Check out this highly superficial news clip on ABC News about the Rise of India. It is hilariously inaccurate, especially in the part where the reporter asks a woman in a jhuggi how long she's been living there. She replies "Do saal" and he translates "Twenty five years!"
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=1674437
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Craziest workplace s-logged!
The insanity continues at http://pagalguy.com/slog/
All about the craziest workplace this side of the M-17 Nebula! :)
All about the craziest workplace this side of the M-17 Nebula! :)
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Of firing the hiring as we know it
My greatest headache of this day and possibly of all time is turning out to be hiring a Full-time Journalist for Inzane Labs' PaGaLGuY.com. No, we have no HR Manager on the rolls because we haven't been able to find the right person, The One, yet.
That leaves me alone and totally clueless in a game I have zilch idea about. Which is a great thing, because I can reinvent the wheel based on Common Sense. What works most in my favour is that I am NOT an MBA, so my mind hasn't been jargonized and filled with that horrible word called 'processes' yet.
On the flipside, what makes it super tough is that I am not settling for anybody less than The One, or someone who shows me the scope to grow into The One.
Where do I start from? How do I reach out and get in the resumes? How do I judge if they're fit to survive in an obsessively entrepreneurial environment that we have fostered in the company?
I began with making a detailed job posting, looking inwards of the MBA Forums of PaGaLGuY.com for the dream journo. I also spammed the other avenues (Yahoogroups, Orkut et al). I knew that many of the applicants we liked from this lot might not be from Mumbai. I can do the telephonic interview and make other checks through contacts. But even then I would be clueless. How do I take a call on someone without having met them? I would next be going to Journo Schools, but there's time before their placement season starts.
That is when we realized, that if we were looking for The One, we should be willing to put in the effort and the money during the hiring process itself. So we decided to do what probably no other company on Earth has ever done: Give every prospective the complete return flight-ticket expenses to stay in Mumbai for a week and work with us. If we like you and you like us, cool. If not, cool.
Otherwise, what is the point of being meticulous?
Imagine when the company grows 1,000 strong and EACH and EVERY employee is chosen this way and is none but The One. That's the way this company will work.
Who is The One for a PaGaLGuY.com Journalist? Somebody who has the balls to question everything about how journalism has been working until now; we don't want to be a Media company where the Editorial and Marketing departments co-exist in a bitter and estranged vibe, cursing each other all the time in a conflict between marketing and news content battling for space.
There is a way to have each of the Editorial content, the Marketing content AND the user/reader interest to co-exist peacefully, each in full-throttle, with Zero Conflict between them. It is just that nobody has ever put adequate thought to it.
Our being a Web medium helps, because we can put Advertisers and Readers in direct contact using web-forums/bulletin boards. Go do your dirty fighting there. That way Editorial content remains truly sacrosanct and out of advertisers' influence, something you can't do in the print/electronic media. Things then go to the next level.
Does this sound too idealistic? Maybe. Does it make business sense? You decide. Is it better to die trying? Any day.
Can you see this Big Picture? Would you like to be a Journalist who is also a great Entreprenuer and can take this insane organization further? Can you take Content as we know it to the Next Level?
If this makes sense to you, do take a look at the Job Posting and apply! If we see a spark, we'll give you a buzz. You decide your salary! :)
That leaves me alone and totally clueless in a game I have zilch idea about. Which is a great thing, because I can reinvent the wheel based on Common Sense. What works most in my favour is that I am NOT an MBA, so my mind hasn't been jargonized and filled with that horrible word called 'processes' yet.
On the flipside, what makes it super tough is that I am not settling for anybody less than The One, or someone who shows me the scope to grow into The One.
Where do I start from? How do I reach out and get in the resumes? How do I judge if they're fit to survive in an obsessively entrepreneurial environment that we have fostered in the company?
I began with making a detailed job posting, looking inwards of the MBA Forums of PaGaLGuY.com for the dream journo. I also spammed the other avenues (Yahoogroups, Orkut et al). I knew that many of the applicants we liked from this lot might not be from Mumbai. I can do the telephonic interview and make other checks through contacts. But even then I would be clueless. How do I take a call on someone without having met them? I would next be going to Journo Schools, but there's time before their placement season starts.
That is when we realized, that if we were looking for The One, we should be willing to put in the effort and the money during the hiring process itself. So we decided to do what probably no other company on Earth has ever done: Give every prospective the complete return flight-ticket expenses to stay in Mumbai for a week and work with us. If we like you and you like us, cool. If not, cool.
Otherwise, what is the point of being meticulous?
Imagine when the company grows 1,000 strong and EACH and EVERY employee is chosen this way and is none but The One. That's the way this company will work.
Who is The One for a PaGaLGuY.com Journalist? Somebody who has the balls to question everything about how journalism has been working until now; we don't want to be a Media company where the Editorial and Marketing departments co-exist in a bitter and estranged vibe, cursing each other all the time in a conflict between marketing and news content battling for space.
There is a way to have each of the Editorial content, the Marketing content AND the user/reader interest to co-exist peacefully, each in full-throttle, with Zero Conflict between them. It is just that nobody has ever put adequate thought to it.
Our being a Web medium helps, because we can put Advertisers and Readers in direct contact using web-forums/bulletin boards. Go do your dirty fighting there. That way Editorial content remains truly sacrosanct and out of advertisers' influence, something you can't do in the print/electronic media. Things then go to the next level.
Does this sound too idealistic? Maybe. Does it make business sense? You decide. Is it better to die trying? Any day.
Can you see this Big Picture? Would you like to be a Journalist who is also a great Entreprenuer and can take this insane organization further? Can you take Content as we know it to the Next Level?
If this makes sense to you, do take a look at the Job Posting and apply! If we see a spark, we'll give you a buzz. You decide your salary! :)
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