Monday 25 April 2016

Travel Without A Plan

In the recent years we see travel is picking up in a big way in India, especially the foreign destinations. I suppose this a result of the general affluence one sees among the upper middle class or young corporates. Travel is a great way for the family to spend time together especially since today’s work life hardly leaves any spare time for the family to spend together.

Travel magazine

An ardent traveler myself, but I have been averse to travels planned by the so called travel agents. I find it suffocating to follow a fixed itinerary. My holiday is my time and I decide what I want to do and see. Travel magazine has always been an attraction for me and in these days online magazines and travel sites are a great source for travel information. I love reading about places off the beaten tracks. Online magazines and other travel sites help us get a glimpse of these lesser known tourist spots. Mostly they are also a get source of travel tips.   Sites like TripAdvisor, Lonely Planet provide some very reliable and brilliant travel tips. Their reviews of tourist spots, hotels restaurants are pretty reliable and I have truly benefitted by many of their reviews.

The usual travel destinations like London, Paris, Rome, New York, Disneyland I understand is high on a tourist’s list especially  when they are  going  abroad for the first few times, but that should  never  be the only thing. Even if these and other similar cities are your destination try to move away from the cities, explore the surrounding areas, countryside, smaller towns.  Get to know the locals, local food local habits, local music and culture. Try not to be a tourist, sit in a roadside cafĂ© and watch the locals going about their daily business. Yes it is important to see the famed tourist sites, take pictures and share with friends and family Back Home. But it doesn’t matter if you miss out on a site instead take travel tips from local inhabitants travel magazines, websites and make your trip an experience. Get lost and find your way. Bring back stories to share, recipes and flavours to try out, unusual souvenirs and work of a local artisan. Try to understand the country’s lifestyle, talk to locals, hang around in a local eatery, trysomething new.

Travels should be enriching and not simply to satisfy your ego and to show off to friends and family you too have beento  a particular destination. Try to develop these tastes and habits in your children, they will gain immensely if they learn to seek new things, take  part in adventures and appreciate other cultures and society.

Monday 18 April 2016

Entrepreneurship Tips for Women

While working on setting up a new business venture I thought it will be great to share some of my experiences with others who are bitten by the entrepreneurial bug!

We often hear about the power of ideas.If you do not have the million dollar idea, explore some great minds and rediscover a few ideas of the young entrepreneurs.They help to spark off your grey cells and to understand what’s trending in the world.
http://ourfrontcover.com/


Business plan

Though the idea is important, but more important is the execution. To implement your idea the foremost essential is a business plan. Not having a business plan is almost like jumping into the river without knowing how to swim. Business plan enables you to foresee the potential of the idea, take stock of your resources ,understand where are the gaps and what you need to fill the gaps. It also helps you to share your idea with experts who may share some valuable advice and experience. Here, I would like to highlight one component which needs special attention -The Financials. It’s a reality check and something you will be reverting to while in business. I have always used my plan, gone back to it from time to time and revised as we have grown. I believe in being modest with a plan as it’s a great feeling to over perform.However if you are under performing it will immediately set you thinking where and how you are missing the mark.


Team 

Once the plan is in place, the next most important component is your team. It's great working with friends and family, but that should not be your aim especially if that’s a cost saving tactic. Online magazine

Remember the following while building your team;
1. Choose people who are ready to grow with you.
2. Engage with people who have hands on approach and are a team player. 
3. Take on people who are ready to learn and develop their skills.
4. Hire people with relevant experience. 
5. Look towards multitaskers.

One important thing to keep in mind; startups do not need dead weight, they need super productive and effective workforce. A business needs to be led by inspiration, team spirit and motivation. 

Entrepreneurial idea, plan and team in place you are good to go. Here we are not looking into the daily operational part of the business but the important ingredients which are required to set the process in motion. Before ending an entrepreneurship tip for women, I will say, be cautiousand alert of the competition, but NEED NOT follow them. It is ok to take baby steps than a falling flat while taking a huge leap.

Magazines – Online Versus Print

Fondly remember those pre digital days when we would run to the newsstands around the end or beginning of a month to look for the latest edition of our favorite magazine. It was thrilling to go through them and uncover a new story in each page.  The images were all unseen and unknown, how we devoured them. I especially remember some of the women magazines my mother use to subscribe to. Femina, Stardust, Savvy, Cineblitz namesthat take us down memorylanes. To flip through the pages admire the celeb pictures, read the gossips, scoops and not to forget the various beauty and lifestyle tips. Oh and the endless glossy advertisements.
http://ourfrontcover.com/
Then there were the Illustrated Weekly, Outlook, Sunday and other more serious ones which dealt with politics, finance, market matters and other social issues. These were considered as some of the best magazines in India and the content they published had a huge credibility and some of the best names in journalism were associated with these magazines.
Somewhere around the end of 80’s some of the international magazines were launched in their Indian version. That was another surge of excitement, especially the international modern woman magazine like Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Vogue and Good Housekeeping. Of course they were very expensive but  they provided content and images very  different  from what the average Indian readership was used to. Images were awesome, bold and beautiful.  With the advent of these foreign brands, the Indian readership quickly changed loyalties and the best magazines in India slowly started seeing a dwindling in their subscriber numbers.
The final blow came once the online magazines were launched and we became digital.
Slowly and steadily most magazines are moving towards being online magazines only, except for some of the very bigones. Most magazines are completely free online others have a subscription fee policy. Understandably in this era of digital media, print magazines cannot get the required volume of subscribers and considering the costs it’s not a profitable business anymore. Just the other day I was talking to a journalist remembering the good old days. She was telling me how one after the other print magazine was shutting down one of the recent being Good Housekeeping.
Nowadays everything is at our fingertips thanks to the internet; we have all the news instantly, even the gossips and maybe much more than we ever had in print. But I am nostalgic. It is never going to be the same, as it was waiting for a new edition, leafing through the glossy pages and sometimes saving a special edition or cutting out an article for keeps.
At the doctor’s, dentist’s or the beauty salon I make it a point to  pick up a magazine and leaf through no matter how old the edition  and how stale the news.

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