UN World Survey on Food (Joke)

Last month, a world-wide survey was conducted by the UN.

The only question asked was: ‘Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world?’

The survey was a huge failure because…

  • In Africa they didn’t know what ‘food’ meant.
  • In China they didn’t know what ‘opinion’ meant.
  • In Western Europe they didn’t know what ‘shortage’ meant.
  • In Eastern Europe they didn’t know what ‘honest’ meant.
  • In the Middle East they didn’t know what ‘solution’ meant.
  • In South America they didn’t know what ‘please’ meant.
  • In the US they didn’t know what ‘the rest of the world’ meant.

Will there be many Twitters?

I was just reading this article Why there will be many Twitters (Scripting News) by Dave Winer, where the author makes his case for why he thinks there are going to be many Twitter (clones) out there, and that ultimately one of them is going to be THE Twitter – one platform to rule them all.

But isn’t Twitter already a de facto for micro-blogging? Yes, surely, clones are going to pop up left, right and center, but how can one make something better than Twitter? Twitter’s success lies in its utmost simplicity. More features is just going to make it more complex. Imagine if someone comes up with a Twitter clone, that can have text in bold, italics, or underlined. (That doesn’t sound that bad, hmm.)

How about a clone that is funded by some major media network – Time Warner, Fox, NBC – and they get celebrities to ‘tweet’ on their Twitter? That surely is going to draw away the hordes of followers who only live to idolize these celebrities and follow them on wherever they are. For example, if Ashton Kutcher – the first twillionaire – shifts to a Twitter-clone, he is surely going to walk away with his million followers on Twitter. Oprah will take her followers if she decides to build her own social platform. Yes, Twitter might lose so many followers. But that’s all a big IF!

Celebrity endorsements are definitely good for any social website out there, but a social website needs much more than celebrities. In the case of micro-blogging, it needs simplicity; it needs ease of use; it needs ubiquity; it needs active user base; it needs to evoke an industry around it. Twitter has been able to do all that without much effort, especially the last part, and it continues to grow at astounding rates.

Twitter is not a success because of celebrities tweeting on it. It’s because Twitter is a success that celebrities are tweeting on it.

Follow me on Twitter @sawant

Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality

Have a look at what fast food joints advertise and what do they deliver in these comparison pictures from: Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality.

Each item was purchased, taken home, and photographed immediately. Nothing 
was tampered with, run over by a car, or anything of the sort. It is an accurate 
representation in every case. Shiny, neon-orange, liquefied pump-cheese, and all.

Here are three of my favorite ones:

Wendy's Chicken club - Fast food: ads vs reality 

Wendy’s Chicken Club

KFC Famous Bowl - Fast food: ads vs reality

KFC Famous Bowl

McDonald's Sausage Breakfast Burrito - Fast food: ads vs reality

McDonald’s Sausage Breakfast Burrito

Check out the rest: Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality

My experience with a local web startup yellO

yellO

It’s been some time since I blogged. I am running so short of time nowadays. Friends feel ignored; my projects are pending; almost no time for socializing. The main reason of my busyness is a project called yellO that I have been part of since March ‘08 (full-time since August ‘08). This unique and one-of-its-kind portal (and magazine) of local services in Pakistan is finally ready for show time!

It’s something big!

We have been working on yellO for almost an year now. It’s been an exhilarating experience for me to be part of the development, design and strategy formation processes of one of the most authentic and superb piece of web application/portal to surface from this part of the world.

We had tough days. We had boring days. We had frustrating days. We had days on which we almost thought to give up on it since we were too bored working on the same thing everyday for so many months! But now that yellO’s development is complete (for launch) and it’s all ready to go live, I am really satisfied with the outcome. And quite excited too!

The Visionary

I remember that I was a bit reluctant when Samir – the visionary behind yellO – had asked me to join team yellO. I had other offers too at that time and they were offering better package than what I was being offered for yellO. But in the end, it was Samir’s passion and fervor, and his desire to bring positive change in the world – the same ideals that I myself follow – that sealed my decision in favor of yellO.

The Team

The most important component in realizing a vision is the team that is responsible for turning an idea into reality. And the team assembled for yellO had all the characteristics of a winning team!

Adeel, the lead developer, and Saad, the lead designer, have both remained an indispensable asset for yellO. Zulfiqar has been an amazing artist and (print) designer. Aamir has been great at handling graphics and publishing stuff. Mudassir is new but he’s learning to walk the tight rope of the Linux administration world well. Young Shahrukh is intelligent and full of curiosity, and he is a great asset for the community building part of yellO. In the past, Ali Raza, Asim, Waleed and Faraz have worked for some time on yellO before parting in search of other opportunities.

As for me myself, I have been responsible for handling all the stakeholders, mentioned above; making sure that we followed the timelines and that everyone was working in congruency. Also, I tend to the strategic aspect of yellO as, officially, I am the Strategy Director for yellO.

All in all it has been a great fun and an exciting experience building a major venture like yellO.

Join yellO today and start adding and reviewing interesting places on the map.

Palm Pre: The coolest new phone of 2009!

Palm is back! After almost going into obscurity, Palm makes a sexy and stylish return with a new phone dubbed as the Palm Pre. Here’s a glance on what the Pre looks like:

Palm Pre Smartphone Mobile

This hot new gadget from Palm is slated to be available in the first half of 2009. So get ready. It looks like a worthy competitor to both the Blackberry range and the iPhone. Is this the iPhone killer?

Sounds sweet? Find out more with these 7 most useful Palm Pre resources:

Palm Pre – Palm
Palm Pre: Everything you ever wanted to know – Engadget
First impressions: Palm Pre | CES 2009 – CNET Blogs
Palm Pre Preview: Simply amazing – Gizmodo
Hands-On: A closer look at the Palm Pre and WebOS – PC World
In a nutshell: Palm Pre vs. iPhone vs. G1 – Gizmodo
The Pre’s got mojo: a developer speaks about Palm’s new SDK – Ars Technica

Evolution of Darwin’s Survival Theory for Businesses

Darwin said:

It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent …
but those most adaptive to change.
— Charles Darwin

Darwin said it for living species, but I find this as much true for businesses and organizations too. So Mr. Darwin, would you be so kind enough to allow me to evolve your theory to fit the business world? Oh my, thank you Mr. Darwin.

So here it is, the evolution of the survival theory:

It’s not the strongest of the species businesses that survives, nor the most intelligent …
but those most adaptive to change.
— Charles Darwin Sawant Shah

Gracias.

The lens your business partners look through

Just read an interview of Brandon Schauer, who works at Adaptive Path, on Design Thinking at Jess McMullin’s blog. Here’s a piece that I found well worth quoting here:

You don’t necessarily need to go and get an MBA – I’ve heard an MBA called a degree in common sense and I can’t necessarily argue with that. But the key is just realizing the world that your business partners come from, whether they’re looking through a lens of finance or of operations or management, and being able to understand the issues they are dealing with. Having empathy with the issues that they come to the table with and actually being able to resonate with those by having read similar topics, having an appreciation for what their needs are and listening to them just as you would listen to a customer when you go out to do your research can really change how you work together.

Empathize.

Highly Compelling Reasons for Switching to an Apple Mac

Interesting experience of why Rob Christensen, from Adobe AIR product development/management team, decided to switch to Apple iMac in his post Six reasons why he made the switch. His reasons are quite compelling and I agree fully with what he has to say against Microsoft Windows and in favor of Apple Mac. My most compelling reasons, from Rob’s post, for switching to an Apple Mac would be:

Apple. In the past year, I’ve purchased two iPod Shuffles: one for myself and one for my wife. When I thought I had lost my Shuffle recently (for the second time), I decided to upgrade to an iPod Nano. It’s an absolutely incredible piece of technology. … The allure of hooking up iPod hardware to a Mac is difficult to ignore. Also, Apple’s decision to extend the hardware capabilities of the iMac has really put it in direct competition with Dell’s flagship desktop products like their XPS line.

Apple, and Steve Jobs, is an inspiration. I had the first generation iPod Nano and it was awesome! I love Apple and what it is creating. Correction: Innovating!

Media Management. It’s truly shocking to me that Microsoft has not improved the user experience with Windows Media Player (WMP). Something about the design of WMP has always felt exceedingly video centric as opposed to library focused. Playing an .mp3 will force most of the screen to be taken over by an annoying visualization. … In addition, the lack of basic photo management in Windows has been the source of tremendous grief.

I have to agree with Rob’s WMP experience. Though I have been a Windows Media Player user since long (I was hooked to the ex-king Winamp before that, during its 1.x and 2.x versions reign, and Sonique too – ah what a super cool player that was!), but since my WMP music database has been wiped out (the database itself, and not the music files) after the Vista of my laptop’s pretty Windows was shot down by a vicious virus and I installed it anew, I am trying out a new media player: the open source Songbird. And it’s pretty good.

Most applications are now on the Mac. Nearly all of the applications I use are now available on the Mac such as Firefox, the Creative Suite (Dreamweaver, Flash, etc.), Office, Stellarium, AIM, Google Earth, etc. If the tools you use and depend on are portable, then it makes it even easier to make the switch.

That’s definitely a compelling reason. And on top of that, if a Windows application has not yet been ported to the Mac, one always has the option of Boot Camping to Windows. Tada! Nice one, Apple.

Now all these reasons make me crave for an Apple iMac/Macbook all over again! I hope I’ll be able to afford one soon.