Saurabh Garg – Personal Brand

This is an excerpt from the daily newsletter that I send out to some friends. More about the newsletter is here.

Please read this and tell me what you think. 

The next thing that I want to share (and more than share, write and thus get clarity in my head) is my personal brand.

For starters, twitter. 

So, twitter is the largest, strongest, baddest, bestest connection I have to the outside world (I remain an introvert at most other places). And on Twitter, I would often post whatever comes in my head, even if those things are embarrassing and cringe-inducing. You know, I was being authentic (I am like that IRL). Which was great to a point in time. But I feel that authenticity is making me a tad more human that what I hope to be and is thus preventing me from making business connections. And to be honest, right now, I need business connections more than anything else at this point in life.

Ergo, fixing twitter. Step 1 towards fixing personal brand.

Last night, I split my twitter usage in three. Yes, three. I am not for small measures 😉

@saurabh – where I’ll mostly talk about work. Try to create connections that can take me far. I will talk about my writing, marketing consulting assignments, events and all the projects that I am a part of. The idea will be to use the platform to showcase work, create more opportunities and meet more people that can help me grow.

@altsaurabh – this is where I would move what I was doing with @saurabh. Put things that I want friends and family to see.

@altsg – this remains the way it was. A backup account that I use when I am super-fucked in the head. 

And yes, I take myself very seriously ;P

I know I should not – I have been warned by enough people in as many words (including that longish comment). But I don’t know how else to live. I am a reflection of my work. And my work consumes all of me. I don’t have a personal life, heck, I don’t want one. I don’t enjoy anything else but this grind. There is nothing else that I am passionate about. There is nothing that I think I will ever do in life but think about the next. You know, divinely discontent. Each thing I do — from writing to fitness to hopes to live long and more — is an input for things that I can work on.

I know my definition of life and work is kind of warped. I don’t know what is work-life balance. I don’t even want to know. And the range of things that I work on is pretty wide but it is what it is.

Assuming that is the border you have to work in, if you are willing to help, do see my LinkedIn profile and my website and please do tell me if all these are in sync and make sense to you.

That’s about it I guess for the time being.

See you guys tomorrow!

Winds were her best friends

The other day, someone Dee gave me these words and asked if I could write something. Here is what I came up with. Inspired by Murakami’s 1Q84. If you want to help me get over my writer’s block and give me something to write about, do lemme know.

Funny thing about this working women’s hostel is that no one knows how you get a place for yourself if you aren’t staying here already. Most of the occupants have been here since they can remember and no one seemed inclined to leave. Called The Windchimes, the building was an old, yet solid structure that at one point in time was a hotel for state guests of the British Empire. And as a result, all rooms were large by Mumbai standards and were very comfortable. Each room had almost the same set of furnishing. A double sized bed flush to the wall, a closet to the left of the bed, a writing table and a chair between the bed and the closet. Ofcourse each occupant had given their respective personalities to their temporary abodes, by adding knick-knacks and furnishings. So each room looked familiar and yet aloof. Apart from this, the rooms and the hostel were pretty boring, except the rooms had attached bathrooms, no windows but came with individual balconies.

These balconies, alcoves couldn’t be larger than 3 feet in width and yet they were considered luxury at a place like Mumbai where every inch of space is reclaimed and becomes fodder for life. But then, these balconies, these expensive alcoves were mostly wasted at Windchimes. Most of these were used to merely dry clothes and condiments. Except the corner one on the 4th floor, facing the intersection. The one with white chiffon curtains, slightly larger than required, that fluttered with the winds as if a large bird was trapped in the room and is trying to fly away with the entire house. This was ofcourse Dee’s room. She was a writer of some sort and had been here since last three years. And if word on the street is to be believed, she would have spent most part of those three years sitting on the balcony amidst those flowing curtains and staring at the distant sea. She was like a permanent fixture on the balcony, always hunched on a chair, eyes fixed at some remote point on the horizon.

Dee’s room, her balcony, looked down on the intersection of Henry Road and Boman Behram Marg. Though this was stone’s throw away from the Gateway of India and the famous Taj Mahal hotel, this was not a very busy intersection. Most of the traffic consisted of two wheelers and pedestrians. Diagonally across Dee’s room, there was my kiosk, a hole in the wall actually, that sold tea in the morning to health conscious people going for their morning walks, snacks in the afternoon to children when they left from the Holy Name High School next to Windchimes and cigarettes in the evening to young men who would gather outside Windchimes, hoping to catch sight of their favorite one staying at Windchimes. Of course most women did not use the balconies and hence the “sightings” were pretty rare. Except for my be Dee. She was on her gallery all the time and yet nobody looked in her direction. Not that she was not attractive, in fact she presented a very imposing sight with the long chiffon curtains behind her and stark contrast of her long black shiny hair all over her face but guess she was too easily available and hence most men were probably not interested in the game!

Not just men but Dee somehow dint really have any great friends at Windchimes. She generally kept to herself and most of her interactions with other occupants were on a strict need basis. The house had a common mess and that fixed time at which they served meals. This made it necessary for every occupant to come down, have their meals together and engage in idle banter. Even on these occasions Dee kept to herself and barely spoke. When she did, it wasn’t really a social comment or a dope of gossip but a functional comment, like, “could you please pass on ketchup” or something to that effect. She was not unfriendly and in fact was a very pleasant company. When you spoke to her, she heard it all with rapt attention and made you feel like the most important person in the world. She would nod at the right places, laugh at every point where you expected laughter and removed all traces of happiness from her face when you expected someone to be sympathetic to what you were saying. She was great like that. Just that she was incapable of making any small talk.

She, unlike other people, did not have the innate need to make friends. It’s as if winds were her best friends. She could sit for hours on her balcony and revel in the company of cool winds that came from the ocean. For her it was like a process of purification where apparently the winds carried love letters from her lover who’s gone to the sea and she’s longing for him to come back. Just like Mercedes, the beloved of Edmond (Dantes). If not for the long lost lover then maybe all she wanted from life was to grow wings somehow and then fly away. Fly to that unknown Promised Land that every one of us keeps chasing throughout our lives. And since she trusted the wind as if it was an extension of her body that she could control, she could very well go on that voyage that only a few lucky ones of us get to even think about. All it would take for her is a leap out of her window, along with those oversized curtains, her long hair, and her best friends, the wind!

And this is exactly why I think I am extremely lucky to have ended up with her. She had always mesmerized me. The sight of her on her balcony was like a fairy perched up high on the roof, waiting to come down and take me her arms and make me forget all the hardships I have endured over the years. Ofcourse, there was no way for me to break ice with her. She rarely gave any attention to men and I could count on my fingers, all the times she stepped out. But since I had the advantage of owning the store bang opposite her balcony, I had a rings side view of her life. And all the men gathered at my shop anyways dint show any interest in her, may be that helped because God knows there are far more eligible men for someone like her. So every time she stepped out, I secretly hoped that she would come to me and order some tea or something. Tea, for us Indians has always been a social engagement and an ice breaker. The first we did speak, she was being dragged, I could see against her wishes, by some other girl from the hostel because the other girl had to meet a guy!

Of course, now, it all looks like a dream. Call it luck, call it fate, call it destiny, somehow we have ended up together and I couldn’t have been happier. Dee is every bit of fairy that I had imagined her to be. Probably better. As I write these lines, Dee is still hunched onto a barstool on a make shift restaurant at this otherwise secluded beach, her elbows resting on the table, one hand cupping her face, other holding onto mine with a fierce grip. At times I wonder how her frail and tiny body could have such a firm grip, like she’d not get me go, ever. Like that line from that famous John Denver song where they are talking about holding each other and never let go. I look at her hands and her serene face that is betraying her by showing off just a hint of a smile. I know she is happy. I know I am happy. I know we are happy together. We have come a long way from that intersection of Henry Road and Boman Behram Marg.

And the best part, she is doing what she loves doing the most – staring at the ocean, letting the winds play with her hair that have grown even longer since she moved out of Windchimes. Just that, this time, her secret is shared by two people. I, and the winds, that were her best friends. Indeed.

The pursuit of 2K followers on twitter

Lately, I have restarted using twitter, after a brief hiatus. The reasons for the hiatus would be reflected upon in a later post, but for the time being, I have a bigger and more perplexing problem to tackle. The problem of finding those elusive 36 more followers.

You see, at the time of writing this, I am followed by 1964 people on twitter. And I want to reach the magical number of 2000. The chase of 2k as a number looks very scary. A brief brain soul searching tells me that there are a few reasons why I could never get all those followers. Am making a list here…

  • I am not a wedding/event/fashion/animal/amateur/etc photographer. Am dont even talk about my flickr stream and I dont have a Facebook page where people can “fan” or “like” me. And since I have a Blackberry, I cant use Path or Instagram or Pinterest or one of those fancy services and talk about them.
  • I am not an entrepreneur and thus I cant ask all my employees and friends and relatives and neighbors to follow me and help me get more clients. And then once I get those clients, talk about how I made a difference to the life of the goldfish of client’s wife’s sister.
  • I am not funny. Not even remotely. Period.
  • I am not a social media expert. And that means that I have no opinion on anything. And that means that I cant pass fleeting comments encompassing everything from the beginning of time and then relate those to why I should be tweeting this or that. And I cant thus take a jab at folly of brands and businesses.
  • I refuse to engage in various gimmicks that brand manager plan and throw out as bait to the unsuspecting twitter users so that they could report that their brand is followed by a million people etc.   
  • I am not interested in IPL. Its just too much for my peanut sized brain to be honest. There is overload of everything. Information, excitement, jealousy, anger, confusion etc. Name an emotion and IPL has that in abundance. And I cant process that. And that means that since I dont tweet about how IPL is causing a war in my family because everyone supports a different team, I wont be featured by a TV channel and I wont become famous and I wont have new followers.
  • I refuse to participate in trolls. Ofcourse I use a million hashtags but I dont think I have participated in #whenIWasYoung, #itHappensInIndia, #IPL, #kfBeerUp etc. And as a result I dont make friends on twitter and otherwise. (note to self, talk about Kingfisher in a separate post)
  • I am not a journalist. Yet. And as a result I dont have people trying to make friends with me, hoping to get free passes to IPL and other such dos. 
  • I dont booze and thus I dont have my timeline full of drunk tweets abusing everyone for everything. 
  • And finally, I am not a celeb. I am not a film actor (not even an extra), I am not a cricketer (even of yesteryears), I am not a CEO of a large business group (not even a startup), I am not a VC. And as a result I am stuck at 1964!

So if I dont do any of those, why my friend, why am I on twitter? Because I like to post things that I am upto. Irrespective of what people think about them. Irrespective of what opinion or comment they illicit.

And then why would you want to chase 2K followers? Well, its a good number and I want to put that on my CV. And more people who follow you, more opportunities to know new things!  And who knows, I may even get famous some day?

Guess this is it for a Sunday rant! I just hope that this post helps me reach the magic number. And if not that, at least does not make some of those 1964 unfollow me! 

And no, this post is not part of Project 1000. Not yet. 

Hello @altSG

Say hello to @altSG. Its my new twitter handle (apart from @Saurabh) and over time I plan to make it my primary twitter handle.

Why would I do this?
Simple. Work vs play. And respect.

There are tons of interesting people that follow @Saurabh. Most of these are serious people with stable day jobs and a million things on their heads. In short, they would be busy. And since I dont really want to crowd their timelines with noise, I’d rather move my frivolities to some place else. A place like @altSG.

So, at @Saurabh, I’d talk about things that people want to read. It will eventually become my brand, my portfolio and my CV. It will become my voice. It will become my identity on the Internet. So, amongst other things, I would talk about advertising, branding, writing, marketing, poker, travel etc. I’d talk about things that I am trying to explore. I’d talk about things that I am trying to learn. Things that may get me work and an opportunity to interact with interesting people. Things that get me that all important foot in the door.

One the other hand, I’d use @altSG as my personal handle. The way I use @Saurabh right now. I would post things that most of the world will not be interested in. Mundane, miscellaneous, insignificant updates from my life. Things like what I am eating, where am I driving to next, how I felt after that bad beat etc. I expect just a few close friends and some bots to follow me on @altSG.

I guess thats about it. To summarize, I would be at @altSG and my brand would be at @Saurabh. Or vice versa. You can never trust Internet with these things!

Take your pick!

Steve Jobs. I dont know the source.

Its one of those days when I want to write. I have no clue what direction would this post take and how would it end. But I want to write. And write till I am tired of typing on the really small HP Mini keypad.

So I can talk about my Poker addiction. I am not sure if it qualifies as an addiction yet but I tend to spend at least four hours everyday, almost everyday on playing online poker. No, I dont play with real money. I play with play money and play just the freerolls. Btw, I started a poker blog in 2009. Preflop.wordpress.com. Do check it out.

Or do I talk about the stupid rule that they have enforced in office where they check our bags every morning and evening. I have no clue how can they track all the times during the day when I leave the building and how would they even know if I stole something that is of no apparent value to the guard but still is an important asset.

I can also talk about my new found love AND hatred for Quora. Love the platform and love the fact that it allows me the chance discovery of things that I would have otherwise skipped. And hate for the latest feature that they call boards.

I may even talk about my latest quirk where I window shop for… jobs! Something told me to create a profile on Naukri.com and ever since I did that, I have been flooded with job offers interview calls that promise me a salary package starting at 10K a month and going upto “best in the industry”. Some expect me to have my own two vehicle with a valid drivers license. And for the advantage of all the consults who look at my profile on naukri.com, I am not looking out right now. Unless you offer me a three time salary. And your client allows me to keep a beard.

Or I can talk about my wallpaper that changes every 10 minutes. It ensures that there is something new to see every time I goto the desktop. And all these are the images that I have gathered over time, in a folder called imagesBank. These are the ones that I save and then never go back to. With these images on loop, I get to see these. Serendipity anyone? Like right now, its Steve Jobs sitting on a swing. Attached above for easy reference. I have no clue what would it be next time I go the desktop.

I can also talk about recent spurt in activity on twitter (I am @saurabh there). Not that I am jobless again but it just means that I am now back to being what I was three years back. Pseudo social. Trying to track some interesting people and hopefully making their acquaintance. Why would I do that? I dont know. I love quoting Joker on this. So much so that its my twitter profile. It goes… “Like The Joker says… A guy without a plan. A dog chasing cars. Wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught one. I just… do things.”. So I do things. I just do them.
I may also want to talk about my latest project. Offbeat Mag. But then it will be too immature to talk about it. I am not really sure what I want to do with it. I shall talk about it eventually. Right now, let it be what it is. An experiment. 
Thats it I guess for the time being. My fingers are freezing. Lemme get them some sun. And now that I have given you, dear readers, so many options to chose from, pray tell me what would you want to know more details about and I shall try and come up with a brilliant post!

Aug 18: The Twitterati. 10 steps that can help you become one.

So there are few people who use twitter that well that they are now called the twitter celebrities. Or twitterati for short. They are as ubiquitous as Amitabh Bachchans of the world. In fact a time is not far when these twitteratis would actually start appearing in those soaps and give Ekta Kapoor and Colors a run for their money. And like all other kind of celebrities, these guys leave an indelible mark on the fabric of the society we live in.

I was so impressed by their mere existence that I thought I need to give them more time and attention. I in fact spent some time running an analysis and figuring out what separates an average twitter use and a twitterati. Of course since my “study” was conducted over twitter users in India, these may not be applicable to everyone. But I think the underlying principles shall remain the same.

Here are few rules that I put together in a hurry, which may help you realize your lifelong dream of becoming a twitterati.

  • Drop the words Anna and fast in the same tweet and you have taken the first step towards becoming famous.
  • Step two is even simpler. Pick on a famous personality and post a provocative comment. May be against Anna only. Dont know how to come up with an original rant? Search twitter for it! And once you have posted that comment, dont budge. You need to ensure that debate follows and the world is divided into two kinds of people. One, who are with you and the other, who arent.
  • Third, though, this is tough, but knowing a celeb would help. He could be your neighbors’ best friend’s classmate’s distant cousin, but hey there is a connection. Anyways everyone is connected to everyone else by just 6 hops. Or may be 5 or 4 as enabled by the Internet. So in theory, Amitabh Bachchan knows me. So does Kofi Annan. And Sachin Tendulkar. And Anna. And his fast. Ofcourse I know them as well. And you ;P (Note to readers: See, how easily I dropped the two keywords here).
  • Fourth. Proclaim the greatness of new media and effectiveness of the online medium over the traditional media. Look at the way twitter has helped Anna talk about his cause. Take a potshot at leading media outlets as if they have defamed the country by their mere existence. And yet at every opportunity to suck up a reporter, of even a Punjab Kesari or a Times of India, thou shalt bend over and invite em! I call this backrub algorithm. You rub mine, I rub yours. Goes a long way. Trust me.
  • Tweet to Anna and all the bollywood and cricket celebrities once every hour, as if they owe you money and you are chuddi buddies since your mothers were pregnant. Irrespective of if they reply or even bother. After all success is 1% genius and 99% perspiration.
  • Retweet every inane request that you get from other aspiring twitterati (remember the backrub?). These retweets could be jokes, blood donation requests, classifieds, gathering of support for Anna or whatever. Of course at first if people dont, you send them direct messages and then keep sending till the time the phone runs out of memory or money.
  • Download a good collection of double meaning jokes and comments. And use a bot to post a joke once every 15 minutes. This will help you remain on top and despite the fact people find your comments awful, they would not have a choice but to take note. Of course the double meaning bits would sound offensive to some communities and people but then its a democracy that we live in. You have the right to freedom of speech. Look at Anna. And look at the way I have dropped his name, yet again in the post.
  • Yet another sure shot way is to take up a cause. Like stand up for Anna. Every tweet that you post could have a reference to the great mother of the nation (I mean we have one undisputed father in MKG. I think Anna and Mumma have a nice ring to it.
  • Use hashtags. #evenIfTheySoundStupid. #evenIfTheyAreUseless. #popular #great #iAmAnna #BharatMeriJaan #annaIsSexy so on and so forth. More hashtags you use, better it is for you.

This is about it. I am not sure if these are 10. I used the number in the post because it helps with the search engine rankings. May you want to use this hat-tip! Of course I aspire to be one. I am on @altsaurabh. Please retweet this blog, follow me, ask your friends to follow me and make me one. If you dont, I promise I would go sit on a fast. Will call it sobpal.

Thanks,

@altSaurabh

This is day 18 in a series of 31 daily blogposts. Other posts are here.

I could have called this post as 10 ways of putting Anna Hazare’s name in a blog post, without letting people know. But then I thought the readers of my blog (the sole reader) is intelligent enough to guess that! Time for a question. Did you?

@Saurabh is back

@Saurabh is back.

For the uninitiated, twitter suspended my account last week. I am now told that it was because the link on my account was compromised. I did everything to get it back. Wrote to them, made blogposts, spoke to experts, updated FB, asked for help.

And few people heard. They came forward and helped.

Starting with Zishaan, Rajesh and Rina who helped me understand the problem to all the people who tweeted and re-tweeted. This is going to be a long list. I did not know I had so many friends. AaruC, dhempe, FagunB, umeshg, sharadaprasad, GauravSaha, krist0ph3r, SLotH13, Raj_S, fossiloflife, danishctc, aritra_m, Gagan, prolificd, anaggh, sahnigagan, sakthidharan, saaket, Netra, iMBA, KapilJoshi, nakulshenoy, Sampad, mtaram, deepakravindran, punkpolkadots, b50, thinkerwrites. I hope I did not miss a name.

Thank you guys. You rock. And this is my followfriday list come friday 🙂

P.S.: I missed twitter while my account was gone. 😐

@Saurabh finds friends on Twitter

After my Twitter account was suspended due to “strange activity” (which Zishaan, Rajesh and Rina helped me track to a malicious attack on my website), I have been trying to get the twitter account back. I wrote to twitter help, made this blogpost, posted messages on Facebook and asked for help from my online friends.

And it came.

Thanks to AaruC, dhempe, FagunB, umeshg, sharadaprasad, GauravSaha, krist0ph3r, SLotH13, Raj_S, fossiloflife, danishctc, aritra_m for their tweets and retweets. You guys rock.

This is what they did. Only thing that remains to be seen is if I get my account back. Anyone else wants to tweet? re-tweet?

@Saurabh is suspended

Twitter. How can I live without it for a single day. Action, inaction, attention, ignorance, work, play, meetups, tweetups, its everywhere.


I went to Delhi and when I came back after about 4 days, I discovered that my twitter account @Saurabh has been suspended. Their support page says that they suspend an account if

  • Impersonation: You may not impersonate others through the Twitter service in a manner that does or is intended to mislead, confuse, or deceive others
  • Privacy: You may not publish or post other people’s private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, street address or Social Security/National Identity numbers, without their express authorization and permission.
  • Violence and Threats: You may not publish or post direct, specific threats of violence against others.
  • Copyright: We will respond to clear and complete notices of alleged copyright infringement. Our copyright procedures are set forth in the Terms of Service.
  • Unlawful Use: You may not use our service for any unlawful purposes or for promotion of illegal activities.

I have been using twitter since 2007 and have about 1400+ followers and 8730 updates. As far as I can remember I have NOT impersonated anyone, breached privacy, threatened anyone, violated copyright or used it for unlawful purposes. Wonder why is twitter showering me with all the attention after two years of use?

Mails to twitter support remain unanswered as I write this blog post (I did get an automated response telling me things that I already know). My previous experience with twitter support has been really great (when I changed my handle from @s4ur4bh to @Saurabh). Wondering what is taking so long this time.

I really want my account back. And I dont know how to do it. May be a tweet to @biz, @ev and @twitter asking them to reconsider? Any volunteers for the same? Or any other tips maybe?

UPDATE (2009Jun 30)
Zishaan pointed that my website SaurabhGarg.com is reported as unsafe by Google. And may be that is what is causing Twitter to block my website. I logged into my twitter account and it DID point my website as “[ unsafe link ]”.


For the moment I have changed the url to point to this blog. Hope this would help expedite the process of removing suspension.

And this brings me to another problem. How do I fix my website? Twitter is important but SaurabhGarg.com is more important!! It cant be marked as a site “that may harm your computer”. More help?

Meeting my clone

Last night I was not really in the best of the moods. Only thing I could think of was the Moby song Why Does My Heart and I put that on my Twitter. 

@twilightfairy replied in the morning that me and sepiaverse tweeted about the same song at the same time. And he she too mentioned about the dog. Whoa. Coincidence? Clones? Mind Reading? Telepathy?

P.S.: Is this post worthy enough of reaching saurabhgarg.com?