Something pretty

February 21st, 2008 • 1 comment On my mind...

Working at a design studio has given me a new appreciation for all things beautiful. I found this photograph while browsing on flickr.com. I loved the composition of colors, light and textures here – it brings me a smile It’s like happiness that you can taste. Just wanted to share it with you : D 

Original Work

Was my response right?

February 14th, 2008 • 13 comments On my mind...

A couple months ago, I approached a Web2.0 company to interview their founders. They put me in touch with one of their investors and although the interview never quite happened, our conversation took a different turn and I ended up sending in my resume for a potential job opportunity that the investor mentioned to me. When he didn’t get back to me for a few weeks, I sent him a note of inquiry to which he responded by asking me to re-send my resume. I dutifully did – and then nothing happened.
We spoke briefly once or twice and again, there was no communication from their end and often, prolonged pauses with no responses to my emails. After I received a third request for my resume, I lost interest in the possibility of this ever working out and went about my business.

Last week I received an email from this gentleman informing me that the company had shut down and asking me for a favor – to offer advice to his daughter who was looking to move to NYC. I was, in all honesty, a little startled by this random piece of communication. But I am a nice girl and I try to make nice and because I am older now, I am also more mature. So I responded asking more questions about his daughters interest and how I could help.

Today I received an email with him giving me his phone number and asking me to call him to catch up. And yet another email – a one-liner about his daughter’s career aspirations ending with, ‘I will tell you more later.’

This really. really. really. irked me. Because the etiquette I was taught and work by is that when you need someone, you play per their convenience. I don’t have qualms about them not offering me a job – believe me, as smart as I’d like to think I am, there have been plenty of employers who have rejected me in worse fashion. But the point is – usually when you are giving someone a bad experience, you kinda know it. And you don’t return to them for personal favors. And if you do – you are courteous and just.. nice.

This guy’s email really annoyed me and I felt like he needed to know it. I do want to help his daughter – It is a competitive world and an even more competitive industry so if I can offer some insights. I am happy to but I just don’t want to deal with the guy again. So here’s the response I sent him and I need a sanity check – was this response right?

I’m sorry but I have to mention that your correspondence with me has been very erratic. I remember you asked for my resume 3 times and never really got back to me or answered my emails. I didn’t even know about [redacted] closing down – not that it matters to me but your communication seems off and preemptive. I am happy to help but I felt that I had to address this and I hope that in the future your communication with me is lucid and not one-way.

Please have your daughter email me directly or schedule some time to talk with me.

My intention was not to come off bitchy but the guy had to realize that his behavior was plain insolent.
I understand that we are ambling through these new communication modes and learning to take pleasure in the joys it offers, but why do we forget that even though we are building these relationships online – we are building them with real human beings.

Building online relationships is no different than building offline relationships. Well, unless ofcourse you are the kind of guy who would call up a rudely rejected freelancer to advice your child. In that case, you missed the boat way too soon.

Update 2/21: The gentleman in question here replied to my email and apologized. He mentioned that he was very stressed as an investor in the company and that it was not indicative of his character in general. I believe him but don’t really expect any major interaction. My offer to help his daughter stands.

Manly women

February 8th, 2008 • 5 comments Culture Briefings

I just watched the season premiere of Candace Bushnell’s new TV Series, LipStick Jungle. This show revolves around the lives of a hollywood executive, a magazine publisher and a fashion designer. LipStick Jungle’s storyline is eerily similar to Darren Star’s Cashmere Mafia, which is about four friends – a magazine publisher, a senior executive at a cosmetics company, a banker and a chief operating officer of a hotel chain. (And if you read the above paragraph once again like I just did, I promise you won’t be able tell which is which.)

Sex & The City earned it’s place in contemporary culture for its bold exploration of sexuality and relationships in women’s lives. So it is with far more interest that I watch the forementioned shows because one of them is created by the original writer for SATC and the other one, by its director.

Even in the nascent stages both Cashmere Mafia and LipStick Jungle have made it crystal clear that they are not just an urban, more relevant version of Carrie and her friends. The characters in this series are definitely have texture and are perhaps slightly closer to real life and deal with real life issues: managing kids, anniversaries, cheating husbands, joint finances and veritably, expensive closets. Sure enough, every now and then there’s that dose of exuberance and  lavish show of wealth and plots that inextricably weave in and out of impossible, glamorous worlds. But that aside, I’m very interested in the socio-cultural examination shows like this will invite.

On two main perspectives:
1) Is there a cultural shift happening around us with the status-quo between the genders balancing itself out? I am not making a statement, merely asking. I read in Fast Company last month that Sci-Fi channel has more female viewers than men and now that a woman is at the helm of the channel, she is trying hard to shift the perception of Sci-Fi channel from it’s current, star-trekky/manly image to a fantasy/softer image so that it caters to the fairer gender. To me, that is a clear single that contexts that were previously used to separate and differentiate cultural properties based on gender are blurring.

2) The other perspective – (which is a rather unrelated one) is does social media deserve all the credit it is getting? I just returned from a fashion show and there was this buzz  around me by the bloggers in attendance about how their channels were the conduit of opening up fashion and making it more transparent. I see all the coverage on the various fashion blog networks and the more traditional digital media properties and I cannot help but ask myself: what exactly is different? and where exactly are the bloggers providing more value? The more enterprising bloggers enter the fashion shows with photographers and videographers in tow and at the end of the day what you have is: a 100 similar looking videos, a 100 similar sounding interviews and a 100 exact same photographs – all from different sources.

Yes – there are those giddy show reviews and ‘behind-the-scene’ snippets that presumably are enough to ‘open the world’ and make it more transparent. I beg to differ- where is the value?

Ever since SATC aired, without a doubt it also began a slow but certain fashion awakening.
When the show ended, culture mavens and smart story-tellers realized the void the show’s end had created The void was not just an empty slot on HBO, but also the window via which women could regularly breathe in the fashionable air for one hour every week. In the last two years alone, TV shows like ‘American’s Next Top Model," "Top Designer," Top Hairstylist,", & ‘Ugly Betty," have emerged quietly out of the woodwork to become a force to reckon with.
In my humble opinion, these shows do a far better job of making the world of fashion more transparent than bloggers do. Perhaps not accessible – but I’m not sure how blogs do that either.
Yes- most of the TV shows above are reality shows, but aren’t blogs reality in writing anyways?

Something to think about.

Dear Reader

February 7th, 2008 • 5 comments Social Media

I’m a little stressed. I’m stressed about this responsibility that comes with being a blogger.
Being a blogger was hot once. Now, it is a chore. It started as something I did for myself and my friends, then it morphed into a more serious, professional persona and now everytime I log into type in here, I’m afraid it’s just another voice in the cacophony out there.

Bloggers I meet have ’strategies’ for their blogs, particular reasons why they start blogs and massive, drawn out plans for their blogs.
Clients I meet are wondering about these blogs – they want to wine and dine the bloggers and get them to create, “positive conversations” about blogs.
In another universe, one-time bloggers who are now quasi-famous, are taking potshots at each other, judging and criticizing the very outlets that supposedly started out ‘just out of interest,” and were meant to be subjective, not objective.
The web, the news, the conversations are rife with bitterness and a constantly shifting status-quo.

I come from the world of magazines – it was my first home and I get it. I understand the power of a voice, the power of influence. And I see it coming a full circle, when blogs aren’t just ‘blogs’ but blown-out, magazines that are edited and curated with a singular voice at the helm, becoming full-on media properties. They now have to have a facelift, better features, fancy photography and whatnot. Er, excuse me – are you still a blog? Oh wait a minute, you’ve even got contributing writers. Woah.

Excuse my rant, dear reader.
It’s just 1am on a Thursday morning and I’ve just realized that being a blogger holds no merit for me any longer. Yes, it got me my jobs but it’s not relevant to me in the context that it was before.