Steve Jobs clearly recognizes the power of storytelling.

A consummate marketer Jobs known the art of storytelling, and this Stanford Commencement address is a great example. “I have 3 stories to share,” he says in his introduction. The 3 stories seem to map to birth, life/love and death. The cycle of life. Jobs apparently subscribes to Buddhist teachings and perhaps that informed his storytelling?

In the commencement speech he talks about his birth, adoption, attempts to study in college (thanks Hare Krishna temple for the free food), getting fired from Apple and fighting cancer. Note how he uses simple words to get his point across.

Here is what resonated with me, and I am sure if you listened to the speech you will find these to resonate with you too.

“You have got to find what you love.”

“None of this would have happened if I had been fired from Apple.”

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you have not found yet, keep looking…Keep looking, don’t settle.”

And finally here is the punch line: Stay hungry, and stay foolish.

Great advice, a bit difficult to follow, but good points to hang on to when you are going through a rough patch.

“Don’t let other opinion to drown out your inner voice.”

So, I am staying hungry, and staying foolish and listening to my inner voice and continue to explore and find those stories that remain untold. These are stories of inspiration, motivation, and of how someone got started, who influenced them and why they do what they do. My goal is to tell stories with a context or to use an oft-repeated marketing term: 360 view of the person. It is hard, it is challenging, but I love it. I know creating long content pieces is not fashionable or “the thing” to do, but I also know that a good, absorbing conversation always resonates with people. Thanks for listening and for your support.

He has done it once again. He did it with Bollywood films, he did it with his role in Danny Boyle’s Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire. And he has done it with making the crossover from mainstream Indian cinema to mainstream American TV. We are talking about Anil Kapoor, who made his prime time TV debut in the wildly popular show: 24.

In 24, Anil plays the role of Omar Hussain, the president of a Middle Eastern country. He will appear in 16 episodes of 24, which basically means you can catch him on almost every episode of Season 8 of 24 Anil is perhaps the first Bollywood actor to migrate from the big screen to the small screen in the USA. Kabir Bedi set the precedent when he moved from Hindi cinema and to the small screen in Sandokan, a wildly popular TV show in Italy. Kabir also appeared in the American soap The Bold and Beautiful.  But, Anil is the first Bollywood actor to appear in a prime time American TV show.

Slow and steady is the term that comes to mind when you look back at how Anil started his career and slowly built it into a successful one. Growing up in Chembur, home of the famous RK Studios, Anil was surrounded by films and film personalities. His father was related to “the Kapoor” family of Indian cinema.

Anil first worked as a production crew member in the mid-1970s before he decided to become an actor. He got his first break as a leading actor in South Indian films. He worked in Mani Ratham’s first film Anu Pallavi Anu, a Kannada film  followed by Vamsa Vriksham that was directed by Bapu, a well-known Telugu writer/director.

His early success in Hindi or Bollywood films were Hum Paanch (directed by Bapu and produced by Boney Kapoor, Anil’s brother) where Anil had a small role, and this was followed by blockbuster success of
Woh Saat Din, Tezaab and Mr. India. In the 1990s there was Beta, Lamhe, Taal, and Virasaat. The list continues and Anil has acted in over 100 films so far.

After 20 some years of facing the camera, Anil decided to try his hand as a producer and has made a handful of films including Badhai Ho Badhai and Gandhi, My Father.

But, it was his role in Slumdog Millionaire that catapulted Anil to international fame and brought him to the attention of Hollywood producers and directors. Ironically, Anil almost passed up the opportunity to act in Danny Boyle’s film and it was his son, who persuaded him to act in Slumdog Millionaire.

After spending 30 years in mainstream Indian cinema, Anil decided to take the plunge and move to the small screen and the result is his appearance in 24. While he is busy with this American TV schedule, Anil is also busy acting and producing Bollywood films. He is doing all this without much of a fanfare or hullabaloo. And I suspect that is the kind of person he is: a low-keyed professional, who enjoys what he does and listens to his children’s advice with an open mind. If it were not for his children Anil might not have been on Slumdog Millionaire or 24.

Americans coming to India to discover themselves is not an uncommon thing. This trend probably started in the 1960s and peaked in the 1970s. But, Americans coming to India in the 21st century to discover themselves by learning Hindi? Now, that is an uncommon thing and that is precisely what New York-based writer and author Katherine Russell Rich (that is Chef Hemant Mathur of Devi in the video clip)  did and that experience is the basis of her book “Dreaming in Hindi: Coming Awake in Hindi.” The book captures the spirit of India by an American, who journeys into the heart of India and re-discovers herself and discovers India during the process. The book  made it to Oprah’s list of summer readings for 2009.

Read the rest of this entry »

A very Happy New Year to all of you. Thank you all for your support and for sending in your feedback & suggestions via comments, emails and tweets.

As many of you may already know 2009 was a very interesting year, where my show was featured on Mint and NDTV’s websites. I had an exiting mix of guests: Ninja Srinivasan, Editor-In-Chief at Yahoo!, Guy Kawasaki, Padmasree Warrior, CTO of Cisco, Oscar winners Danny Boyle and AR Rahman and Bollywood filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra among others.

As some of you may know I took a sabbatical in mid-2009. I went on a quest. As I discovered there  is a lot to learn from traditional media. Creating those one minute news package for TV was both challenging and exhilarating. Writing and polishing the news copy just minutes before going live had my adrenalin pumping. Learning how to engage with your on-air (radio) audience in a 10 second spot in-between songs was an invaluable experience. I have new respect for camera people, floor directors and video editors, whose painstaking work often goes unnoticed. I have new respect for radio DJ’s and program directors and the hours of hard work they put in to create that unforgettable radio experience.

During the break I stayed connected with all of you via Twitter.

I am back now and look forward to sharing new content every week.

I look forward to your continued support, feedback and suggestions.

Thank you.

What you can’t do in real life, you can do in movies commented Bollywood’s film writer Jaideep Sahni in an interview. Sahini’s stories reflect that line of thinking in movies like Khosla Ka Ghosla, Chak De! India and now Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year. For the second time Sahni teamed up with director Shimit Amin to create a winner. Their first project was Chak De! India.

I went to see Rocket Singh simply based on the song Pocket Mein Rocket Hain that I saw by sheer chance. I was instantly drawn to the song and my husband nailed it when he commented that whoever made this film had lot of fun making it. There was something fresh and appealing about the song and I simply had to see the picture. Plus, having worked in marketing and sales in a previous avatar I was curious to see who this Rocket Singh: Sales of the Year was? How did Rocket Singh survive in the shark tank, which is what sales teams are often referred to. How did he become the salesman of the year?

May I say that I was not disappointed with the movie even though it had no songs (I mean duets) and no running around trees, no vamp, no sick mother or grandmother… in short many of the important ingredients of a Bollywood film? Each character in the film was fleshed out pretty tightly and delivered a fine performance. Both the director and the writer clearly respect their audience and that shows through in the film. I liked the way the film was edited and I suspect that Amin, who has worked as an editor for American TV & movies paid special attention to this aspect.

I will refrain from sharing the plot and instead focus on why this film appealed to me at different levels.

The film underscored what it takes to build a company and be an entrepreneur ,who has integrity and ethics. (I maybe looking at the film with a biased eye because of my interest in startups.) Ethics, Warren Buffett famously pointed out cannot be taught in schools, but is something that is learned at home. That message shines through clearly in the movie. Ethics and integrity matter and you adhere to it even in the face of deep disappointments. (Yes, I know it is idealistic, but such people do exist and operate successful businesses.)

The film also showed that being smart and being at top of the heap does not automatically translate to success in the real world. Ever wondered those who graduate at the bottom of the class and go on to make a successful career? We don’t hear such stories very often, and Rocket Singh is one such example.

The movie also highlighted the notion of an incorruptible young Indian, who want to build business the right way and play the game by the rules. (Yes, I know this is treading on that dangerous “ideal world” scenario.)

The movie is an old story recast and tailored to meet and appeal to the sensibilities of young India, where 500 million people are under the age of 30. And I think Rocket Singh has delivered a product that will appeal to its target demography. Watching Ranbir Kapoor on screen reminded me others who portrayed such characters - Balraj Sahni and Raj Kapoor, who played similar roles in a different period.

Just like Chak De! India became a case study for business schools, I think Rocket Singh is on its way to becoming a new case study on how to become an entrepreneur with integrity and ethics. Once a business person losses his/her integrity it is very difficult to regain it and that struggle is clearly highlighted in the movie (You will have to see the movie for that.). “People matter.” “The chemistry in a team matters,” is a refrain that you hear very often in Silicon Valley, but you don’t realize the importance of it until you start working on your business or work for a startup, which is when it becomes blindingly clear why ethics and integrity matter. Why working with a team that subscribes to a shared value system matters and this is once again highlighted in the film .Yes, I know this is a movie that ends just like a fairytale does, where everybody lives happily ever after.

Rocket Singh delivers an effective message without become preachy. Now, that is a rare feat to accomplish in Bollywood, and very few filmmakers have been able to achieve it.

Let me know what you thought of the movie? What was it about the movie that appealed to you? Would you recommend this movie?

Over the long Thanksgiving weekend San Francisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsom made his first maiden trip to Bangalore, India. Interestingly, for over 100 years San Francisco has been an entry point for Indians, many of whom came from the region of Punjab and were often referred to as Hindus in the early 20th century. Reportedly, the first Gujarati to own a motel in the US was in the city by the bay.

Accompanied by his entourage the Mayor’s short trip was to seal the sister city relationship between San Francisco and Bangalore, and also announce San Francisco’s partnership with Cisco for sustainable urban development.

Three years ago, Cisco opened its first Globalization center outside the US in Bangalore, India that is currently headed by Wim Elfrink. Smart connected cities is Wim’s favorite phrase. For over a year now Wim has been  tirelessly promoting Cisco’s smart-city initiative and how Cisco’s technology can be deployed in monitoring and efficiently using resources.

In a virtual press conference from Bangalore using Cisco’s telepresence,  the Mayor and Wim fielded questions from journalists from around the world.

I had sent out a Twitter wondering if people had any questions for either Wim or the Mayor and I got a mixed bag of questions through tweets, DM and emails. This question sent by @PaulWiggins in Australia was the one that I asked the Mayor: What did the Mayor of San Francisco see in Bangalore, India? “I have seen the future here,” was the Mayor’s short and pithy answer. And the video captures the rest of his response including if people from Bangalore are on Twitter.  The Mayor never misses an opportunity to talk about Twitter, the small startup that has changed the way we communicate online. And of course, the Mayor has a twitter handle.