Notes from Chennai's first Idea Camp!

Chennai is the great place to share ideas and meeting interesting people, that’s what Ramesh Manickam of Android had to say about the Chennai’s first Idea camp. Venkatesh says there were no big crazy ideas but many practical ideas. As soon as the camp was over, like minded people started discussing about how to take the idea forward, now that’s the very idea of Ideacamp. These camps give you a platform to share your thoughts, ideas and sometimes partners for your future projects.

Ram has already picked up the idea of TGs being involved in products and started working on packaging products under a brand name with TGs as brand ambassadors like Kurkure or Maggi?

But Benedict Gnaniah has a word of caution; good ideas play only a small part in success story. One needs to have good thinking, execution, risk, entrepreneurship, networking and plan to make that idea into action.

That's me(red T-shirt), live tweeting the event, believe me, tweeting live is big fun!

Some felt unusually tired physically after the event. This gives you an idea about the involvement of participants. For some, idea camp was the first social meet and had the initial hiccups so they just listened to the ideas (we need some one who can listen to,with lots of patience,to our ideas right?)
So what really happened?
Around 40 people met at Photon Infotech,Ranjiv Gandhi Road, Chennai. The camp kicked off with a great ice breaker. Then the ideas started pouring in. Ideas on creating Petting zones, a zoo of domesticated pets such as dogs, cats, hamsters and squirrels, A system to transfer food into one’s stomach wirelessly and a stomach simulator that gives a feeling of being fed, what an idea sirji!!


Then ideas on how to reduce heat by growing terrace garden (a must of Chennai for sure), eco friendly hygienic cost effective public urinals again a must for whole India. How about a site for travel networking? Review system for Colleges, a website www.howismyidea.com to share ideas, A mobile lab for rural India, an application very aptly named, I’m bored, for sharing interesting events / happenings in the city.

A kiosk for identifying talents and a website for rating various services, especially restaurant so that people can save time, money and health.
Points to Ponder

1.Spray cows milk diluted water can make tomatoes bigger
2.Terrace gardens helps reduce heat
3.Pets are good stress busters
4.India doesn't need big idea to solve all problems but small ideas to solve the million small problems
5.Gays are main stream. Lesbians are main stream. Transgendered people should be next
6.Best way to reach an idea to the mass is to put the idea behind autos
7.Technology barriers will always be broken
8.Its not all money in social cause, how much time one can dedicate, to be with the needy
9.Just implement your idea how small it may be
10.Don’t get married to one idea.

It’s really good to be surrounded by lots of ideas, but the real challenge is to convert these ideas in to actions as Arnold H. Glasgow, an American humorist said, an idea not coupled with action will never get any bigger than the brain cell it occupied.

Image of the week

There are so many parts inside your watch and they all are doing a great job to show you the right time

An Idea (camp) can change many lives!



This Saturday, May 29, Chennai is going to listen to some of wackiest, great, funniest, astonishing ideas. The Knowledge Foundation (TKF) is organizing the first Idea Camp in Chennai. The ideas shared might start a great movement or result in the birth of a great company.

Idea Camp's


page






Your ideas must be related to one / many of the fields mentioned below

1 Technology
2 Social Change
3 Arts & Entertainment
4 Marketing, Advertisement and Design
5 Outliers

Have a look at some of the ideas already registered. So register here, come and share your idea, you never know the power of your idea

Chennai Social Media Club's third session

Chennai's Social Media Club is slowly but steadily becoming the most active SMC in the country. First Saturday of every month Social media practitioners and enthusiasts get together and share their experience.

June month's session will have two eminent persons sharing their take on Social Media.

About Speakers

1. Jayashree Ramasubramanian, representing Intuit

2. Bharat Moro, a writer, consultant, teacher and photographer

Session details

Looking forward to a wonderful session on June 5

Jonathan Harris interesting Ted talk about the Web's secret stories

Jonathan Harris: the Web's secret stories | Video on TED.com

Image of the Week

Bharani Shivakumar at the Pecha-Kucha night, Chennai edition 1. Came in full cycling costume, heard he cycled all the way from Thiruvanmyur to Nungambakkom. Gave a nice presentation on his passion,cycling of course and various activities of Tamil Nadu Cycling Club

Cyclone Laila, what's in a name?

What’s In a name, as Shakespeare asked, but it seems there is lot, Its freezing cold in Chennai now, after almost a year I switched on the water heater, thanks to Laila , the cyclone article on Times of India
It’s not sure whether Laila will ever enter Tamil Nadu, but the big debate has already started. Cyclone Laila was the topic in one of FM channels and the RJ was dead against the name. How come the cyclone having a North Indian name (first time I am hearing that Laila is a North Indian name)or suggested by Pakistan? and as the cyclone is going to hit TN, it should have a Tamizh (tamil ) name, to be more precise any names from Sangam literature

And throughout the show (7-10 am) listeners were calling up and suggesting names, that‘s really funny right? We have started celebrating the arrival of natural disasters. The debate is continuing in Twitter. So I did a little bit of searching and found this site, offering pure tamil names.

Now can we pick one and welcome her, the ex Laila?

Legendary music conductor Benjamin Zander on music and passion, a must watch Ted talk
Benjamin Zander on music and passion | Video on TED.com

Meeting of Jumbos! Cerebrate Thekkady edition

Think of jumbos and highly picturesque Thekkady will come to every one's mind. Come May 19, eleven more will be joining them, 11 giants in their own fields, that's Cerebrate, meeting of achievers. They come from different walks of lives. Imagine a Cigar manufacturer. meeting a yachting champ or a food consultant meeting a visual artist! A story teller will be sharing his life story with a highly successful head of a chain of educational institutions. How is it to work with marginalized communities and devising ways of seeking acceptance for them? to know in depth about the World famous tsunami relief and rehabilitation project in Nagapattinam, what are the challenges one will face while working in rural India? whats common among Ads, scuba diving, restaurant and cigars? how is it to organise International sporting events? Whats so exciting in pastries and desserts?Thekkady edition of Cerebrate will truly be the meeting of jumbos (no pun intended) and that's Cerebrate is all about

Have a look at the achievers list

More on Cerebrate Thekkady edition

The Sapling Project is back!

Love plants? then register and be there for playing real farmville, its fun believe me

have a look at the First edition


For more details, visit

Facebook page

Webpage

Simon Sinek's wonderful talk on how great leaders inspire action
Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action | Video on TED.com

An evening with Captain Gopinath!

According to Captain his Autobiography Simply Fly, A Deccan odyssey is the story of new India of possibilities. In midst of gloom one should have hope.


Autographed autobiography!

'Man is not finished when defeated but when he quits', Captain quoted from Shelly to Shakespeare,Einstein to Newton and Tagore!. First time his name appeared in a local paper was for a not so pleasant reason. He had taken loan from a bank pledging his wife's jewellery and the bank was about to auction it as he failed to repay. In midst of all this he came to Chennai to listen to Semmangudi srinivasa iyer's Carnatic music concert.


Once a bird hit the Delhi-Kokata Deccan flight,engine was damaged,Now a new engine had to be brought from Delhi to Kolkata and there was no direct freight service so the engine was flown from Delhi to Singapore and then to Kolkata (what a logistics nightmare you see!).


That night he decided to start an air freight services company that resulted in creation of Deccan 360. A well developed supply chain is essential for a matured economy. Its the arteries and veins of the Nation.


Low cost is more than a culture (once he sent a car for his dad but he refuced and came in a bus). Low cost is about innovation!

The Airplane Book

A bit of history! In my agency days I was handling an Airline client, so obviously I had to collect all news items on Aviation. After a while my desk became full and others denied the space in theirs! Then the idea of Airplane book came to my mind. Its a scrap book of what all I collected!


From the editor's desk! I wanted to make it as interesting as possible, so apart from the industry news I included


Trivia, jokes and various tags. Captain was curious to see news articles related to Deccan!


Logos of the various airlines


I added the book launch poster and got it signed! I would say a truly inspiring evening with the person who redefined the Indian aviation.

Ravanan is back!

This time its Maniratnam's version. have a look at teaser
Its not the first time that Maniratnam has taken threads from epics.
One of his biggest hits,"Dalapathi" was losely based on the great epic Mahabharata.
This time it's Ravanan from Ramayanam. Ramayanam has various interpretations in various places.

Raavanah means 'one who makes people cry by his violent actions. Sage Valmiki depicted Ravanan as ten headed demon king. The symbolic meaning of "10 headed" is that he is guided by and does not have control over the five senses and five bodily instruments of action. An alternative interpretation is that he possessed a very thorough knowledge in the 4 vedas, and 6 upanishadas,which made him as powerful as 10 scholars. He also authored Ravana Sanhita, a powerful book on the Hindu astrology,also known as Lal Kitab. Ravana possessed a thorough knowledge of Ayurveda and political science


Raja Ravi Varma's Painting of Ravana, killing Jatau

In Sage Kambar's version, Ramavataram, Ravanan and Mandorai's first born was a girl that was Sita, but astrologer predicted that the the girl would become reason for his destruction.He threw away the kid in a basket. The baby didnt die, instead was safe in the earth and was found later by king Janaka who brought her up as his daughter. The great Malayalam poet Vayalar Rama Varma took this thread and penned "Ravanaputhri"

Devdutt Pattanaik,Chief Belief Officer at Future Group , has a different version. According to him Ravanan represents the law of the jungle where might is right. "Humans have the ability to say no to the law of the jungle - and the human journey from the animal to the divine is the gradual rejection of the law of the jungle. Ravana is the animal because he tries to take Sita by force because he is stronger. That is what one must conquer," Pattanaik says. full version of article

We need to wait and see what's Maniratnam version of Ravanan (Ramayanam)is,
So lets wait!

Image of the week

This young Research Associate in need of funding for his Alcohol research, any takers?

Wonderful talk by mathemagician Arthur Benjamin, calculates 3 digit numbers in seconds!

Arthur Benjamin does "Mathemagic" | Video on TED.com

If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it. ~Albert Einstein

Remember 'Idea Raman',the famous character who gives great ideas in an old Hindi Tv serial? if your memory cells are already started withering away, What about Sirji of the Idea cellular mobile, who has an idea for every problem?

The Knowledge Foundation (TKF) is coming up with "Idea Camp", a platform where anyone can come and share his/her ideas and validate it. The time given for sharing the Idea is around 3 mins and another 7 mins for Q&A and discussions. The most encouraging factor is that Idea camp is for non Techie people like me. So at least in this Camp you will not see the regular boring PPTs. Have a look at Facebook page of Idea Camp for more details.

So interested? is there a Sirji or Raman in you? Idea Camp would be the right place for you, come and share your ideas.

The Man and the Machine!

I was intrigued to see this hi-tech machine at Property tax collecting centre.


But then the teething problems started, the officer took almost 10 mins to feed the details, the machine was stuck for another 10 mins, so almost after 20 mins he announced that the machine was not working


He calls up the service provider, requests him to bring another machine.
Now here who is at fault? not definitely the department who decided to make the billing process hi tech. I have my doubts whether The officer has enough expertise to handle the machine (you can't blame him also, all this happens all of a sudden). What about the service provider who had supplied the machines? is there any after sale service? The officer was complaining that after repeated calls no body came to change the machines. Anyway as always the common man is the loser. I have to go (and several others for sure)tomorrow again to collect the receipt.


But I was so happy and relieved to see the regular printer and printout at Water tax office!

Social media club. Chennai

Will Social media cross the chasm? Session by Mr.Sukumar Rajagopal



Social media sessions are designed in the un-conference format. All contribute/participate in one way or other.


Swarna Rajagopal was session photographer!


Jayanth Vincent volunteered as official session tweeter, live tweets on the session.

Now the session kicked off with the fun theory initiative by Volswagen, a wonderful video that demonstrates the behavioural change in people.

Some keys points from Sukumar Rajagopal's session

a. CTS through social media inverted the conventional hierarchical pyramid.

b. Employees started contributing, created various communities, took up various social activities (Go green initiatives)

c. Management brought change management through social media,could easily discover talents in employees

d. Productivity among employees increased and they became happier

e. Better connected employees produced better ideas


Crossing the Chasm!

Like any new technology social media has to cross the chasm. to do that Sukumar's message for the social media marketers was 'If you don't have a precise path by which you can convince the Pragmatists, you can't cross the chasm'.

click here for Mr. Sukumar's complete presentation