or just let me know politely. This applies to me too when someone else goofs up... and it is something that I have been experiencing in my life. Small things can get us really riled up against some act another person has done and we start judging them saying 'they spammed' or 'they are rude'. Via social media it becomes so easy to just 'unfriend' these people or block them or bash them on a blog.

What I feel is that this is part of a bigger problem that we as Humans have. We create a small circle of friends and family and then we close ourselves to others. we perceive relatives as completely different from the way we see another person on the road. Why is this? The fact is that even in close families often you don't Know (beyond routine likes & dislikes) most relative any better than you can know a stranger on the road. Taking the example of an extreme situation - sometimes when there is a case where a family member has indulged in paedophilia - if you have read cases you will find the family is very reluctant to even believe the child of the same family who has made the claim. If the accused were to be outside the family these people would pick up stones to hit him! Why this difference?

Another example I just read today in Robinson Crusoe - It seems RC was taken as a slave by some turks, he found that really distasteful and ran away. He obviously saw that as great injustice but then in the same book, RC himself is completely comfortable with taking African slaves!!

So I think, we Humans as a whole need to calm down, sit and think about stuff. We need to see people as part of our family, and I mean all People. Albeit an extended family, but I do not think there is any other way to achieve true peace and a loving world..........And if you know your family you will know that they are never 'Perfect'!

pic source: www.call4peace.com

Terms & Conditions - When two parties individuals or companies want to do business together T&C mainly comes into play to specify one party to the other and vice versa that this is what we will provide and this is what I need from you in return.

Quite a simple and crucial component. Lately I had couple of interesting experiences...

I signed up for Just Dial services, where the customer care people gave the whole low down on what will be provided and how much it will cost me... Seemed fine so I opted for it. The guy came to my house explained the plan and I signed up. I took a cursory glance at the T&C but nothing more. Its 2-3 pages long and small font! I chose to go by what the customer care told me verbally.

The next day I got a message of Thank you for signing up
1. You cannot cancel this plan for 9 months.
2. After 9 months in order to cancel the plan you need to provide 3 months notice
and more....

I did not plan to stay on for 9 months, in fact the customer care had assured me I can check it for two months minimum then cancel at anytime!!

Now the issue here wasn't so much the fact that they told me different stuff, its the fact that once a customer signs up to your service and you send them such a greeting with how they CANNOT cancel instead of how I would benefit then the first question that comes to my mind is "Are you peeing in your pants??" I mean why the hell are you so hell bound to not let your customers cancel their service? Does your service suck!!??

[I am currently taking their services as one of their customer care managers spoke to me well, apologizing and all that - and offering a discount]

After that I was checking out web hosting services for my company website and while checking them out I signed up for bluehost. I was still wondering whether to go for it when I filled the credit card info to see how much they are actually charging (yes I know dumb way of checking costs :p), instead of going to 3D secure screen where it would show me amount debited the amount straight away got debited!

I was a little freaked I might not even have gone for this company! So I thought let me see what the cancellation procedures are. I was amazed that,
1. They would freely cancel my subscription in first 3 days after signing up
Even later the process was so simple.... that I just felt very good about the whole company. Now I don't know how promptly they would follow up on these claims because I did not cancel my subscription feeling good with their T&C!!

So I think its great and talks volume about the company and people behind them when they make client - friendly T&C

It had to happen. Once I started a company and got down to recruiting, the first few attempts later I realized that recruitment is a hell of a job. Today 7 months down the lane I had the worst interview ever!

I explained to the potential candidate the work I would require from him and the guy saw no point in the activity. I tried to explain it.. but he really did not see any point. I thought that was fine considering his previous works had been in other domains - content writing and SEO.

I asked for alternative ideas that he might have, since he was clearly not happy with the strategy I had. Some of them were really crappy which could create a serious backlash for the client, others were good ideas but that was a different strategy altogether... and frankly nothing new. However, the interviewee promptly went on to tell me 'why not do something more constructive?' aren't you answerable to your client? Which was a bit too much! Considering that as yet I had not seen any concrete evidence of the person ever having handled a social media project before.

The interview ended by him telling me that he was ust trying to add value to the project. He was concerned about my reputation as a social media professional (yes, he used the exact words) and thats why he wanted my work to be good. After all this he kept insisting he was only trying to provide value to the company and client. He still wanted the job, But he was not a robot who would take instructions from me and not question them.

What I saw is the lack of any humility to take up work from another person. This is something that I have been seeing often even happening when I myself was an employee. Very often there have been colleagues who think they are too great for this mundane works we are doing. "The boss is dumb, I know better and my genius is being stifled" except that often its the case of not being able to be humble enough to first learn the work, and learn it well.

I don't know whether there are always such people or its the times where at a young age people get exposed to lot of information. Where they are thinking about major business workings read on a blog without having an ounce of real life experience. Then when they do get to the point of 'Real Life' work they think they should be on the board of directors rather than intern position.

I have been thinking about Pressure (the pressures of life kind of pressure) and how that helps us work. Generally there is a tendency of people to think that Pain, Pressure, Hurt, Sickness are all 'BAD' things. I think that is a very vain sort of thinking, when a person does not want to challenge himself anything that is a little difficult to understand becomes BAD or avoidable.

All these aspects are very much part of life. Lately I was thinking about pressure and I saw a cycle within me. Pressure is mechanism to get things done, to become active and DO something than just sitting in a very passive state of inactivity.

When there is a sense of achievement the pressure slackens for sometime, but soon after a little worry starts. This worry builds up pressure and it again incites action. Basically pressure keeps us moving forward.

How well a person does is very closely related to how he can manage pressure. Can he keep his head, and stick to what he wants to do and excel at that, or does he get side tracked and end up doing bad work? Whichever way it is, Pressure will always be pushing us....

Its like Gravity, and an amazing example of what I am saying can be found in astronomy. In order to get away from Earth's gravity any space craft has to put in massive effort and its a pain how much fuel needs to be utilized to just push the craft away from Earth and into space.
There is a thing called Gravity assist - many missions have used the gravity pull of planets to save fuel and travel light! (Read more)

Similarly while initially we seem to think that "pressure aargghhhh we need to get away from it" its only until we understand how it works.

So its time to keep aside complaining or viewing Pressure as a negative thing and lets embrace it as it is a force that helps us achieve and aspire. This will also help us manage it better and not get freaked out by all the pressure around us.

Really good read on stuff that people do! Making days count even if it is just by having fun....

A few days ago I realized something surprising: the situation with time is much the same as with money. The most dangerous way to lose time is not to spend it having fun, but to spend it doing fake work. When you spend time having fun, you know you're being self-indulgent. Alarms start to go off fairly quickly. If I woke up one morning and sat down on the sofa and watched TV all day, I'd feel like something was terribly wrong. Just thinking about it makes me wince. I'd start to feel uncomfortable after sitting on a sofa watching TV for 2 hours, let alone a whole day.

And yet I've definitely had days when I might as well have sat in front of a TV all day—days at the end of which, if I asked myself what I got done that day, the answer would have been: basically, nothing. I feel bad after these days too, but nothing like as bad as I'd feel if I spent the whole day on the sofa watching TV. If I spent a whole day watching TV I'd feel like I was descending into perdition. But the same alarms don't go off on the days when I get nothing done, because I'm doing stuff that seems, superficially, like real work.

Read the entire article!

My NGO work with street kids around my area do help me avoid fake working..cause even if I feel the work I have done during the day is not that great.. the time spent with the kids at night (when we have our classes) does feel worth it. :)

Read this awesome poem by Khalil Gibran, on the Give India blog, totally cool!

Today was a sad day. It started with an SMS from a friend asking me to read the news about a classmate of ours. I ran to the paper, fearing...

Well in detail was printed a episode between a Mr. Harish Maroliya at an Andheri society who in a fit against his housing complex ran out with his gun threatening people. In his anger he shot some stray bullets, but then kidnapped a 14 yr old girl to his flat. The police were called and they tried to placate him, they broke down the door and entered. Harish sir (is how we called him) shot at the police and the girl(!! OMG). He died to a police's bullet. He injured a bunch of policemen and killed the girl.

He was a classmate of ours at Bombay College of Journalism. For sometime me and the friend wondered that it might be someone else, but not so. Another classmate confirmed that it was the same Harish Maroliya who we had studied and discussed and debated with many times in class.

Currently I am hunting for a Blogger theme for a company blog. Something simple yet striking. I am looking at themes one after another. Most of them are for different purposes. Often there is a tendency to start fitting the company blog into one of the themes in front of me.

If I did that then I would be left with a theme I am not happy with. The reason for this is that I need a theme for my company blog... but instead it became a matter of fitting the company blog into the theme.

I dunno if you get what I am saying.

I find it a good exercise even at other times in life for eg. : when I go shopping, we are given so many options. I envision in my mind what am I looking for. A skirt, pant, baggy pants, some fashionable, or something casual or a homewear pajama.
This is important cause then I simply pass on stuff I definitely am not looking at. It makes the process of making the choice for the dress much simpler.

Same way for the theme I am looking at slowly I create an image in my head of how I want it. Without this I might try to push the company blog in any random theme and not be able to create something I am happy with.

Envision!

Maybe I will get it custom designed now that I have the pic in my mind.

What does a fish know about wind farms? Well I just learned today:

When traveling in his school of fish, Nemo (remember Finding Nemo?) is participating in the Karman vortex street – an aerodynamic phenomenon that keeps school of fish synchronized and reduces the total propulsive power needed per fish. This anecdotal evidence proves that by putting wind turbines closer together – there is actually potential to create more energy instead of less. Read More.

Its a pretty awesome read on how answers to harnessing the Wind might lie in the Water. The basic principle behind it is to see that Wind and Water are both dynamically moving forces, (I guess).

This is something I feel all companies should be doing -- looking in different directions. Many times, we find inspiration in the most un-thought of area.

Even in social media, I have taken a sort of liking to SlideShare. So when I was into playing Mafia Wars and Farmville, I just made some presentations on SlideShare about the games. Today I got a email from them saying my ppt was Hot on Facebook and was on the homepage of SlideShare for a while.

With web 2.0, connections are being built all the time, as I tweet a URL I create a backlink to the site, friending someone brings a huge number of his friends in my periphery etc.. So I feel we always have to keep looking around and trying new stuff! Who knows where the answers might lie!

I first came across Dunbar's Number at Seth Godin's blog. He writes,

Dunbar postulated that the typical human being can only have 150 friends. One hundred fifty people in the tribe. After that, we just aren't cognitively organized to handle and track new people easily. That's why, without external forces, human tribes tend to split in two after they reach this size. It's why WL Gore limits the size of their offices to 150 (when they grow, they build a whole new building).

Facebook and Twitter and blogs fly in the face of Dunbar's number. They put hundreds or thousands of friendlies in front of us, people we would have lost touch with (why? because of Dunbar!) except that they keep digitally reappearing.

This concept has intrigued me.

I have a lot of ideas and one idea I have to get around this no. of 150 (assuming that the number is correct) is to begin relating to people without thinking about how they are connected to our circle of 'friends'. As in if I am chatting with a Rahul (there are lot of Rahul's) do I need to know he is some Amit's friend?

When chatting with them just focus on having constructive conversations rather than bothering with how they fit into my network.. i.e. their job details or mutual friends or other such specific info.

Generally when we are talking to someone we often find topics of conversation from whatever we know of them, but here since we are crossing D's number we start talking by stuff we know like daily stuff, or recent movie or political stuff or maybe yapping about yourself :D

I think this might help networking with the 151+ people. What do you'l think?

(picture credit)

I was on the net this morning and thought I should write the blog posts planned for the end of year, at least one of them (yea there are a couple :p). Some posts come swiftly when I am writing them, some take long. This one has taken quite long and, a lot of postponing!

Just wanted to draw a synopsis of the year that is ending.... for sometime I was thinking that a year in the gregorian calendar does not really matter, it is only a random span of time. Then a friend pointed out it is one revolution around the sun completed. Measured from any random point, I said.

This synopsis is for me, in a more personal manner not just related to my social media foray.

This year has been different for me from any other due to my social media activities. Not the activities in themselves but the fact that I now have a career in front of me, I earn and that I have connected with a (huge) number of people! These are all a first!

One of the most surprising things about this blog is that I started getting a readership! This however happened in 2008, so in 2009 the surprise has just continued. I actually get comments, emails, correspondences and compliments from my blog readers. It is totally amazing to be appreciated like this, really! Thank You!

This readership, online interactions and connecting with older friends on social networks has over time empowered me. Writing about what happened at Isha Yoga Center which was something I stifled within me for over a year, the Tree Cutting incident and many others were incidents where my online community became a part of what was happening in my life. The process of blogging the incidents was in itself a challenge and the support I got via comments was just awesome.

I probably would not have been able to open up this way if not for my readers and my really amazing Twitter and Facebook friends, who reply whenever I have the slightest problems about a Gmail attachment limit to views on Telangana state separation or other personal problems. Then of course meeting these guys in tweetups and blog meets and other offline events has given a bunch of really cool friends all over the place :)

While I can add quite a few more incidents to this year, including my brothers marriage which I am still a little surprised about. It all happened in just a few months! I shall wrap up the post with the hint of a free desktop calendar customized with photographs clicked by me, which I will be giving off as a new year gift soon on this blog.... ciao...

BTW let me know whats new in your life as 2009 wraps up....

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Lately reading about real-time and social features in search engines, where they will be showing results from social networks on the search page made me think about how this affects Social media and Search.

- This will give a huge boost to social media
Companies who want to rank well for search, can and will want to rank well in social media too!
Moreover web users who are yet only searching and surfing, will have social network results hitting them all the time! Social networks can't be seen as timepass stuff anymore, they are as important as a website or any web page is in the online space.

- Social media gets recognized as the huge and integral part of the web
The search engines want these social network results on the search pages cause otherwise users will deviate to these networks for search.
Adding a social media component to search only improves its value to the users.

This second point came to me later. This is in fact a salient part of marketing...

When I first started marketing via social media, I would contact bloggers to review the startup I worked for. It felt like I was imposing on them, if they actually did review it then it was a favour.

Soon however I understood that the bloggers need good content for their blogs. If the users like our product then it will enhance the reputation of the blogger who reviewed us! If the blogger in the relevant niche did not review a popular tool, and the user finds it from elsewhere, he might doubt whether the blogger is dependable.

So its always such two way processes that create a win-win situation for both parties involved. This is proverbially spoken as "Two hands make a Clap" in India.

Now my understanding of marketing has changed. Its about letting people know. Opening the doors and making visible! Telling the right and relevant people that look here, here is something that is of your interest.

Clap!

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Recently came across an interesting article about how Internet is badly affecting people's concentration and ability to focus. People are getting used to small snippets of information like tweets, status updates. Instant communications like email, IM chats are simply distracting people for long patches of time. They are not able to read long articles, reports.

I actually don't agree with this, cause in any job, if not the internet distractions then there are other distractions. When there was no computer were there no distractions? Didn't people come and talk to each other? If they did it could be coined as 'distraction', if they didn't it would be isolation. Isn't it?

In a really busy office, I am sure the people were interrupted a LOT with new memos, work, files, personal chats, secretary stuff etc.. Its the same , if a person is busy on the internet they are interrupted a lot by emails, chats, tweets etc... If they are not that well connected then they will not be!

I remember before when I was not into social media, I barely got any emails, tweets, orkut notificatons. Was this less distracting? No. It was because I had nothing going on, in the net world!

When I have made many connections, have work assignments and have connected with a lot of friends etc.. on the net, I do get loads of email and tweets and facebook notifications. I am glad for these, cause they bring me work or a greeting from someone or foster my friendships.

Yes some amount of it is distracting but that needs to managed as other offline distractions are managed.

An interesting video I saw on TED about social networks being used in offices. How it fosters the basic intimacy between loved ones,



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Socialness brings in many people in our lives. Many of these people become closer than the rest. Many a times its needed to ask ourselves whether we are with the right people. They could be our in-laws or office colleagues or some new friends. These are some insights I got while I was in such a situation, at the Isha Yoga Center. (Read my experiences there). Some signs to look out for....

- Are they promoting the right people?
See which people are being promoted within the group. Whether they are 'right' or not is subjective. However if a lot of the people being promoted or encouraged or liked are not 'right' according to you. Then probably the group is not 'right' for you either.

- What happens after a conversation with them?
Do you feel left out, unheard or disturbed after talking with these people? If you do then it is not a good sign. It is not necessary that you agree with them but even if you don't meetings, talks, conversations should end on a positive note where you have understood the other side. You should feel heard and trustful about their reasons.

-The Unexpected factor
How often are actions by the group unexpected for you? If the things that they are doing are too unexpected then you are not able to gauge these people. Especially if they are disturbing incidents then its a red alert that you need to reconsider being with this bunch of people.

- Can you talk well about them?
Can you easily gush out some positive and interesting aspects of these people or organization? If not then maybe they are not a positive or interesting influence in your life.

- Is there bonding happening beyond your sphere of work or relationship matters?
If it is office colleagues then you should be bonding over a talk of movies or Mafia Wars. With in-laws there are tons of ways to extend the relation into some friendly chit-chat. Go traveling with them etc.. Even with a boss you can bond over a geeky talk abt Google or something. These are the aspects that bring closeness and warmth between people.

However if all or most of the above aspects are simply not happening then the people are not right for you and life is too short to spend with the wrong people! Best thing you can do is wish them all the best and Leave! :)

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Marc Benioff, the CEO and co-founder of Salesforce talks about how essential communications is in his company! Salesforce is a pioneering company providing SaaS applications. It started with an idea in 1999 and is now a 1 billion dollar industry. One of the first SaaS companies that is profitable. The tips are worth not only a read but also implementation!

Commit to transparent communication. Customer relationships take work, and a big part of that work is dedicating yourself to constant communication with customers and prospects, says Benioff. "We invited them to come in and see what we were working on. We asked them to test it, and we made changes based on what they said. Having this kind of inclusive communication—sharing and listening— from the beginning set the tone for our entire company." According to Benioff, salesforce used this feedback to make fast changes—"intelligent reaction."

Tell classic stories. Most reporters don't care about a tiny startup, and that's why Benioff never positioned himself as such. He told a classic David-vs.-Goliath story. "We gave the media something different. We gave them something new. We always positioned ourselves as revolutionaries. We went after the largest competitor in the industry or the industry itself. We made our story about change. We were about something new and different that was good for customers, and good for the community. We talked about the future." Although the media landscape is changing, Benioff believes there will always be a need for content. The delivery model might be changing, but exchanging and sharing stories and information remains as important as ever.

Make your own metaphors. According to Benioff, simple metaphors are a terrific way to communicate your message. "I spend a lot of time creating metaphors to explain what we do. For example, early on I explained what we did with the metaphor "salesforce.com is Amazon.com (AMZN) meets Siebel Systems." Later when we launched AppExchange we called it "the eBay (EBAY) of enterprise software." Anyone can create their own metaphors, says Benioff. "Just remember to test them before you put them out there. Try a few and run them by customers, analysts, and people in your network to make sure they work."

Read More.

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Just watched The Fountain. Got this CD without knowing any reviews. I thought it might be good since starring in it were Hugh Jackman (Wolverine fame) and Rachel Weisz (The Mummy fame). It turned out to be quite unexpected, I thought it was a time travel or immortal life kind of movie.

There were three different lifetimes of the actors, everytime Hugh is trying to get something done, many questions of Life are raised in a mythical way involving the Tree of Life.

It was very abstract! The narration was quite melodramatic at times, the different life times kept over lapping and influencing each other, making one question whether they are different events occuring at different times or is only one story real and rest are psychological imprints in someones mind or maybe time does overlap.
Maybe what we do (or what we are going to do?) in the future affects us right now.

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TED - As its website puts it "Riveting talks given by Remarkable people". TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design.

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design.

The first such conference in South Asia is happening from today at the Infosys campus in Mysore. Check out the speakers (Many impressive names, some are a surprise)!

To follow this event on;
Webcast:
Live Webcast, sponsored by the TOI group is available at http://www.ted.indiatimes.com (Really waiting for it to begin!)

Twitter
Follow @TedIndia @TEDnews and there should be lot of live tweeting by the tweeters at the conference so listen to the #TEDIndia tweets. You can subscribe to it here.

Facebook : Become a Fan of the TED page!

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Some time back, maybe a month ago one of our volunteers at our street school had an unpleasant incident with some of the parents. They called her under a false pretext that one of the kids had, had an accident. When she did reach there, they surrounded her and verbally abused, threatened her for many long minutes. Their mannerisms were one step away from physical abuse. It was shocking, because she is one of the people who is most involved with these parents lives. She visits them in hospitals, arranges doctor meetings, listens to their grievances and of course helps out with the kids a lot!

One of the street guys died from AIDS, despite all our attempts at getting him to take some medicines and get hospitalized. Unbelievably his wife keeps muttering that we did nothing for him!

Due to all such incidents often volunteers working with these people become cynical cause these people do not have the necessary mentality or discipline needed to bring CHANGE in their lives.

The horse can be taken to the water, but how can it be made to drink?

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A recent NY times article looks deeper into creativity! A research shows that mingling with different groups helps foster innovation and ideas.

"People who live in the intersection of social worlds, are at higher risk of having good ideas." says Ronald S. Burt, a sociologist at the University of Chicago

Read another analysis of Burt's study: Collaborative networks produce better ideas.

The ability to ideate seems directly related to:

- how diverse and heterogeneous your connections are
- how adept you are at transferring info and practices from one group to other
- drawing analogies between the groups different aspects
- combining the similarity of the groups

Such info exchange and socializing would require good communication skills!

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I have been reading this blog for quite some time and the last few posts have been brilliant! The blogger Leo Babauta calls it a productivity blog. I think its a mix of inspirational, thought provoking and motivational stuff! A good read once in a while to get those priorities right!

Last few posts:
The Breath of God Inspiration Method
Life is Poetry
How to defeat Burnout and stay Motivated

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