"Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine."

How did complexity become the evil villain, simplicity a hero?

Complexity is not bad always. Even the world is complex and our tools must work in that world, so they must match it. People need complex tools, products, and services.

People does not want simplicity. How do I say? Because when offered a choice between something really simple and something that actually accomplishes things people wants done, even though more complex, they will chose complexity.

On the other hand we do not wish to be confused, puzzled, and frustrated by our tools as well. People misunderstand that complexity leads to confusion. No, it doesn't always.  This is the role of good design to make complex things simple to understand and easy to use.

When we talk about simplicity, we need to ask how "simple" is being judged from what point of view. Elegant, special-purpose tools are always simpler than complex, multi-functional ones.

Why is it that the tools of the crafts worker always seem simple and elegant? Consider woodworking, gardening or sports such as camping, hiking, and mountain climbing. All of them have simple, straightforward tools. Then why must our electronic tools be so complicated? Now you can say the above comparison is misleading as it is not fair enough to compare such totally different domains.

But the real complexity does not lie in the tools, but in the task. Skilled workers have an array of tools, each carefully matched to a particular task requirement. It can take years to learn which tool goes with which task, and years to master the tools. The tool set is complicated because the task is complicated. Looking at the visual simplicity of the tool is misleading. The mark of the great designer is the ability to provide what people need without excessive complexity.

Make things understandable and they are perceived as being simple. It is the job of the designer to manage complexity with skill and grace, to ensure that complex things are understandable, usable, and enjoyable. The mark of the great designer is the ability to provide the complexity that people need in a manner that is understandable and elegant. Simplicity should never be the goal. Complex things will require complexity. It is the job of the designer to manage that complexity with skill and grace.

Simple can be a siren just as easily as it can be a signal. Good simplicity is less with leverage, not less with less. Good simplicity is complexity disguised, not complexity denied. Don't give in to stupidity when creating simplicity.

The Language is the Mainstream.....

Who defines a country? Us...
Who defines a nation ? Us..
Who writes the anthem? Us..
Who defines the language? Us..

So if it all about us, Does it fair for us to say that this the right and this is wrong. where the validity lies then?  Why we act like this? It is all due to our barbaric thoughts of racism.  Some think comes as  the ultimate output of the human evolution. It is for our own escapism we are saying like wise, and trying to build a rationale behind it.But it is all a myth.

To understand why the idea of race is a biological myth requires a major paradigm shift. And for me, it's like seeing what it must have been like to understand that the world isn't flat. The world looks flat to our eyes. And perhaps I can invite you to a mountaintop or to a plain, and you can look out the window at the horizon, and see, "Oh, what I thought was flat I can see a curve in now." And that race is not based on biology, but race is rather an idea that we describe as an aspect of biology.

People see racism only with their cultural lens. The race is a cultural construction, that we really are fundamentally alike. It's our politics, it's an old ideology that tends to separate us out.

If we take kids as an example they always love to have some common humanity, they never discriminate, they always work together, play together as one. So why we adults, cannot  smash down the walls between us and say no to racism.

So, my simple question is,  do you still bother whether it should be in Sinhala or Tamil? 

Aut vincere aut mori - Either conquer or die!!

Just over a decade ago, Skype transformed the way we communicate. The Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) tool became so popular as people embrace the ability to video chat with friends and colleagues halfway across the world.Microsoft would have never put their money in the business if it is not about having millions of users all around. 

Then, challenging the might of Skype, Google also launched a competitor called "Hangouts" in May 2013. It takes lots of courage to step in to the red ocean like that knowing there will be a high chance to be drowned. Yet, it is Google; the State of Art Company of future technology is what we are talking here. They never think twice when it comes to innovation.  With a risk or not, they are the revolutionary generators of many disruptive inventions.  

Why yo choose Google Hangouts over Skype?

You can keep on listing, but I think below two would be the ones which matter the most;                                        

Its free. Now you may say “So is Skype.”  But it is a Yes, and no. Because Skype is only free for one-on-one video conferencing, but for group video conferencing at least one member has to have the paid subscription. But Hangouts allows for up to 10 users to video conference at a time (15 if you are a google+ premium user).

Apps make it more easy. Google may have the edge on Skype when it comes to the apps that are available on Hangouts. The tool offers full integration with a wealth of other Google services, including YouTube, Google Docs, SlideShare and Google+ Games.

However Skype still remains a brilliant VoIP tool for doing what it has always done best: long-distance calls over the internet. Despite its once in a while poor video quality, installation is easy and people can communicate via desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone where Google Hangouts requires users to have a Google Plus account which, while free, is another layer of red tape for the occasional user.

Even though both offer impressive functionalists, Skype’s free service is too limited to consider as a business tool. That is why Google shines more in the corporate world.  

But I believe Skype still has the chance to counter Hangouts ready made apps if Skype Translator proves good enough for people to communicate with foreign business heads.

But what Google Hangout  teaches us is, never be afraid for giants and they will fall out have faith in you potential :)

Today's Marketing

Today I thought to write something about how marketing was used to be and how it is now. Because, he approaches, the strategies have been evolved alot throughout the time. 

Earlier days,  main focus was  Transactional marketing which  was aimed at individual transations (or one-off sales), rather than at creating a long standing customer relationship. But now with the evolvement of marketing, organizations are more concern about Relationship Marketing. 

What is Relationship Marketing? 

In simple terms, without only focus on enhancing the product it gives the same priority to enhance the customer relationship as well. Keeping customer retention, building customer loyalty and maintaining a high level of customer service are some of the key highlights of Relationship Marketing. 

In marketing books you can find about even four types of relationships. They are, 

Alliance Relationship                                                                                                      

Partnering Relationship

Transactional Relationship

Co-operative Relationship

If you ever think why the orientation have been changed, it is simply because of the competitiveness of the market. Everyday a cool product appears somewhere in the world. To being ahead of the business it is must to retain the existing customers rather trying to create new ones. To accomplish that, focusing on Relationship Marketing is vital.

Relationship Marketing, from the point of view of the supplier-customer dyad, is all about the supplier improving the quality of the customer experience. Although some customers still rate low price as the key factor in determining their satisfaction level, most of others rank service level. Specially since products become more and more similar in terms of their features and benefits, the differentiating factor between them would  be the level of service accompanying the product. 

To get the essence of Relationship marketing you have to directly communicate with the customers and ask them to respond in a tangible way. Only then you can look forward to fulfill the response and lead a prospect to a partner. 

So, to win the race,

Try to obtain the loyalty earlier

Maintain the consistency 

and

Commit to continual renewal!!

Once a Cricket fan always a Cricket fan....

Having a brother at home changes a girl’s life to upside down, if there are only you and he in the family, the affect is even more. When he is only 16 months older than you I would say that the impact would be doubled.  

From the kindergarten itself you can have guy friends. You will reside on tress rather on earth, you will love t shirts and jeans than frocks and skirts, playing with Barbies and dolls can be just a nightmare. Simply you will never be the pink person rather you will be more blackish, brownish kind of. 

I know above all because it is pretty much of my case.  Yes, I am the youngest of the family of two having one brother elder to me. I will never say that I regret or that I could have being much better than this. No nothing such, I love and enjoy each bit of it.  

But among them all, do you know what is the Best thing that you could inherit from him? That is simply the love for CRICKET.  Hardly any sister could not be a cricket lover after having such a crazy fan at home. My brother is like a walking statistician. He remembers every bit of cricket with exact dates and time.  

When we won the world cup in 1996 I was in grade one, there were around 40 students in my class and I was the only one who was so excited as we won it. I was the only one who was talking about it even, I doubt whether others were even aware that such had happened.  Similarly, when I was a teen I used to talk more about football and cricket rather than makeups and hairstyles. Even now it is pretty much the same.

That is how my love for Cricket has been build. All awe to my one and only brother. Without him I would never be a Cricket fan, I still remember how he used to scold me when I was asking thousands odd questions out of my curiosity to understand the game while the match is on. He always says, “Please nangi, ask anything after this over is over”. All these memories are precious and unforgettable.

But now you might wonder why I am all of the sudden shredding all these memories today.; because today is all about Cricket.

We lost the match.

We will not see dil scoops, Malinga’s dancing hair, Sanga’s perfect shots anymore at CWC 2015.

Moreover, we will never see Sanga and Mahela back in action in ODIs’ ever.  

So how could I not talk about Cricket today. Since it South Africa who had won rather India, I can bear it and soothe myself to an extent. Still they is a huge void in the deep of my heart that nothing could ever fill in.

May be that is what called the True Fan-ship.

Hail Cricket!! Hail SriLanka!!

Sizes!!!

If you have ever studied stat, there is no chance for you to miss correlation; it is one of the basics and one of the easiest. In simple terms, it shows the relatedness between things.  Those things could be anything. It can be varied from simple things like Corruption vs MR to some complex things like Vimal vs his birthday. However the simple logic of correlation saves lots of lives of statisticians.  It is such powerful tool. Anyway, this is not a lesson of Correlation, but at the end you will understand at where the correlation will fit in.

You might have already heard that the first computer is called ENIAC and it was created for the U.S. Army in 1946. Weighing more than 30 tons, ENIAC took up as much space as some houses (1,800 square feet).  Then if you have searched about the smallest computer, it is called CuBox-I and it is just 2” x 2” x 2” in the size.  From this what to be understand is bigger the technology smaller the size.

Yet, we can get a contradictory example from the from the technological arena itself . That is the mobile phones. when it comes to them, only the inverse of this is applicable. There the scenario would be like bigger the technology, bigger the phone.  I really doubt in the near future Levis might have to redesign all their denims with new measurements comprising bigger pockets. 

Simply if this trend continues further, I am pretty sure that there will be a time where we keep phones on desks and carry PCs’ in our pockets.  

#3 Yes, It's your Fault

Since it is March and everyone talks about women's day, empowering women and all, thought to share something which makes you all think awhile.

Do you remember Nirbaya?

That 23 year old, innocent Indian girl, who was beaten, gang raped and fatally assaulted  in a private bus by six barbarous men on 16 December 2012 in South Delhi. Not only India, whole world wept for her. Her story is not the only one with such a tragic ending. There are many more poor souls around the world whose suffer from the shades of this darkness. 

I have never known Nirbaya, neither saw nor heard, but still somewhere deep inside my heart, keeps weeping over her helplessness.

It is hard to understand where have we actually got wrong, Does this rapid advancement of the technology make everyone so inhuman or is it because of something else. 

Talking about this, weeping over, would not make any different, we have to take serious actions against rape. If not this will continue making it  much more worse. 

Spare a minute and watch this video.

It is a powerful campaign in India against rape called 'Ladies, It’s Your Fault’, which sarcastically blames women as the main cause of rape incidents, has gone viral on social media. The YouTube campaign is led by Bollywood actor Kalki Koechlin and video jockey (VJ) Juhi Pande who tell viewers that it is all women's fault to be be raped, because with whatever, men will be simply men. It is women's duty to be careful not to get raped by someone else. 

As a girl guide, one of the best thing I've learnt is that " A guide is sister to every other guide". Yes, ladies, if we don't want to do anything for ourselves or our kind, do you think that men will bother. No, right. These two ladies did something for this out of their capabilities. Something very sarcastic,yet, something powerful and straightforward.  

So, Ladies, it is time for actions, Speak up and Stand against Rape!!

#2 It is not a Virus it is Viral

When you see this, I am pretty sure that you might feel like throwing up to your screen, Please Don't because I am not going to ask that same stupid question again, whether it is blue and black or white and gold :) But did not this make any flashbacks in your minds?

Scroll down...

Nobody could escape from the tune after hearing Koleveri- Di (it still haunts).

All the dancing floors were taken over by Psy's crazy hop.

All of a sudden Harlem Shake made everyone looks like some insane retards.

ALS Ice Bucket challenge even made Obama to pour out a bucket.

Well, let's not talk about Kim Kardashian's heavenly gifted assets here :)

These are some of the recent breaking stories in internet. How much old we could be, still we will remember all of them. Even though, none of the above is business related, just imagine how much publicity such could  bring if it is business related.

That is why in marketing we can find something called, "Viral Marketing". Viral Marketing is referring to a marketing technique that use pre-existing social networking services and other technologies to try to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses or computer viruses.

Some companies have used this technique and gain lot of attraction and attention. One of the best examples would be this. Hope you remember.

The tune was first featured partly in Idea Celluar's latest TV and Jingle that is also available as ringtone. This has created a big social media buzz, which of course a very effective way of promoting products.

In case you might have noticed, all these viral stories have one unique flavor, that is its simplicity. Gangnam Style, Harlem Shake, Honey Bunny all are very simple to follow. (Though, Ms.Kardashian's story is bit different )  Simplicity always leads to wider reach. Another thing is it should be something very exciting and unique to be remembered easily.

So if you can come up with something creative with all of these tastes, Believe me, you are ahead of the race, winning the crowd will be just a matter of minutes. 

#1 Say Cheese

Photography is my all time favorite. But I was with no camera in hand for long time because my dada does not want to invest on another as I have already lost two of them. Still my undying urge always makes myself want a camera. And finally making an end to that looooooong waited days, I've bought a DSLR Camera. 

Nowadays, everyone is after DSLR, the digital cameras which were happened to be very handy those days, now no one even bother to have at all. Itt is so amazing to see, how this super fast technology advancement changes everything overnight. So, since everybody is having this DSLR mania, thought to give you some facts which will be useful for you to decide on.

The VERY FIRST question comes to anyone whose going to buy a DSLR is whether it is a Nikon or Cannon :) 

Well, it is a tough thing to answer, both have many models and each has their own pros and cons. What I will says is it is all about your Brand Preference. I am a Nikon lover, I dont know why, from the very first I fell for it. Without a flip screen or not, I'll always go for a Nikon (Nikon does not have a flip screen, where all the Cannon do have, as we are in the selfie era most of people love to have one, which I am not bothered much)

After deciding on the brand, then comes the which-model-to-buy question.  Here what you need to focus is about your Purpose of buying a camera. Whether it is to be a professional, or because your a heavy traveler, or to cover up the special moments in your life etc. Since I am more aware about Nikon, I'll explain it bit more from Nikon.

When it come to Nikon they have different ranges according to our purpose. So it is easy to decide on which to purchase.

• High-end (Professional - Intended for professional use, heavy duty and weather resistance)
• High-end (Prosumer - Intended for pro-consumers who want the main mechanical/weather resistance and electronic features of the professional line but don't need the same heavy duty)
• Midrange and professional usage cameras 
• Upper-entry-level (Consumer)
• Entry-level (Consumer)

Canon also has such ranges, you can find out more if you are interested. 

Finally, what you have to decide is from where to buy. It is always advised that to buy from a authorized dealer. Because many mishaps are happening when it comes to the digital devices markets.  

So, if you carefully focus on these matters, I won't think that shop for a DSLR will be that hard :)  Happy Clicking!!! 

New mission- 100 days!!

The election was over, but still the good governance and 100 days are hovering around everywhere. Nobody knows what will happen, because it is all politics and promises are meant to be so fragile there.

Anyway,I am not here to talk about politics, but for the first time in my life politics itself has inspired me. Now you may wandering, How?

It is like this. I thought to gear up another new 100 days mission. A mission of #100 blog posts about still-unknown interesting stories.
So, from tomorrow onwards, I am going to tell you about 100 interesting stories in a row, without missing a day. This will not like another never-keeping political promise.
So stay tuned!!!!  You'll be glad...... :)