Even though it might have become quite a personal statement in the West, religious conversion is still a topic of taboo in India - considered sensitive both by the communal and secular forces, given the treatment quite akin to that given to the subject of sex. Indeed, where religion itself is a political weapon used by both the right and the middle (thankfully, the left in India is intellectually inclined and hence does not debate religion), religious conversion is a topic more vitriolic than religion itself.

But when we do observe the pattern of religious conversion, we will realize that barring some celebrities, people (even celebrities) do not change religion for matters of "faith in a given (form of) god(s) or traditions/ beliefs of a given religion", but more for the social treatment meted out to and by the followers of the religion to fellow believers. Whether it was Babasaheb Ambedkar embracing Buddhism after being ostracized for being a "low-caste" Hindu, or Mohammed Ali (aka Cassius Clay) renouncing Christianity to embrace Islam for the discrimination meted out to him as a Black Christian, it was the social 'restrictions' imposed in the name of religion which forced them to change their 'faith'.

While Babasaheb and Ali might be few public figures, the story has played itself out umpteen number of times in India when tribals converted themselves to Christianity or the so called "lower castes" convert to Islam or Christianity [though, some elements of the Church also allegedly promote conversion proactively but that doesn't counter the initial trigger of social treatment meted out to these classes]. So widespread and repeatable is this phenomenon that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has had to create a separate outfit called Adivasi Kalyan Ashram to ensure that tribals are treated well and provided adequate resources like education so that they are not forced into converting.

It is ironic that religion was created in the first place to liberate men from the lowly confines of social order to achieve a higher goal of discovering the ultimate truth. Spirituality hence remains the only method to liberate us from the tethers of traditional religions which bind humanity back into the same wormhole and prevent us from achieving greatness as a race, species and as individuals.

Thankfully, in a large part of our world today we have democratized and liberal governments which do not force religious following on their citizens (even if not all of them are secular states), and people in such countries have on their own largely given up any discriminatory practices based on dogmatic beliefs perpetuated by zealots or demagogues.

But we have a long way to go and possibly after Open Source software and now Open Source hardware, Open Spirituality will probably need to be the next movement for the world which will liberate us from social restrictions of age old discriminatory practices promulgated in name of religion!
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Continued from here: Viraam: विराम (Arthvyavastha - Part IV).

"Guruji!", Saakshaat called out to Kalpakji, his teacher (Guru) as they walked towards the Banyan tree in front of the Panchayat Bhavan, "You remember there used to be days when you would announce a test only to make us study the whole night, and then announce a cancellation the next day when everyone came ready for it?" Kalpakji smiled, he knew what Saakshaat was hinting at. "Yes, I do. But remember when the same exam was announced two weeks later, you all were better prepared for it! Do you agree Aanglesh?", Kalpakji had deliberately asked Aanglesh, noticing that he had been quiet all along after the meeting.

"Yes Guruji, but you know - one thing that always made me study harder for every exam?" Kalpakji could not guess where this was going, he looked questioningly towards Saakshaat, but he too was clueless. Aanglesh replied on his own - "the fact that I knew I will be judged by you impartially. I knew that if I studied hard, I will get good marks. But here, it looks like our fate is already decided and the evaluation is not going to be fair!"

"Aanglesh!", retorted Kalpakji with the ire and authority that only a teacher could assume, "Have you forgotten that you are doubting the impartiality of not just a revered panch but also your own father! I will not tolerate such impropriety in my presence! Is this what you learnt in school?" "My sincere apologies Guruji! I got swayed by my emotions, I did not intend to sound rude or uncouth; but you do realize where I am coming from. Had it not been due to the turn of events, the tamrapatrak scheme's fate was almost sealed today."

"That may not be completely true Aanglesh ...", said Saakshaat, "there's some other reason why the picture was presented to us the way it was; if circumstances were different, I am sure Pramukhji and Pramanikji both would have given us a chance to present our sides and also evaluated our reasoning. In fact, the circumstances have anyway come in our favour. If Pramanikji is elected as the next Pramukh, he will have to defer his judgement to whatever the new panch for financial matters presents to the panchayat. He will have to remain impartial to a great extent, and I have complete faith in his ability to remain impartial!

"The question remains as to who will be the next panch to be given responsibility of financial matters and what views will he take. More fundamentally, I find the problems cited by Pramanikji to be quite worrisome and if the panchayat decides to continue tamrapatraks, these issues will have to be dealt with. If in the next 15 days, we can figure out ways to counter the ill effects of these problems, we can convince the panchayat to not just continue but even expand the tamrapatrak scheme."

Kalpakji was smiling; Saakshaat had been his favorite student in his school days, and rightfully so, he thought to himself. "Well boys, Pramukhji and Pramanikji also had the same thoughts in mind, that it has to be you two who should come up with a solution to these problems; and which is why they have nominated me also to help you arrive at conclusions. Also, there are other details of certain complaints which you should know about before you start thinking of solutions."

"Guruji, it is really kind of you to volunteer to help us, after all, you have no stake in the whole affair!", said Aanglesh, visibly still little dejected; "I have one more request. I doubt if I will be able to think straight on my own especially under the constant gaze of my father, would it be possible for me to temporarily move to your ashram to think and research in solitude and away from the turmoils of my trade and especially away from my father's eye?"

"Why not! My students are always welcome at the ashram, you don't even need to ask. In fact, Saakshaat should also join you. Three weeks is a short time, it will pass before you know of it. Especially because you also will have to waste at least 2 days attending mahapanchayat. It will help if you both are with me at the ashram, we will be able to concentrate on the problem and also contemplate solutions better."

"Guruji, I will gladly come, but we may need to have occasional visitors. Traders like Anugam who have been early adopters of tamrapatraks and even buyers. May be, it may also make sense to meet some of the people who have gotten involved in dubious activities like buying and selling tamrapatraks between themselves and borrowing money on basis of them. I hope you will permit such visitors to the ashram." Saakshaat was already thinking ahead.

"A few visitors should not be a problem Saakshaat, but bear in mind that the ashram might be quite a distance for a regular trader to come to everyday. Instead we can plan on coming to the village every few days and meet them here.", Kalpakji was also conscious of the fact that he didn't want his other research vidyarthees (विद्यार्थी, students) to be disturbed by too many non-academic visitors to the ashram.

"Ok Guruji, this sounds great. Both me and Aanglesh will be at your ashram in the first hour of the pratham paher (प्रथम पहर)", Saakshaat concluded the discussion and they all rose thinking of the challenge to be resolved in the next 3 weeks.

(to be continued.)

Continued from here (Vinimay: Arthvyavastha - Part III)

When Saakshaat informed Aanglesh that his father Seth Pramanikji would also accompany Pramukhji, colour drained from Aanglesh's face. Aanglesh told Saakshaat that his father was a staunch disciple of Pramukhji and was as much in doubt of the tamrapatrak schemes as Pramukhji himself.

This was a jolt to Saaskshaat, he had never expected that Pramanikji, a trader himself and whose son was the first and the largest beneficiary of the tamrapatrak vyvastha would be against the novel concept. He had expected Pramanikji's presence to bolster their position, but now on the contrary he felt even more vulnerable.

Saakshaat and Aanglesh had spent the whole night preparing for meeting Pramukhji and Pramanikji. They talked to Anugam about any positives of tamrapatraks which he could identify to impress the village elders with. Anugam mentioned that the tamrapatrak scheme had benefited the society in two major ways - first that because now traders were accountable to their tamraptrakdhari's (shareholders) rather than themselves and their families alone, they had become more responsible and followed best possible business practices to look good to newer investors; so much so that Arthvyaap traders were considered one of the most efficient businessesmen in the prantiya bazaar (regional markets).

The second improvement due to tamrapatraks was in life of poor people who earlier had no means to 'save' money and had to often borrow in time of need from the village sahukaars by pawning their family silver; now people just have to surrender their tamrapatrak's to meet their short term cash needs. Both these were good points and Saakshaat was quite sure the second point would make the elders re-consider any designs of shutting down the tamprapatrak scheme.

In the morning when Aanglesh woke up, his mother informed him that his father had already left to meet Pramukhji early in the morning. Already startled, Aanglesh considered this as bad omen - he feared they would get late for the meeting giving the elders another chance to point out how irresponsible they were thus pitting them at a disadvantage to begin with. The urgency got the best out of him and he was ready before Saakshaat shouted for him.

As they walked towards the Panchayat bhavan where the meeting was scheduled, silence was possibly the only form of communication between them. Aanglesh wanted to chit-chat but he knew better; during schooldays Saakshaat preferred not talking to anyone on exam days until he finished his exam. And today as Kalpakji greeted them at the door of the Panchayat Bhavan, the exam analogy playing on Aanglesh's mind completed a full circle.

They both bowed in front of Kalpakji and touched his feet and were quite relieved hearing their teacher's friendly voice pronouncing the aashirwad "Sukhi Bhava" (Remain Happy). As they entered the room, Pramukhji and Pramanikji were seated on the aasan (आसन, Seat) and there were two placed right in front of them and one on their side. Kalpakji guided them to the two aasans and himself sat on the side of Pramukhji. They both first bowed to touch Pramukhji and Pramanikji's feet and then took their place.

Pramukhji had the ever present smile on his face, but he looked his age now and his demeanor was a little tired.  Pramanikji on the other hand was stiff as he mostly was with doubts clouding his face. Kalpakji was the only one who seemed at ease in the setting.

"Sorry, we got a little late" hesitated Aanglesh. "No no! You aren't late at all", interrupted Kalpakji sportively, "In fact we are starting before the appointed hour". Pramukhji cleared his throat indicating the start of business and said - "Yes, Kalpakji is right; I had requested Pramanikji to meet me early today before our meeting ..."

After a brief pause he continued - "So boys, I am glad that you both have proved your credentials and ability to usher transformation of our society. While I was skeptical of your tamraptrak scheme succeeding in the first place, the last 4 years have melted away my doubts." Saakshaat;s confidence grew manifold as Pramukhji lauded the scheme, little did he know that it would be deflated the very next moment. "However, as Kalpakji informs me" Pramukhji continued, briefly looking towards Kalpakji, "that you both have yourself realized that future of this scheme is filled with complexity and risks for you as individuals and the Arthvyaap society at large.

"The scheme has run well with minimum supervision from the village elders and the panchayat, but firstly it still faces the ire of many from our generation of not being seen as a legitimate way of making money and secondly it has come to my notice; the details of which Kalpakji can explain to you later; that some clever minded people have already started exploiting your scheme to their benefit. It is to this purpose that I had invited Pramanikji to meet me earlier so that we could discuss some of these issues before you arrived

"Before I handover to Pramanikji, I must confide in you that I have grown old and as per customs of our village, I will formally announce my successor in the next mahapanchayat due next week. While the official word for the next nomination by the mahapanchayat can only be out later, I have already conveyed my plan to propose Pramanikji as my successor to the panchayat and until now there are no other nominations. Which is why Pramanikji is present in this meeting not only as a panch responsible for financial matters but also as the possibly someone who will own the decisions of today's meeting in the forthcoming years as the Pramukh. Needless to say, this piece of information is not to leave the two of you until the result is announced next week in the Mahapanchayat. Pramanikji - over to you."

Seth Pramanik tilted forward from his position straightening his back - "सज्जनों (Sajjanon meaning Gentlemen)!". The address made Aanglesh jump in his seat; the news that his father was about to take over as the Pramukh made him both happy and skeptical as he knew his father was an extremely old-fashioned trader and had never taken his newfangled ideas of tamrapatrak seriously. But most importantly, he had always addressed him as well as Sakshaat who was his childhood buddy as बच्चों (Children or Boys); the term Sajjanon was reserved for elderly middle aged traders who came to him for advice.

Pramanikji continued - "News has been filtering to our ears through the rajpurohitji's office as well as through some traders and other villagers that while tamrapatrak scheme has largely benefited us, there are many hidden dangers lurking behind. To name a few, we have heard of people using tamrapatrak's as security to borrow money from others. This in my opinion is very dangerous as I have no clue how to value your tamrapatrraks and so how much money can be lent against them. This is not only exposing the lender to inordinate risk, but even the borrower risks falling into a trap. All this, provided I ignore the fact that money lending on the basis of tamrapatrak has no legal validity as per the rajakiya ( राजकीय or Royal) laws or the panchayat.

"There is another similar case - it has come to our notice that while tamrapatrak's can only be issued and sold by traders themselves, some people have started buying and selling tamrapatrak's among themselves. This is really peculiar to me as to why someone would buy tamrapatrak from anyone other than the trader themselves. To add to all these problems are cases where people have reported forged tamrapatraks and stolen tamrapatraks leading to direct financial losses.

"This makes me extremely wary of the whole tamrapatrak business, and had it not been for the collective will of the panchayat, I would have ordered an immediate dissolution to the whole tamrapatrak business. But thankfully for you, I need to present my case to the panchayat and since the new panchayat will be elected in the next mahapanchayat of the village, any meaningful business will only take place in 15 days post the mahapanchayat. Also, if I myself happen to get appointed as the Pramukh Sarpanch by the mahapanchayat, I will no more be able to present to the panchayat, but would possibly have to sit in the deciding position and hear facts from a new panch nominated for financial matters."

"I am still tempted to call for an emergency meeting of the panchayat and issue an immediate stop on the tamrapatrak scheme for the intermediate period until the next panchayat meets in a fortnight. But, both Pramukhji and Kalpakji are of the view that this will create a lot of confusion among people. Hence, the matter will hang in balance on the tamrapatrak scheme until the next panchayat, 3 weeks later. I have requested Kalpakji to help you prepare your case to the panchayat."

With that final remark, Pramanikji was silent and Pramukhji rose from his seat, hinting that the meeting was over.

Read the next part Vishram: विश्राम (Arthvyavastha - Part V) here.

I met a young group of student entrepreneurs today who came to me for some basic advice on how they can start up a new online video portal. Their idea was to open a niche video portal and cultivate a community around it - in the process helping content owners / producers with the technology and sharing revenue with them. The idea wasn't unique but one of the co-founders had a good insider connect within the artist community which he hoped to use in content aggregation and building audience. They had identified a team of programmers in Hyderabad who would be able to do all the "coding" for their video portal, and they would do the groundwork.

My immediate advice to them was - don't create a website! Counterintuitive as it may sound, the time for starting websites and portals from ground up is long over. The time now is to start 'services' and not 'websites'. The web has come a full circle, from the days it was a haunt of Geeks, to today when every business has a web-presence (even if it means having an implicit presence in form of the proprietor's Facebook / LinkedIn accounts).

The web has evolved in the past 2 decades in many ways but one of the key aspects that has changed is the emergence of platforms. Until the mid 2000s, if you had a new business idea you had to create (read: code) your own website, get SEO done for it so that people could find it when they Googled for it, and only when you had customers coming to your website would you start thinking of 'customer service' - starting from having a help email all the way to starting a call center if your service needed so. 

But between 2005 and 2010, the web underwent a transformation which was initially called web2.0 and later gotten to be termed as Social Media. In essence, the web saw certain platforms emerge - Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, Slideshare etc - you no more needed to dabble with technology. For example to create a website, you don't need to know HTML, just create a Facebook page; if you want more flexibility in design, use blogger or Wordpress; in any case you don't need to "code" your website from scratch.  

The same goes for creating a product curtain raiser - when we were doing Bloozle, to create a product demo we had to take screenshots of webpages and arrange them to look like a screencast. Today, for any new product - IT based or physical - you just need to create a 5-10 minute video and post it on YouTube and share it on Facebook with your friends! Not just existence of YouTube, but the acceptability and access to web-platforms like YouTube is the big change that all startup ideas need to embrace. 

So, in today's context, a website is neither a novelty nor an evidence that your business works! And so, its pointless to waste time creating a website if you can start your business without creating one. It's like preparing for an IPO and creating an annual report for your company even before you have a customer :-).

Arbit Choudhury

For the uninitiated, Arbit Choudhury is a web-comic run by 4 friends (including me) focusing on Management jargon related humour and features 'Arpit Choudhury' - a B-school student in India who is famous for his wisecracks among his friends. We release regular comics - you can subscribe to them on Facebook, Twitter or email.

Way back in 2004 when we started Arbit, we had initially chosen a different name for it - it was part parody of a then famous Management Guru, part a play on words (something which Arbit is famous for!).  We for some reason did not like the name and asked our friends to suggest other names - of the several names which were proposed, "Arbit" was one. While I and Shubham were convinced of the name 'Arbit', Hemant wasn't quite so. So we ended up going back to our friends, conducted a poll on the NITIE LAN, and "Arbit" won!

But it was not until recently that the spiritual relevance of this name we gave to our creation, strike me.  I was brooding a couple of days back on events happening in office and our lives in general, when I came to a realization that events in life, when they happen, almost always seem pretty 'Arbitrary'. Of course there are times when one gets amused at a lucky or peculiar coincidence of events looking fateful, but these are more exceptions to the rule.

In general, life is very Arbitrary - but at the same time, these arbitrary events give rise to spectacular results also. Steve Jobs' now famous Staford Commencement address illustrates how he dropped in (uninvited) to a calligraphy class, after dropping out of the college itself - which led to his insight of adding equal spaced typeface (TrueType) fonts to the Mac (which was later copied to Windows) [read the story, see the video, read why fonts were an important 'invention'].

In fact Steve himself is one of the most classic examples of what wonders some arbitrary events can result into. Steve is unquestionably one of the greatest thinkers and influencers for the 21st century (like Newton was for 19th and Einstein for 20th) - but Steve's birth and upbringing was full of coincidences. Steve was born to the then unmarried college students - an American with Swiss origin and an Syrian father - the couple eventually did marry and have another child, but at that time, his mother put him up for adoption. The coincidences continued where his adopted parents decided to move to Sillicon Valley, California where the future of mankind was being written, and eventually had Jobs make it to the A list of inventors.

The existence of mankind itself has involved several arbitrary events which led to the birth of the first living microbe which eventually led to evolution of various life forms - from dinosaurs to chimpanzees. And possibly some other random event led to the end of 135 million year dominance of dinosaurs, which created way for domination of the world by an intelligent species of humans.

Even selection of the name 'Arbit' can be considered a random choice because it resulted from a random poll result - neither was the poll conducted on a sample of people chosen scientifically, nor did we get 100% responses. But the name anyhow seems to have served itself well, so much so that, for the past 8 years we have continued publishing regular comic strips (24 comics an year).

And Arbit, is an auspicious name because it summarizes quite aptly the very nature of our lives, the nature of the universe and possibly our very existence!
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About 8 years ago, I blogged about how our generation has disappointed the science fiction writers by not making much progress in the area of Space Travel - something considered achievable by them by the 21st century.

Space however is an area where we may not have matched fictional expectations in any form. We have an international space station in place but that I believe is a far cry from a space city and the days of Star Trek do not seem close enough.

Time has come, when we will redeem our honour soon.  Space hasn't progressed much in the past few decades because it has remained, until now, a high expense, high government (funded and) controlled industry; much like Telecom sector in India until 2000s and Banking until 90s. Also, entry barriers in terms of cost and regulation made experimentation difficult, which in turn made risk taking difficult. Less risk taking meant less chance of disproportionate reward, lesser private sector involvement resulting ultimately into less innovation.

Image Credits by Flickr user urbaneapts

I recently went to the showroom of 'Sleek' - a modular kitchen furnishing company. I and my wife were discussing the various options for fitments to be bought when we came to the point of discussing the Chimney. Both me and my wife were sold out on buying a Chimney, but the salesperson asked us if we were non-vegetarian and whether our apartment had a window in front of the stove - the answer to the former being no and the latter being yes. To my surprise, the salesperson suggested we do not buy the Chimney because we will have little use for it. The salesperson knew she was reducing the ticket size of her sale by almost 10% and this was not a discount to make the sale, the discount was to come after this.

The experience reminded me of how we work in consulting - there are times when we tell our clients that they are not ready for a particular initiative or a new software implementation, even though these initiatives would fetch us consulting projects (and a pretty good fees). However, coming from a kitchen furnishing company, it was a welcome difference - given that here was someone who was not hell bent on selling me 'as much as possible' but rather giving me sane advice.

This highlights the difference between a salesperson and a professional.

A professional believes that his/her job is to help their clients take decisions which are in their own best interests. As a corollary, a professional does not believe that s/he sells a product or a service which they make/run, rather their advice is their most valued offering. As a result, they many times also undersell their 'advertised' product / services but are later able to command a premium for the very same product/service if sold and often this happens with the same set of clients who are initially undersold the offering.

To illustrate using the example above, I had visited 3 other modular kitchen furnishing stores before visiting Sleek and found Sleek to be at least 25-50% more expensive than the others. But the quality of their product coupled with the sane and unbiased advice, resulted in me deciding in their favor. Now, even if I do not buy the Chimney, I will surely buy several other fitments which at Sleek are priced higher than what their competitors offer at.

A cloth salesman who tells his customer that the particular color will not suit on him/her is a professional who values his/her advice more than the product s/he sells. A barber who tells you that the particular 'funky' (and expensive) hairstyle will not suit your personality is a professional who values your satisfaction with the service more than the money s/he makes from it. A home theater salesman who recommends a less powerful (and less expensive) set of speakers because your room size doesn't need a powerful one, is a professional who values your listening quality more than the product s/he sells. A consultant who tells his client not to embark on an IT transformation because they are not ready yet, believes that there is honest money to be made in the long run helping the client make the right choice than selling what you sell in the short term.

Integrity of thought and ability to rise above short term monetary targets is what separates Professionals from Salesmen.
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Image Credits: Flickr user vernieman

An eminent programmer was referring to one of the most typical challenge the Media today faces - how to find out the most influential people on Social Media? Who is more influential on twitter - Barkha Dutt or Amitabh Bacchan? Who is more influential on Instagram, on Facebook? Is the number of followers the only metric which matters? What about the quality of content? What about the quality of followers / fans? How do we measure this "quality"? And if we can measure these individual factors - what is the algorithm to combine these to create a common metric, the rating which will be used to rank people based on their influentialness on social networks.

Some startups have attempted to solve this puzzle - just like this eminent programmer is also trying. Klout and some similar services look like they have cracked the nut, but Klout gives a pretty high level percentage score - so its quite possible that two people have exactly the same Klout score; in fact one in every 100 Klout user will have the same score! So, this still doesn't give us any exact measure of the rank of Social Media influencers.

It sounds like a pretty interesting programming problem to crack - or is it? In my opinion, its a pure waste of time! Why? Because I believe we are asking a completely wrong set of questions here. The questions outlined in the beginning have one thing in common - they are all simply reflections of the statistics and measures used by traditional media to measure their success. A Klout score of a user is like TRP of a TV program, number of twitter followers is equivalent to readership of newspapers and magazines, and arbitrary ranking of users according to their influentialness is like the Viewer's Choice award functions :-).

Our obsession with measuring these units of influentialness emanate from the way the Media is perceived. Traditional media has always been about broadcast - one to many; and hence reach and influence over the audience are the most important factors of success. When applying these same metrics (or their derivatives) on Social Media, we are simply ignoring the fact that Social Media is a many to many medium.

Yes, there are some similarities between traditional and social media - for example, there are 'celebrities' on both forms of media. Most celebrities such as Amitabh Bacchan are common to both media, some are more specific to one - like Anand Mahindra who is far more popular on Twitter than in the traditional media. Secondly, Social media can also be used to broadcast messages - for example the old guard companies who have created Facebook pages often use them for message / advertising broadcast. And thirdly, both forms of media rely heavily on content - without good video, YouTube and your TV both are useless; without good text, your blog and your newspaper - both are dead.

But it is the differences between the two media which need to be noticed. For starters, on Social Media - a friend has far more influence than a celebrity. Your friend does not advertise a new phone on the TV only celebrities do. But you are more likely to buy a phone if it is recommended by your friend (whom you chat on Facebook or twitter because he doesn't live near you). Hence, while it might give some old guard companies a good statistic to back their new Social Media marketing plan, the "top influencers on twitter" list actually makes no sense when it comes to influencing real behaviour. Another example is where a Viral video without any celebrity will give a far better mileage and visibility on Social media than a celebrity loaded advert (note that just the reverse would be true for live TV where a celebrity gets huge 'viewership')

Second, broadcast on Social Media has limited utility. Ask any old economy company what's the effectiveness of their Facebook page in selling toothpaste vs. a television ad; you'll know that Social Media is a pretty poor channel when the intent of a message is to broadcast to a wide audience. While recommendations from your friend on Social media can make you buy products, but it is unlikely you will buy products from a brand just because you 'Like' their page on Facebook.

Third, while content is important to attract viewers, readers, audience on both forms of media - there is no place for niche content in mainstream media; but on Social media, niche content rocks! So if you are a brand wanting to target college kids, you are better off being visible on a Facebook page for college jokes, study material parodys and cult movie fan pages, than opening your own Facebook page or being visible on a popular TV channel's Facebook page.

The common word 'Media' is quite misleading when used with the word 'Social'; most rules followed by Social Media are those which apply to daily conversations and relationships, than the 19th century science of readerships, TRPs and top influencing celebrities. It is, IMHO, a complete waste of time for programmers to devote time to cracking the 'most influential' puzzle. Rather, Social Media strategists need to understand the new rules created by Social Media to create campaigns which help them win.

So, stop inventing (and using) algorithms which track who's most influential - for me its my friend who is most influential, but for you its your's! So the point of who's most influential is moot at best - because, in the interconnected world of Social Media, no one person really is most influential!
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However, there are many hurdles in the way of driverless cars - the first being the mundane legal system. The technology is ahead of the law in many areas," citing state laws that "all presume to have a human being operating the vehicle", stated Bernard Lu, senior staff counsel for the California Department of Motor Vehicles as per the New York Times.

The second challenge is a far more complex moral challenge - what happens when a driverless car is faced with a choice between hitting a pedestrian vs. hitting a tree when not hitting the tree would end up injuring the pedestrian outside and hitting the tree will cause harm to passengers in the car. Even more challenging, if such a situation results in an accident, should the programmers at Google be charged? The Google Trolley problem illustrates this moral dilemma in a beautiful way. The Economist captures here these moral challenges in greater depth and in wider expanse for all kinds of autonomous systems, not just cars.

But for now, such larger questions can wait, because we are really not talking about completely autonomous vehicles yet. We need to today settle down at the middle ground of technology aided, human directed driving experience which circumvents the moral challenges, fixes responsibilities on humans, yet makes it safer for us to drive. Take a simple example - several cars are equipped today with proximity sensors which inform the driver through a beep if another car is less than a meter away in the front or less than a foot on the side; parking assist mechanisms also work in similar fasion. Some high end cars come with Electronic stability control which automatically applies the brakes to help "steer" the vehicle upon detecting loss of steering control.

Similarly, we don't need fully self driven cars - can we not extend these safety and control systems? Mobile phone usage is a problem because it distracts the driver, but a distracted driver's attention can be augmented with sensors in the car, so that the car can either apply brakes or auto maneuver itself to the curb to avoid accidents such as fatal collisions, hitting a pedestrian or uncontrolled movement of the steering wheel. If, in spite of sensors, an accident occurs, the onus then falls on the driver eventually - but we need to give the driver a chance to react  to the situation with all available technological tools available.

This also means that we need to make such technology mandatory in all cars irrespective of their price. Safety of human life is paramount, just like we have emission norms for vehicles, we have safety norms, such as seat belts and air bags; sensor based automated safety mechanisms also need to be made a part of such norms. As a corollary, research in these areas cannot remain only privately funded. For car makers to make such cutting edge technology available in low-end passenger cars, they either need to be compensated for the research or the money for such research needs to come from public funds.

The challenges of doing so in the current post slowdown world are more political than commercial or technological. And political will and decisiveness is where the world at large faces a huge deficit today. Yet, hoping against hope, I believe the day is not far when using the mobile phone while driving will be a common act because it will not pose any real threat of road accidents thanks to technology!
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Photo Credits: Flickr user OregonDOT

Short Answer: Yes. Long Answer - read below.

Depending upon which source you trust [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] - anything between 88 to 30 percent of people admit to using mobile phones (talking, texting and using apps) while driving. Several cars (even those not so pricey) available now integrate your mobile phone with the car stereo systems acknowledging that usage of mobile phone while driving is not just acceptable but also to be encouraged and aided with technology.

Given these stats, is it really worth having laws which prohibit mobile phone usage while driving? These laws are similar to the sermons of the 16th century Church which decreed the Copernicus system of astronomy to be false. I remember one of my maternal grandfathers telling me that is mother never allowed him to ride a moped or a scooter in his youth because she was afraid of accidents. (Ironically, he got injured on the road was when someone else hit him while he was walking on the pavement.) Laws which prohibit mobile phone usage while driving have been devised with a thought process similar to the great granny - don't use technology because it might lead to accidents.

Some might also argue against this logic here and say that just because a majority is committing the crime, does not make the crime illegal. But one ought to look at the situation differently here - talking on the phone is not a moral felony like genocide - so on cannot really compare it to 'crime by the majority'. We need to ask the question as to why, in spite of laws, and examples of numerous accidents involving distracted driving, do people continue to use mobiles while driving?

The answer to this question lies in essential human nature - humans are social animals - given a chance, any human will prefer talking and interacting with others. Even before the advent of mobile phones, people preferred being distracted while driving - listening to radio, chatting with the co-passenger, waving to a friend over the pavement or subtly watching a beautiful woman (or handsome man) in the next vehicle; people did all this while negotiating through traffic without really giving it a thought that these actions are potentially hazardous. I am not sure how these distractions compare to talking on the mobile - they might distract less or may occur less frequently - but had someone conducted a study, we would have deduced them also to be source of majority of accidents prior to the mobile phone era.

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. - Albert Einstein

The point I am trying to make here is that, for people whom commuting is a daily routine, its a chore and hence intrinsically a waste of time. Hence people will use various means to use this commute time more productively - reading, listening to music, talking to someone on the phone, or using an app. And where we do not provide efficient or sufficient public transport solutions, commuting will come through the way of self-driven private vehicles. But irrespective of the mode of transport - people will treat commute as a chore and hence distractions while driving are a reality which we need to accept.

So what's the solution? Do we accept accidents due to distracted driving as collateral damage which is unavoidable? Well ... What God taketh, God giveth! on similar lines - What problem Technology creates can as well be solved by Technology.

Read the next part of this post for more.