Category: Writing

Writing as Politics: Six years of questions and critical conversations

I started this e-platform as a online note pad cum thought repository after years of writing on social media, debating and curating platforms for change. I am a strongly opinionated person, and radical politics is something which i believe runs through the little small talk that we spew. The banter, the sexist jokes, the acceptance of decisions that are questionable. So writing for me is not mere text, but as access points into an alternative imagination, alternative discourse which makes us think, question and evaluate our choices. Change Thinker has since then evolved into a platform for driving conversations for social change through writing from Film to Public Policy. Films are grossly political as is text. I have gone on to write for other media platforms (Huff Post, Corporate Citizenship, Alochonna) and have been interviewed on crucial issues of the day (Food Security Bill, Demonetisation) on Al Jazeera International, BBC World and Forbes.

Digital space is far from radical although politics is embedded in to every search through skewed algorithms and automated propaganda on Twitter, leaving the corporate media machine aside. As the noted Journalist P Sainath quips, which i will paraphrase: Digital is reflective of the biases in real life. AirBnB and Uber are instituting anti discrimination policies to safeguard against biases. How many startups in India have grievance redressal mechanisms as per the Company Law 2013 and Women Harassment Act 2014. Questioning the rhetoric, is the beginning to create a better world. Call the Bluff. This platform is not a PR job. This is activist writing towards a normative politics. Thank you Friends for reading.

On Writing well

Work the world, stories will flow. Travel, speak to communities, eat diverse fare, read a book per week. Curate communities of practice and invest in learning. Most importantly, create a unique value proposition in your writing. Simple, yet very sophisticated.

Business Development for Independent Writers: A Primer

I love self publishing, because I write on topics of impact in the tenor and grammar in which it is to be delivered. The IoT era, is the content centric era, as distribution is democratic. Thought Leadership is about social and intellectual capital and with the medium of the internet on smart phones, the independent voice gets amplified.

Self Publishing gets demonized by professional writers as they suggest that they write for their supper and that self publishing destroys the market for content. I contend that if one writes well and has a niche to cater, writing assignments will come your alley. After all, a writer is a creative entrepreneur where how one sells, is as vital to getting oneself paid.

Writing brings in the network as ideas get a life of their own as ideas achieve resonance with the target audience that the idea has in triggering a dialogue. Speaking and Training assignments are more important from a revenue stand point than a 100 dollars per a 800 word article, which is the standard rate. At this rate, it would be very complicated to meet ends leave alone invest in experiential and textual resources  to up the game.

One more aspect, i want to bring to ones notice in this post, is to resist the temptation to hard sell. Relationship building is more vital, as  ‘Waasta’ the Arabic word for connections, is girded with the notion of trust. If the client trusts the content, it is easier to up sell.

Lastly, write visions and voices and not dry data, and connect to the audience. The ROI comes much later.

 

 

 

Questioning Impact?

As I scribble my thoughts on my six year old web blog, and narrate ideas small and major, literary and factual, writing takes on the form of an autobiographical journey, where common themes emerge which map out my interests. I have enjoyed my struggles taking on new themes every few months, jumping geographies; textual and real, have made non linear learning and intellectual diversity a strength. But what is depth? May be its passion and knowledge intersecting with market demand. May be the quest for impact just got real.

Is impact measured by the market? Is little impact on a community wide initiative not impact? Or does impact have to be defined by market measures of scaling up and the bottom line. What are our measures of meaning, determine what really is of meaning to a professional as without meaning work would just be a chore.

Indian Media’s Poverty of Imagination

The recent media discourse on Kashmir and also the run up to the Punjab and UP Polls, fundamentally articulate that there are no apparent issues in India apart from Navjot Sidhu joining AAP and that Kashmir has issues because of one person who was killed. The Bundelkhand droughts was never covered in the same vain. And the release of Kabali is not a story of national importance, please get a life.

We seem to reside in the ‘Desert of the Real’ as Baudrillard had written about. No one seems to bother what are the real issues about which are such as speaking to the Kashmiri  who differ with your nationalist narrative, take a tough call on the drug menace in Punjab and the conversation about improving community led agriculture in Bundelkhand. Get Real, Media as it seems like every one else you are rotating on your own axis.