Tips to build a Rewarding Career

One should be able to learn, share, contribute and discover one’s true potential. After interacting with lots of professionals, here are certain tips on how to build a meaningful and rewarding career.

Have a Hunger – There needs to be a constant enthusiasm and hunger to learn, unlearn and innovate. You should be fearless in the pursuit of excellence and making a difference. It is crucial to soak up as much knowledge as possible and apply it in your line of work.

Communication – An ability to work with diverse groups and respect divergent views is important. Effective communication and influencing skills, hanging ambiguity, managing diversity and leading multi-generation teams – these are the qualities that tomorrow’s employers will look for. Being able to communicate effectively is half the battle won.

Feedback – Be sure to regularly engage with your manager and proactively ask for feedback. Conversations with your manager can revolve around those capabilities you have how the world of work is changing and whether or not your career goals are realistic. You also need to ask how you can accelerate your learning.

Company Help – Everyone has different aspirations and it’s important to keep the organization in the loop via your people manager and your career coach. Be sure to speak to senior leaders on learning opportunities that are available and take help of mentors to action feedback based improvements. You can also ask for options to work on different assignments, products, geographies or work. These will help give you a professional edge.

Think Long term – While it is a good idea to experiment on choices to formulate a direction of your career, it’s also equally important to see those choices through and consider what they mean in the long term. It’s not just about the next job, it’s about the whole of your career, so it is crucial to have patience and take a holistic view of what each decision could mean.

Impact of Blockchain on Search Marketing

If you’ve heard of Bitcoin then you most likely have heard of Blockchain, the technology that enables Bitcoin and other crypto currencies to exist and function. The technology is forecast to disrupt many industries as it allows users to conduct transactions without a middleman in a secure and transparent format.

Some of the industries that can potentially be disrupted are car sales, voting, ridesharing, real estate, insurance, sports management and loyalty cards. If Bitcoin is adopted by large companies such as Amazon or Walmart, it will certainly have an impact on the future of payments between search marketing agencies, website owners, advertisers and others. Contract agreements will also be impacted, as the Blockchain could be leveraged for more transparency and accuracy.

Blockchain is an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions but virtually everything of value. It’s like a Google Doc spreadsheet that is shared with the public which displays transactions and is tamperproof. Many are considering Blockchain to be as impactful as the Internet was in the 90s.

In the digital marketing world, many central authorities, such as Google and Facebook, connect advertisers with website owners. For Example, Google is a central authority in programmatic ads, where it helps advertisers run ads on websites via the Google Display Network. Google essentially is the middleman that helps advertisers and website owners trust each other. If they already trusted each other, they would not need Google as an intermediary taking a cut of the profits.

Enter Blockchain, which can verify that every user is genuine with 100 percent accuracy and that the website owner is only charging the advertiser for genuine clicks through to their site. Then the website owner and the advertiser don’t need a middleman to arbitrate their agreement, which would save them money. Blockchain presents a big threat to Google’s Display Network revenue.

Blockchain being the unhackable distributed ledger is going to also help reduce online fraud. It will provide transparency for persons involved in a transaction without giving away their personal details, essentially proving they are a real person. Ad fraud is a big problem. It cost advertisers over $7 Billion in 2016. A number of players including Microsoft, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and DMA are already working on Blockchain based digital identification system.

As companies start to adopt Blockchain, they will need to integrate it with their websites. This involves the web developers as well as the SEOs, if they are trying to gain organic search benefits as well as display the information from the Blockchain transactions. This will present both technical issues and opportunities in which SEOs will have to work alongside developers to resolve compatibility issues with different content management systems and website platforms. As new Blockchains are developed and it is more widely adopted, it will certainly disrupt the search marketing industry in many other ways. For now, search marketers should pay close attention to Blockchain as it grows.

Diwali Ad Campaigns 2017

Brands across categories have rolled out festive ad campaigns to celebrate Diwali, the festival of lights highlighting the importance of family, love, hope and light as their core theme. A look at some brands Diwali Campaigns that have struck a chord with viewers.

Nokia – In its first comeback festive campaign executed by advertising agency Dentsu One, the smartphone maker has highlighted its global brand philosophy of ‘Unite For’, urging customers to take a break from their phones and spend quality time with their loved ones this festive season. The company is also providing a gift box in which one can place their own phone and give it to someone close or, just set it aside for a day as a gesture of committing their time—and themselves—to them. The integrated campaign is being promoted across television, retail, activation, social and digital. The film, uploaded on YouTube on 29 September, has garnered 17 million views so far.

Nestle Alpino – Nestle owned premium chocolate brand Alpino brought a Bollywood twist to create a Diwali Ad which features actors Sonali Bendre and Jimmy Shergill. Made by advertising agency JWT Delhi, the spot positions the chocolates as the perfect gift for loved ones this Diwali.

Coca-Cola – No festival is complete without siblings, and beverage brand Coca-Cola’s campaign highlights some of special moments that a brother and sister share even if it means picking up fights over the most trivial things. Made by McCann Worldgroup India, the Campaign is being promoted across television, radio and digital. Coke has also partner with Paytm to offer festive discount codes to consume with each bottle of Coke.

Pepsi – The beverage brand has extended its ‘Festive Moments’ campaign under which it has created over 80 of the popular words printed in eight regional languages on the brand’s packaging. The new packaging with festive slogans like ‘Dhoom Dhadaka’ in regional languages aims to create a much stronger connects with the consumers. Made by JWT, the campaign also comprises a Digital film along with a series of interactive on ground activations.

Lenovo – A heartwarming campaign ‘Gift them a future’ created by Lenovo India narrates a story of a banker struggling to keep himself busy after retirement. His son, who is back home for Diwali, decides to give him a little nudge in form of a notebook which will help him start his own entrepreneurial venture. Uploaded on company’s YouTube channel, the video has garnered over 2.6 Million views so far.

Hike Messenger – Mobile chat platform Hike Messenger gave a fresh take on the often used theme of homecoming during festive advertising. Created by JWT Delhi, the “No Formality” campaign features a young man who goes back home only to find his parents choosing to go on a holiday on Diwali. He then decides to celebrate the festival partying with his friends. The campaign is being promoted across digital, social and traditional media including television and radio.

Ghadi detergent – Continuing with its ‘saare mael dho daalo’ proposition, Ghadi detergent’s Diwali Ad urges people to stop judging strangers according to the pre-conceived stereotypes that exist in our mind. Created by advertising agency ADK fortune, the Film shows how policemen are often associated with trouble and corruption. The ad shows a policeman visiting a family who are selling their electronic items online. Interested to buy some of these items for Diwali, he not only pays them money in advance, but also makes the full payment, much to the relief to the owner who doubted his intentions.

Robin Hood Army

They take from the rich for the poor – but unlike the legendary outlaw Robin Hood, they are not after money, and it’s all above board. A band of merry men and women called the Robin Hood Army (RHA) has been seeking to feed the poor by distributing surplus food from restaurants and weddings to the hungry in the subcontinent.

Its volunteers, mostly students and young working professionals, call themselves Robins. Dressed in green, they go out in the dark, pick up food and distribute it among the homeless and others. When India and Pakistan celebrated 70 years of Independence, the RHA from the two nations joined hands to fight against a common enemy – hunger – and fed over 1.32 million people across 48 cities.

The group was started in August 2014 with six Robins in Delhi who served about 150 people on their first night of food distribution. In three years, it now consist of 12,350 volunteers who have served over 34,36,531 people. The RHA has some 50 chapters in as many cities in the Indian subcontinent. It started in Pakistan in February 2015 with its first distribution in Karachi. It also has volunteers in Sri Lanka and other Asian countries.

Ghose thought of starting RHA when they heard about an organization in Portugal called ‘Refood’ – which picked up and distributed restaurant surplus. He talked about the initiative with its founder Hunter Halder, and then decided to launch a similar programme in India with partner Anand Sinha, who works for an e-commerce site. The third partner, Aarushi Batra, is in Business.

A particular city chapter gets in touch with restaurants and wedding caterers in an area. Robins keep in touch with those who are ready to donate food and collect it at the end of the day or the time of distribution. The food is packed into meals and then distributed among the homeless and others who need food in or around that particular area. There are some very helpful restaurants that don’t just package and give away excess food, but also donate freshly cooked food.

All expenses, such as transportation costs, are met by the volunteers. With the help of Social Media, a large number of people have joined the army in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia, apart from India and Pakistan. There are six chapters in Pakistan – four in Karachi, one in Lahore and one in Islamabad.

Though food is still its main area of concern, RHA takes up other initiatives and projects from time to time. It is now looking at ways to distribute clothes and help poor students. RHA Chennai is crowd sourcing school bags from city schools for sending to a school in a remote village in Odisha, where a Robin is a teacher. In Surat, classrooms are being built under a bridge from waste material for underprivileged children with the help of other organizations. In Hyderabad, they are building new toilets and renovating old one in schools.

When northern Gujarat was hit by floods, two Robins travelled 1,100 kms after collecting 10,000 kgs of food grains and 2,000 kgs of clothes to help 39,000 people. The team bars anybody from collecting money in the name of the organization. RHA has also started a Robin Hood Academy in 19 cities, where they teach slum children to help then join schools. Anyone can help RHA or join RHA community.

International Day of the Girl

International Day of the Girl Child is an international observance day declared by the United Nations, it’s also called the Day of the Girl and the International Day of the Girl, October 11, 2012, was the first Day of the Girl. The initiative supports more opportunity for girls and increases awareness of gender inequality faced by girls worldwide based upon their gender.

Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, Sukanya Samriddhi Account, One Stop Center Scheme, Mahila E-Haat are few measures undertaken by the Indian Government towards the upliftment of women. Over the years India has shown incremental improvement in gender inequality indicators. October 9-14 is also celebrated as the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Week.

The day is marked by all events over the world, from India to Kenya to Washington to Paris, put on by humanitarian organizations, nonprofits and governments alike. With 1.1 Billion girls in the world, the United Nations aims to help those girls that face disadvantage and discrimination on a daily basis and wants to highlight their struggle.

The Indian constitution provides a powerful mandate for human rights in its Preamble, Fundamental Rights and Duties and specific provisions for affirmative action. The government has instituted laws and policies protecting the rights of girls and women, including a ban on dowry, pre-birth sex determination and child marriage.

For the fifth year in a row, the youth-led movement is being recognized (the United Nations declared October 11 as “day of the girl” in 2011). This youth led movement fights for gender justice and youth rights, believing that girls are the experts on issues that affect girls. This year the theme of the International Day of the Girl is ‘EmPOWER girls: Before, during and after conflict’ in humanitarian emergencies gender based violence increases which means girls are more likely to be subjected to sexual and physical violence, child marriage, exploitation and trafficking.

Nobel Prize Winners 2017

Physics – The physics prize was divided, one half awarded to Rainer Weiss, the other half jointly to Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves. The received the prize for the discovery of gravitational waves released in the world by violent events in the universe such as the mergers of black holes. Weiss, professor emeritus of Physics at MIT, along with Thorne and Barish, California Institute of Technology Physicists, pioneered LIGO, or the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, the scientific project that made gravitational wave detection possible.

Chemistry – The chemistry prize was awarded to Jacques Dubochet, Richard Henderson and Jaochim Frank for developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution. Cyro-electron microscopy is a technique that takes accurate and detailed pictures of living things at atomic scales. This is assisting scientists make high resolution, 3D images that can help in cancer drug research and better understanding of the Zika virus. Jacques Dubochet is a retired biophysicist of Lausanne in Switzerland, Joachim Frank, a professor at Columbia University in New York and Richard Henderson is a scientist at the British Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England.

Physiology – The 2017 prize was awarded jointly to Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm. The award celebrates the study of the tiny biological clocks in every living thing. The three American Scientists were able to peek inside our biological clock and elucidate its inner workings. Their discoveries explain how plants, animals and humans adapt their biological rhythm so that it is synchronized with the Earth’s revolution.

Literature – The Literature prize was awarded to Kazuo Ishiguro who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world. The author of seven novels, a short story collection and screenplays, Ishiguro was born in bomb-hit Nagasaki in 1954 and moved to England at the age of 5.

Nobel Peace Prize – The Peace prize 2017 was awarded to International campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic, humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground breaking efforts to achieve a treaty based prohibition of such weapons. The group formed by Geneva based coalition of disarmament activists is behind the first treaty to prohibit nuclear arms. 

Economics – The US Economist Richard Thaler was awarded the $1.1 Million Nobel Economics Prize for his contributions in the field of behavioral Economics. The award giving body said that Thaler contributions have built a bridge between the economic and psychological analyses of individual decision making.