I thought it was only in the BIMARU states that caste played a central role in village life. Well.. as it turns out, I was wrong. It happens everywhere. In a country like India, in the year 2010, that something like this is possible after we have progressed so far as a nation and are on the brink of becoming a world power is shameful.

But the only way, I figure, to change the world is to change oneself. Since all things exist in relation, the equation changes.

Well. Here are the photos. I took over 300 photos, of which maybe 200 are decent one’s. I was thinking of uploading all the 200 on the blog, but realizing how much time it would take, I have just uploaded random photos here. Feel free to use them if you want/need to use them anywhere. Just tell me where, so I can boast about it too ;)

There are a lot of people online these days, and a lot more are joining in. Those who were already online have started realizing the benefits of being connected. Business is already being generated online through different tools, and Social Marketing is the new buzzword.

Social marketing has a lot of potential, provided your evangelists have some basic knowledge of your business. You may have also seen other organizations get substantial gains from Social Marketing. You may even have potential evangelists already on your team and you and your team members might also be very prolific users of the internet.

You might now be thinking of enrolling them as your Social Marketing team – since they already know so much about the business, and are already online. Before you decide on your team, there are some essential questions that you may need to consider:

• Does everyone who is online from your team view the internet from the same perspective of generating business? Or derive the same benefit?
• Are they even doing the right things online?
• Can you use them in your marketing efforts? Would they agree to use their personal network profiles for your organization?
• Will it work?

What is it that enrolled people from your team can do for you?

They can be evangelists for your organization, but you may need to bear in mind and monitor:

• What is it that they are saying on your behalf?
• How is it being portrayed?
• Are their interactions objective or emotional? Are they arguing on your behalf, or clearly stating why they think your organization is good at what it does?
• How often is exchange of information and influence in decisions evident?

Moreover, not everyone may have the same type of profile or update history. To know how they would be able to contribute on Social networks, you may have to check their profile – what they’ve written about where they work and how it is expressed. You may also need to categorize them into different internet and network user types.

So how can you group them into categories?

Forrester has a rather interesting article out, about the roles people play in social media. They have defined six categories, and outlined their general characteristics. These are:

Understandably, it’s creators with who have the largest spheres of influence. But, you may need a combination of creators, critics and collectors to be successful in your endeavors in Social Marketing.

Do you have enough of creators, critics and collectors in your team?

You can evaluate you team by answering the questions below on their online presence:

• Where are their profiles?
• Which networks do they have profiles on? Is it the right network to do business on?
• How are these networks oriented? Personal or professional?
• How many people are they connected to (sphere of influence)?
• Are they good at forging online relationships?
• What’s the profile of their audience/connections?
• Is there business to be gained from their connections?
• Are there enough high level connections from your targeted companies/industries?
• If they are not on networks where business can be gained, how else can their help benefit you? For marketing? Can it be used for creating a buzz about what you do – without any business gains?
• What have they posted normally?
  • Social and professional updates?
  • Professional updates?
  • Social updates?
• Would a perceptible change in what they normally post cause any negative fall-out?
• Do you have enough creators, critics and collectors in your team?

It is essential to enroll people who have normally posted Professional and Social information, so that there is no perceptible shift in their pattern of updates. Any perceptible shift leads more to negative publicity as people may get annoyed with constant updates on your organization.

If suitable team members exist, you should look at getting them onboard with your endeavor. But if your team does not have the required mix of profiles, you should hire an external agency help to get onto social networks.

Why choose an external agency at all

Not everyone who might be online from your team may be on the right forum. Also, not everyone may be saying things that lead to business or recognition. Yes, your team maybe providing snippets on your organization, but unless it is frequent enough, and stated the right way you may face a negative fall-out by enrolling them.

Networks are basically people connected to people. Even if you, as an individual, say something that is different from what you normally say on a network, your connections may not pay attention. If you change your pattern of updates entirely, any possible opportunity may be lost as your connections will learn to ignore your updates.

Successful Social Network marketing needs a combination of personal, professional and individual contributions to meaningful discussions, in the right manner. Also, the contributions should not differ greatly from what the evangelist says normally. Bear in mind that:

• Any shift from normal is very evident to everyone in the circle of influence
• Subtlety is required, not outright marketing – it’s pulling people into discussions, not forcing opinions on them

Unless your team is capable of being subtle enough in their interactions, your social marketing may fail. Most agencies that offer Social Network marketing and WOM buzz creation have people with long existing profiles who can provide the right publicity. If you choose the right agency, you can benefit greatly from their online presence. Think of it as a recommendation you ask from your clients on your professional profile.

How to choose the right external agency

The answer to this can be found by doing the following:

Step I – Look at the networks which you aim to do your Social Marketing on

Step II – Examine the agencies present on such networks

Step III –Evaluate their presence on such networks

• What is the number of their employees present on such networks?
• Evaluate the employees and their updates
• What do their profile pages say about them?
• What are their professional qualifications?
• What has their participation in discussions been like?
• What are they saying on such networks in discussions and updates?
• How often do they participate online?
• What they are stating about their existing clients and how they are being introduced into discussions
• How are their clients positioned in discussions and contributions?
• Are they making enough contributions to ensure their clients are mentioned frequently enough?
• Are these mentions making sense – or is the client introduced in a conversation where there is no scope or relevance of his mention benefiting him?
• How can you group them in terms of creators, critics and collectors?
• Does the agency have enough employees in all the three categories?

Step IV – Who are their clients? What do their clients have to say about them?

Once you answer the questions above, you will be able to decide on which agency you’d like to entrust your Social Marketing to.

Summary

Social marketing is a powerful tool that can provide results. However, the implementation of the whole campaign and the underlying strategy are very important. Also, equally important are your evangelists. With Social Networks being connections between people, unless the right approach is used, your campaign stands a chance of failing to provide results.

Understanding Intranets
Intranets, in their primary role of enabling collaborations and knowledge sharing, exhibit, as compared to their social media counterparts, a more formalized and compartmentalized approach to interactions and information flow. From providing efficient functionalities to address technical, infrastructural and employee issues, to providing a central repository to access presentations and information from remote locations, intranets are created customized to enterprise demands with the sole purpose of driving employee engagement and enhancing productivity.

The importance of being Social
So, where does social media figure in an organization’s efforts to ensure greater employee productivity? It is of course, understood that apart from providing functionalities that enable effective enterprise functions, what actually helps organizations achieve productivity targets is an effective exchange of ideas and viewpoints, while providing a platform for effective employee engagement.

Social media, by virtue of its approachability and user friendly nature, enables employees to contribute, discover and interact with their peers and others, and ascertain what they have to offer in terms of skill sets, knowledge and experience. Moreover, applications that allow people to initiate conversations, create and maintain open forum discussions and knowledge sessions, and discover newer avenue of business, all in an informal personal environment, go a long way in building effective relationships and a more productive atmosphere.

The best of both worlds
But this is no reason why we should dismiss the intranet. Social media applications, for the most part, lack the organization and structure that most organizations are built upon. Moreover, a well structured navigation system and a content management system that provides easy access to required data is an organizational requisite, which again, is something that most social sites fall short of providing.

In order to get the best of both worlds, intranets thus designed with evolving enterprise needs in consideration, could be integrated with applications that drive engagement and interactivity, and thus provide a platform for driving productivity and attaining organizational goals.
A sampling of the potential offered by such a union is offered below:

• Functionality that enables voting and recommending of articles considered relevant, helpful or interesting.
• Dynamic news feeds that provide actionable, critical information for employees to know and act on.
• Internal networking applications that apart from providing employee contact details, also list areas of individual expertise, and thus make it easier for employees to find one another to collaborate on projects and get questions answered, among other requirements.
• Enterprise/employee generated section, showcasing podcasts, photos, videos, that includes training videos, offsite trips, company outings etc.
• Blogs and forums, that while providing efficient exchange of ideas and views, could evolve to become a barometer of enterprise thought.

Essentially, it all percolates down to the fact that a successful intranet deployment should integrate the advantages of social media with the core applications already proven to enhance corporate information sharing and effective employee engagement.

I and a friend decided to photograph Cubbon park, early in the morning. These are some of the pics we clicked. a few good (at least I feel so) and a few.. well.. okay.

The intranet is expressly used as a common platform for all employees. It provides access to company documents, policies, procedures, project details etc. Plainly put, an intranet is an internal website that only users who are logged into the company network can see.

Intranets are sometimes also hosted publicly using secure protocols so that employees who would be unable to access company resources, like those who are at different locations or at client offices, can log into the intranet.

Intranets vary very much. They can range from a single page on which a company can put notices to complicated sites which have their own rules built in for the day to day activities of employees like time tracking for projects, personal financial information related to salaries, details of investments, knowledge repositories for projects, training modules, etc.

Examples of the most commonly transitioned procedures and functions by different departments are -

• HR – since HR is the group that maintains engagement throughout the course of an employee’s life in the organization an Intranet becomes an essential strategic tool for this group. Some of the commonly used tools by HR are Contact Directories, Leave Applications, Surveys, Organization charts, Ongoing Training Modules, Guidebooks/Handbooks/Manuals etc.
• Sales – Sales as a function and a process requires access to quite a few documents and should also be able to interact with the organization in a centralized way even when not in the office locations. Also, as one of the responsibilities of sales is to be able to provide an estimate of the sales for the month or quarter, and to provide reports on targets and achievement statuses, the intranet becomes an essential tool for Sales.The existence of a well designed module can provide a snapshot of sales till date, which is available continuously and helps in financial planning. Some of the commonly used features of the intranet by Sales are Centralized Sales Dashboards, Demo’s, Contact directories, Forecasts, Pricing structures, Researches, Business Intelligence reports etc.
• Finance – As a function, Finance has to maintain a trail of requests and authorizations for each function they perform in order to be accountable. An intranet is an essential and strategic application for them to ensure all practices are rigorously followed. Some of the commonly used tools by Finance are Capital acquisition form, Expense report, Budgets, Financial Reports, and Payroll etc.

A well designed intranet is actually normal human interactions like reporting, requesting leave, salary advance, taxation advice, delegating and carrying out tasks, reporting etc. which has been converted into a computer based format. This allows an employee to have the freedom and convenience of not being face to face with other people in the organization, thereby increasing productivity by allowing him to carry out these interactions from his location.

Why an intranet?

An intranet is essentially a communication platform. It allows people to use their time efficiently. As an example, if an employee needs help on a specific problem, and another employee who encountered it has put up his solution on the intranet, the first employee can refer to the same, and solve his problem instead of checking around for various solutions saving valuable time.

The intranet helps in bringing data and experience together which every employee can then leverage to attain the common goal. A well designed intranet allows every employee the chance to use the entire company’s experience in order to do his work.

As an example to illustrate the point, a major issue that companies have is tribal knowledge. Tribal knowledge is unwritten pieces of knowledge or information that is needed for consistent performance.

Usually possessors of this form of knowledge are very reluctant, or may not even realize the knowledge they have. However if they can be encouraged to share it, the improvements can be tremendous in terms of efficiency. This information can then be shared on the intranet.

The intranet, being a strategic tool, allows each employee to contribute to the growth of the organization in the best possible manner by providing them a common platform for sharing and communicating.

Develop or Lease?

Intranets can be either designed in house, or can be rented/leased from other providers. The following set of questions help in making a decision as to whether one should create an intranet in-house, or whether it would be better to lease one and start a partnership with the person one has leased it from:

• Do you actually need an intranet?
• Do you have resources that are trained in the skills required to create an intranet?
• Are your resources trained and experienced in building systems for human interaction, and not as a series of rules and formalities which a user would find very hard to understand unless training is provided?
• Have they any exposure or any understanding as to how a user actually uses a system?
• Do they understand how a user interprets the process that is used to complete a task?
• Can they design the intranet to be intuitive so that minimal time is spent on orienting users?
• Can they design the system to increase operational efficiency?
• Do they have the capability to design the navigation in a manner to reduce the amount of time taken to complete a job without overwhelming a user?
• Can they design the intranet based on human experiences and not as a series of functions?
• Can you spare them to create the intranet or is it more important for them to be available for client projects?
• Can you hire a resource to completely dedicate his time to increase the efficiency of the intranet?
• Can you ensure a person from management can drive it and be responsible for it?
• Do you employees have multiple profiles to handle? Do they have responsibilities other than the intranet alone? Can you ensure that they will be driving the intranet in a user centric manner?

If your answer to most of the questions above is no, or if you can not allocate enough time and resources internally, then it is better to lease an intranet and let your partner drive the project.

Choosing the right partner for your intranet

If you need to choose a partner to create your intranet, the following are the things you need to bear in mind

• Experience – Your partner needs to have varied and diverse experience in order to be able to recommend procedures that work best. This means he should have the necessary exposure to the procedures followed by companies in various industries.
• Commitment – Your partner should be willing to work along with you and not just deploy the intranet. For any problem, multiple solutions exist however not all may be feasible. Your partner should be willing to understand problems and devise solutions that he can implement on the intranet without compromising on functionality and efficiency while providing a quick response.
• Capability – Your partner should have a team capable of solving issues in terms of technologies and protocols.
• Understanding – Your partner should have the capability to understand the users who will use the system, how they carry out their job functions, and how an intranet can be designed to facilitate their jobs and to increase their efficiency.
• Ability to scale, and stability – Your partner should be able to work alongside you as your organization grows. If your company is on a growth phase, and depends heavily on coordination, your partner should be able to last as long as you. While choosing a partner do bear in mind that he should be able to take market fluctuations and survive in the market.

If your partner has these qualities then you have made a good choice.

What you need to do before you create an intranet

Once you have chosen a partner, you will need to work along with him in order to create your intranet. In order to make both your lives easier, you should sort out the following beforehand

• Establish the objective for the intranet. Is it to increase operational efficiency? Is it for knowledge sharing? Is it for internal communications? Once the list is created, grade them in terms of importance and keep this list in mind while discussing the same with your partner.
• Most companies have protocols like leave related information and information pertaining to employee records like date of joining or date of birth or the address on records etc. can be changed only by the HR department. Payroll information will be published only by the finance users. Does your organization have any such protocols? If you have, then list them down, and if not, create them. This will save a lot of time once you begin development.
• Which content pertaining to employee records can be published? What information regarding projects will be available publicly and which will have restricted access? Who will have access to what information? For example, only members of a project will be able to see reports pertaining to the projects, but anyone can join for a discussion on the project related discussion forum.
• Will content be reviewed by department heads for quality of information? If not, who will be responsible for the content – your partner or your employee who will drive the intranet?
• Will each department responsible for putting up content be creating it or will your partner be creating the content after interacting with each department? Who will be responsible for the information produced? The departmental head or the delegate from the department who will be liaising with your partner for providing information?
• Do you have any branding guidelines for the company? Are these to be followed for the intranet? Is there any specific layout to be followed?
• Who will take ownership of applications and content from your organization? There has to be one person on behalf of your organization who will need to manage the intranet internally – this person will be responsible for the information provided to your partner.
• Do you aim to use multimedia on the intranet? If so, what will it be? Flash based or will you use some other technology?
• What will be the frequency for backing up the intranet? Will the changes be carried out on a staging server, and be approved internally after which they will be put up or do the changes need to be made live?
• How will you measure intranet success? By the number of users? Or will each section have its own measure of effectiveness? What are the metrics for measuring the success and increase in efficiency and productivity? Will you measure each function separately or the overall performance only? If each module is to be measured separately, bear in mind the objective list created. How does this module fit in? How will it be measured?
• Establish fonts to be used, how links will appear, etc.
• Create Privacy policies regarding information available on the intranet and their usage, and any applicable legality. Are there any sections with sensitive information? You may need to check internally to see if a non-disclosure statement has to be displayed explicitly in this section.

Once you have decide on these details, it is very important to sit with your partner and find out what information he would need, and what formats he would need it in. Once this is done, you are ready to start development. Issues and clarifications will definitely come up as development begins, however ironing out these details in the initial stages will definitely speed up development.

Implementation – requirements

Once the intranet has been developed, you need to implement it. In order to do this, you need to find out from your partner what your partner requires. The common requirements are

• Servers – Production and staging
• Software licenses
• FTP and Login access (Staging and Production Server, or staging only etc.)
• Workstations – if any are required by your partner when his team comes to your location

A better method is to check what your partner would require from you and to provide the same to him.

In general, it is a good practice to create procedures visually, so that there are no boring documents one needs to refer to. Although it’s not very expansive, it’s a sort of a general guideline on how to handle email campaigns.

I use it in reminders that I have set up according to the schedule, so that every time my outlook throws up a reminder, this is attached for easy reference.

I hope it helps. Also, thanks to all the people who made the super amazing icons I have used. They are straight off free icon galleries. Brilliant job guys.

We depend on computer for everything – data, communication, calculation, forecasts, trends etc. This has allowed Indian businesses to counter most negative global trends and keep up the growth pace. But at the same time, we have also developed a fatal flaw – vulnerability.

For a moment, imagine – one of your company’s top level employee loses his PDA. You might say that you will replace it and his efficiency will remain the same. But, what would the implication be? Most PDA’s are now substitutes for lap-tops. The access to organizational information provided by these devices is such that a single PDA is now able to dispense almost all the confidential data that your company may have.

Add the effect of human nature to the mix, and you have a potential security threat that may destabilize your entire business. Very often, it is not necessary for your employees to devices or information regarding access points to sensitive organizational data – it is enough for them to be merely disgruntled.

To give an Idea of the scale of damages that occur, across the globe, in 2008, companies lost $1 Trillion due to Data Theft, and spent $600 million trying to put things right.

Indian Law and Data Theft

Indian law is woefully inadequate in terms of defining what theft of Data is, and the punishment prescribed. What is more ridiculous in the Indian context is that (till the IT act 2000 came into effect) you would need to prosecute your employee/contractor under a combination of sections under the IPC 1860.

There are two possible scenarios in data theft by an employee–

• Your employee stole a hardware form of data – you would have needed to prosecute him under Sections 22 (defining movable property), 378 (defining Theft) of the IPC 1860
• Your employee emailed/transmitted data – you would have needed to prosecute him under Sections 405 and 406 of the IPC 1860.

Add another dimension to this, that of data carriers or data warehouses and bankers and brokers, and you would have needed to prosecute such a crime under sections 407 and 408 of the IPC 1860.

Since the IT act 2000 came into the picture, the same crimes can be prosecuted under Section 43(b) of the act in parallel to the ones above – however damages are limited to one crore rupees. Now relate this to the amount you have invested in research and/or gathering data, and you have an idea of the scale of damages you may have.

Irrespective of the damage, you would still do well to inform your employees or contractors that any data theft would be punished under applicable laws.
The most logical method to counter/deter data theft is to create agreements that very specifically mention data entrustment to such employees or contractors.

Acceptable Usage Policy – What to cover

The objective behind an Acceptable Usage Policy should be to clearly state the company’s policy regarding use of the intranet/information system, to avoid potential liability, to promote healthy practices and information in order to reduce threats, and ensure positive use of the resources provided to employees.

The essential areas that need to be covered are –

• Principles governing usage of such systems
• Consequences for unauthorized usage
• Whether systems are monitored
• Laws applicable
• Encouragement of safe usage practices

Acceptable Usage Policy – Application

Most companies use an Intranet. They also store sensitive information on the same system. If an employee has access to such information, then it is usually assumed that such an employee will not disclose it to the outside world.

However, here lies the basic flaw. This is an assumption. One way to make this assumption into a legal contract is to provide an Acceptable Usage Policy/Guideline. An acceptable usage guideline usually outlines the activities for which the company has provided the access to such systems. It is however, rare to find even a privacy policy (which actually contains rudiments of such guidelines) on most intranets.

Even if such a policy is available, it is usually relegated to the footer part of the pages. Frankly – have you ever scrolled down to the bottom of your internet banking account to ever check what the links there are? That’s how much notice this will get.

So how can we inform a user of such systems of what constitutes an acceptable use?

There are a few ways of achieving this objective that are in use–

• As a part of mandatory joining procedures
• As a part of induction training
• As a part of the intranet footer

However, I can testify to the fact that these are not very effective means of achieving the same. Another method that may be used is what is usually used in software installation files – that of making the user scroll down to the end of the policy itself and click on a check-box stating he/she has read the same and agrees to it. This is effect allows the company to inform and the user to acknowledge acceptance of the same. This can be used on the sign-on page – or before login is allowed for any of your systems.

I agree, this can end up being slightly irritating, but it can be achieved on any information system by making a user acknowledge the entrustment of confidential data while signing on to such a system.

Indian Online Users- A Portrait.

Observation: The findings are really interesting. According to the survey, 77% of India’s online users are lesser than 35 years of age. Predominantly urban, these undoubtedly have good purchasing power, are used to a comfortable lifestyle, and importantly, they are comfortable shopping online. Among other things, they shop online for tickets, books, clothes and music.

Interpretation: The Indian Online User has the wherewithal and the willingness to use the Internet for more than mere information hunt.

What are the Indian Online Users Using the Internet for?

Observation: In a nutshell, the Indian Online User uses the Internet for more than just emails. In addition to emailing, the Indian Online User uses the Internet for enhancing their careers thorough Job Searches. A vast majority use it to communicate, check news, receive sports updates, and download music and movies. A huge section of the users also use the Internet to keep track of cricket scores, make friends, search for life partners, and of course, search for information as well.

Interpretation: The Indian Online User is very versatile when it comes to using the Internet, offering any organization/advertiser many a channel to reach out to them.

The Indian Online User’s Buying Behavior.

Observations: 80 % of the users shop regularly on the Internet. While it is predominantly travel purchase that they use the Internet for, a huge chunk also uses it for non-travel purchase like books, music and movies.

Interpretation: Shopping online is no alien concept to the Indian user. What that means is a huge market that awaits your organization.

Should you reach out to the Indian Online User?

The answer is yes. With an online audience that is willing to, and is actively looking at conducting transactions online, it’s evident that your company should actively get online. So that, gathering maximum exposure positively impacts your company’s bottom line.

What’s the Ideal Way to Reach Out?

In any online transaction the thing to remember is that what makes the difference between a site visit and the actual act of purchasing is one simple decision. Unless you have a site that is convincing at every stage of the decision making process, you will end up with a site that will have visitors losing interest. And that means many abandoned shopping carts on your site. Honestly, I feel that this is really an avoidable situation. One important point to bear in mind while going online would be to have an interwoven strategy that will persuade a visitor to make a purchase.

How to create a transaction oriented website?

You may want to begin with the site itself. Ensure that the User Experience walks a visitor through the entire decision making process. And more importantly, influences him at every stage towards your goal of a successful transaction. In addition to a great user experience, it pays to have an accurate plan that convincingly gets the visitor to your site. On the site, one important aspect that makes or breaks repeat visits is a Response mechanism. Basically, a good response mechanism addresses typical buyers’ questions- “Great! I bought this in a jiffy! But haven’t got it yet! Who do I talk to? Where do I write? When can you tell me?”

Once these aspects are taken care of, it’s time for another mechanism to take over. And that is a mechanism that allows effective analysis. Addressing important issues such as, just how did the visitor come to your site, what was the visitor interested in, and how just how long it took for the decision to be made. While the entire process of creating a transaction oriented website may seem simple or even simplistic, it means taking into account many factors. What I attempted to leave behind with you were the core underlying concepts behind this critical task.

Shore up your bottom line:

With such a huge opportunity awaiting you, it stands to little reason why one should not consider making an organization’s website more transactional. And considering today’s business environment, one of the answers to shore up bottom lines is undeniably IOU. The Indian Online User, of course.

How can this be applied to e-Marketing?

Well. We can actually see how a persons job can be used to gauge the best visual style for a mailer/banner/communique. A person would be most likely to chose a job in which he/she would be comfortable. Examining the job along with the other regular considerations (bearing in mind the Brain orientation required for such a job) will lead to an increase accuracy by sending the right message to the right target audience, at the same time eliciting a favorable response. Lets see how this translates into segregation.

The following is a list of Left and Right brain functions –

Left Brain functions

• Logical
• Detail seeking
• Decisions based on Facts
• Language and syntax Comprehension
• Calculation
• Scientific Thinking
• Quick Comprehension
• Pattern Recognition
• Associates Objects and Names
• Strategic
• Practical
• Careful and Cautious

Right Brain functions

• Feeling/Emotions
• Pieces together Overall details into one picture
• Imagination
• Shape recognition
• Philosophy
• Faith
• Spatial Recognition
• Fantasy
• Planning on the fly
• Impulsive
• Risks

What does this tell us about a person?

A person with a dominant right brain makes decisions intuitively, as a reflex, rather than take a few minutes off and think about pros and cons. This does not mean that this person is incapable of taking logical decisions, he is simply more prone to be impulsive. Also, a major part of what we call intuition is actually learned behavior – so what would seem an instinctive response may actually have a basis in a rational decision in the past.

On the other hand, a person with a dominant left brain will understand things sequentially. Remember your teacher in school who always used to tell you to sit straight, or that your answer has no beginning or end? that’s the left brain person. These people prefer to figure things out alone, the ones who would rather look at numbers than experience.

Simply put, the friend you have who insists that car X has more power, acceleration and mileage, and reels off the figures, is the left brain person. The right brain one would begin something like – ‘I was driving a friends car yesterday, car X, and man, is it good…’

The left brained one will actually read through any communication, and then respond, whereas a right brained one will skip through, see the salient parts, and make up the big picture without actually reading each word. The left brained one is the one who will respond to text as well as the mailers design – if you have designed it for him to register things sequentially.

The right brained one will respond to visual cues – crisper text and a call to action that is clearly visible in a mailer that uses pictures to convey what is being communicated.

Now, how could we use this?

Regarding loss in productivity – what I have noticed is whenever an employee faces a problem to which he does not know the solution, he checks on Google, and then resorts to various forums on which he might be able to look for solutions. Assuming an employer blocks access to sites which may actually be a community of developers or managers, wouldn’t productivity be damaged? moreover what about business opportunities that may arise from employee interactions on networking sites like linked in?

Regarding a possible threat to reputation, employers who have transparency in practices followed by them should actually encourage it. This is because a positive feedback from current employees may be one of the things which could influence talented individuals to join your organization. When everything else (Salary scales, perks etc.) is equal, then it’s the smaller things which swing the situation your way. A positive statement from a current employee may help the individual make up his mind. Also, Social networking ites could help in referrals, and the costs of hiring someone who is referred by an employee is much lower as compared to advertising employment opportunities. It also has the added advantage of having already vetted people being hired – people who have been vetted by the companies employees themselves.

It is also much better for productivity and morale if an employee joins who has an acquaintance or a friend working in the company as this would lead to faster acceptance – each company is a form of a closed society with it’s own unwritten protocols in terms of interactions among employees. Although every company would like to think it has a very open and friendly atmosphere, in fact this is not true.

Moreover, only a company that does not encourage transparency would actually be considering freedom of speech as a threat. Not to mention expecting any employee to praise a company when it does not in fact deserve praise would be, lets say… unrealistic?