Yazad Jal, CEO, Praja Foundation

BACK OF THE BOOK What's Your EQ

RAJESH JAIN, SERIAL BLOGGER
May 7, 2003

The man best known for having made the most money from the net in India-he sold Indiaworld's 13 portals to Sify for a whopping $115 million-is, I have just discovered, a serial blogger. He has completed a year of blogging, and what a productive year it has been: 1,767 posts in 365 days. "Blogging is an integral part of my life," says Jain. It had better be if he does it five times a day. Emerging technologies and low-cost computing are Jain's pet topics, but there's more to his blogging efforts than just a desire to hold forth on those topics. "The weblog serves both as a marketing tool and a communications platform," says Jain. Trust the man to get the most out of anything.

ON BLOGGING
May 8, 2003

It's time for me to hold forth on blogging. A blog, short for weblog, is something like Doogie Howser's diary. Everyone blogs: journalists (yours truly included), it geeks, celebs, execs, even CEOs. One estimate puts the total number of blogs in the 200,000-500,000 range. I think it makes sense for CEOs to blog. It is, after all, just another medium to communicate their ideas to their employees, customers, vendors and distributors, investors, and the world at large. A blog makes a CEO look human. And I believe it makes them better CEOs. So there.

OK, SO I AM NO EXPERT
May 11, 2003

I have just had my notions on CEO blogs dashed by, well, a CEO who blogs, Rediff's Ajit Balakrishnan. "The term CEO blog is like an oxymoron," laughs Balakrishnan. "I think it's just a lot of fun and a form of self-expression-I can't see any business reason why anyone should maintain a blog." That sort of ruins my theory on CEO or exec blogs. Indeed, many execs blog simply because it seems like the natural thing to do. As Siddharth Mathur (sidsmuses.rediffblogs.com), a Mumbai-based financial analyst with JP Morgan puts it, blogs are in "because there is a lack of better sustainable hobbies when you are in the corporate world". Me? I write for a living, so I guess that makes my blogs an extension of my professional life.

RAJESH JAIN, CEO, Netcore Solutions

Blogger since May 2002 http://www.emergic.org NEW MEMES We all need new things to keep talking about. Think of these as Memes. Now, the hottest meme going around blogsphere is social software. These memes get reinforced because we all seem to link to others talking about them, and then chip in with our opinions. The point, and I don't have a scientific study to prove it, is that there is roughly one new meme every month. This sustains life and chatter. Not that it is bad. But then, one has to separate the hype and what is real.... May 14, 2003

AIRING ONE'S VIEWS
May 12, 2003

In some ways, there's not much difference between yesterday's soap-box and today's blog. Only, the audience the latter reaches is much wider. Exocore Consulting's Director and CTO, Atul Chitnis, has maintained a journal since the time bulletin boards became the rage (the late 1980s) and blogging was but a natural extension. Chitnis claims his blogs allow him the freedom to write about anything and everything that interests him. Reaching out seems to be the fashion. "Blogging enables me to share my larger views among a huge cross-section of people," says Yazad Jal, the CEO of Praja Foundation, an NGO that is trying to improve the quality of governance in civic bodies (ha!). And sometimes, the feeling that people log on regularly to read you can be a big high. "You can get in touch with the kind of people you would never meet in your profession," says S. Anand, a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group whose blog, www.s-anand.net, is actually a portal to things Anand considers of interest.

MORE ON BLOGGING
May 14, 2003

Execs and CEOs are usually reticent (ask me, I should know); so, what makes them willing to have their innermost thoughts and bright ideas played out in the open? Anita Bora, arguably the first person to compile an online directory of Indian blogs (indianbloggers.blogspot.com) believes it is the interactive nature of the medium-most bloggers have a space on their site for reader-comments-and "the ability to share information with so many people". I think it's more than that. Bloggers believe that they have something important enough to say (never mind if it is about the Matrix actually being a love story-check out matrixessays.blogspot.com) for other people to be interested in. I should know.

ATUL CHITNIS, DIRECTOR & CTO, EXOCORE CONSULTING Blogger since January 2002 http://atulchitnis.net THE LINUX SHOW Yesterday was the Bangalore Linux Users Group April meet. To whip things up a bit, Gopi, Shanu and I decided to present part of our upcoming Exocore Wireless Networking Workshop (in May) at the meet-specifically an intro to Wireless Networking, Wireless Networking and Linux, and practical demonstrations of setup and procedures. We expected some mild increase in interest, but 104 people in a hall meant for about 60 is a bit more than a ''mild increase''. IAC, the presentations went of very well, with Gopi ''Zapping Them with Science'' (tm, Hindustan Lever), giving them enough CSc fundas to be dangerous, then me bringing in the Linux part of it, and finally Shanu cakewalking through demos and setups. We had a ball, and I suspect so did the BLUGgies. I saw quite a number of Windows admins in the crowd, and they appeared quite taken aback by the ease of setting up stuff under Linux, especially when Shanu set up the Secure Access Point (no weakling WEP here!) and the VPN.... April 26, 2003

AJIT BALAKRISHNAN, CEO, REDIFF Blogger since January 2003 http://ajit_balakrishnan.rediffblogs.com FOOTBALL FRIENDS: TRUE LESSONS LEARNT I dropped by yesterday, April 15, to see Karunakaran-attan and Kunhiraman- attan, the 70-something men who run Football Friends, the free football coaching camp for boys in Kannur, the town in Kerala where I grew up and where my mother still lives. It is 6.30 in the evening, there is a power-cut on at that time, and the tiny shack that is their office, huddled in the shadow of the Municipal Football Stadium, is darker than usual. Karunakaran-attan and Kunhiraman-attan are seated at a wooden table littered with papers. They are dressed in white khadi dhotis and shirts. Behind them is a sign with moveable letters that said '9095', the number of days their free coaching camp has been in business, roughly 24 years. Every inch of the walls of the shack is covered with photographs of past graduating classes, commendations from FIFA, Asian and Indian football functionaries, photographs of visiting politicians and action pictures of legendary players like Pele and Maradonna cut out from magazines. There is also a photograph of me flanked by Karunakaran-attan and Kunhiraman-attan; for the past 10 years I have been underwriting the cost of the boots and jerseys which are issued free of cost to the 50-odd kids who train here every year... April 18, 2003