The British High Commission in New Delhi, India, have produced a rap music video to encourage students in India to consider the UK as a destination to study.  It explains the right way to apply for a student visa.

Indian students represent the second largest number of international students in higher education in Britain, and the number of student visas issued in India have been increasing year on year.

The video was launched by the UK Visa Services in association with the British Council to capitalise on this growing demand, and has been placed on YouTube so that it may be shared with it’s target market.

There are mixed-views of the video, but overall it’s receiving the thumbs up from students in India.  Responses to the rap video include “this video is great stuff for us Indian students. it’s simple and encoraging. shows that UK welcomes students from India. good stuff”, and “I’m a creative arts student and this is brilliant! the way by which such a complicated message has been convayed seamlessly is quite refreshing.”

Take a look at the Indian Student Visa video for yourself and leave a comment below indicating where you are based (UK/India/other part of the world), whether you are a student or not, and what your views are on the video.

During the bus journey home this evening, it occured to me how serious I have recently become.

Do I really need to get overwhelmed and stressed by the number of emails in by inbox?  Pathetic, really.

For many people, their businesses are suffering in this current economic climate.

While the business suffers, am I suffering?  While this body suffers, am I suffering?

The answer is of course “No”, so why do I consume so much energy stressing over the situations outside of myself?  I must be a fool!  :)

Let me define and focus on my key responsibilities.  That is all.

A 17 year old from New York shares with me his sources of inspiration and guidance, and benefits of following a raw food diet already for over 5 months:

Suraj (15:19:07): so anyway, you were saying about Raw…
Ankit (15:19:43): yeah — i’d say it was mainly dhru’s welikeitraw.com site in addition to the raw community website, giveittomeraw.com (kind of like a facebook for raw foodies/people that want to be raw)
Ankit (15:20:19): also, rawmodel.com is a blog run by this model, anthony anderson, who blogs rather frequently about raw foods, fitness and sustainable living
Ankit (15:20:31): i kind of went through almost the entire archives
Ankit (15:20:37): and founds TONS of great pointers
Suraj (15:21:51): what’s been YOUR motivation for being 100% raw?  What benefit have you seen already?  Perhaps there’s a blog post you’ve written about this already?
Ankit (15:22:14): i’ve thrown in bits and pieces throughout my blogs
Ankit (15:22:40): you could probably ctrl+F “raw” in my blog posts from march onwards if you want to check that out
Ankit (15:22:50): but really — it’s just a feeling of purity
Ankit (15:22:58): you feel good, all the time
Ankit (15:23:03): your mind is clear
Ankit (15:23:08): you don’t find yourself thinking about food
Ankit (15:23:12): you detach yourself from it
Ankit (15:24:00): on top of that, on a more superficial note, it clears acne (mostly from the loss of dairy, but even more so from eating unprocessed, uncooked in oil foods)
Ankit (15:25:03): and it sheds any undesired fat. i wasn’t actually heavyset prior to going raw, but i had a negligible bit of fat on my stomach. after going raw, however, that just burned right off and the sixpack abs i never thought would come reveal themselves
Ankit (15:25:40): in addition to that, however, you just open yourself up to a world of good, delicious, healthy foods
Ankit (15:25:51): it’s wild what you can do with naturally occurring foods
Suraj (15:26:23): this sounds great - I’m really inspired to explore the raw route - thank so much for your guidance Ankit
Ankit (15:27:02): not a problem. i’m always down to help a friend out

According to his blog, Ankit Shah is a “kid that cares for little more than open minds, strong opinions, passion, genuinity, a good laugh and conscious living for the people and the world around me. Into raw living, mother nature, awareness, fitness, honesty and international music.”

Check out Ankit Shah’s blog at ankittt.blogspot.com

This morning I received a beautiful message from a friend about the relation betwen the celebration of India’s independence and our own inner journey to freedom…

Jai Jinendra
Jai Satgurudev Vandan

Today India, the Mother country, celebrates independence, the end of an era of foreign rule which arguably began more than a eight hundred years ago for North India.

As the country modernises and westernises, there is a great challenge to the innate spirituality, the soul, if you will, in her culture.

But then the king within is also dominated by foreign matter - both gross external objects and subtle karmic matter.

At the heart of the Satyagraha of Gandhiji lies the idea that we are letting ourselves be suppressed and we can rise against this, resist it, not co-operate with it, for without our help, the oppressor can do oppress us, as we are providing the means.

Just as this insight freed 470mm from foreign domination, by a handful of rulers, so this great majestic soul can throw of the shakles of its own bondage by becoming awake and arising.

With the blessings, guidance, example and living presence of a True Guru all this is easy.

Happy Independence Day
Happy journey to Independence!

When you offer a service or sell a product, either people are talking about you, or no-one is. If they’re talking about your brand, it may be positive or it may be negative. If no-one’s talking about you, perhaps they should be.

There are many examples where a brand’s reputation has been massively damaged, simply because a negative mention of a brand snowballed and was not spotted in time.

One such example is when a blogger from America bought a computer from the large computer manufacturer Dell in 2005 and paid for a four year home service support plan. Soon after, when the machine needed seeing to, Dell told him to return the computer, which left him without the machine for 10 days. When he wrote a short blog post about the poor service, it generated over 200 comments within a few days. This then resulted in 10 follow up posts and over 2500 comments that sparked so much opinion that it led to the phrase “Dell Hell” becoming a household term. Imagine is this post had been spotted in time – perhaps the massive damage that the brand received could have been limited.

Following an internal training session on Brand Identity Tracking run by our Head of Online Marketing, Drew Davies, I thought I’d write and share a few notes about how to discover what people are saying about a particular brand, how that can be tracked over time, and how the information can be used to improve brand identity.

Why Do Companies Choose To Track Their Brands?

Companies generally want their brand tracked for predominantly one of four reasons:

1. New product / service: The company is launching a new product in the marketplace and wants to see the attention the brand will be getting online over time.
2. Bad reviews: A brand has been getting bad reviews on the web, and the company would like to see the extent of that damage done to the brand.
3. Good reviews: The brand is already receiving positive reviews on the web, and the company would like to see what is being said and use it to create more products and engage with the happy consumers.
4. No reviews: The brand has been around for a while, but the company feels that nobody’s talking about it, and so that company wants to see where their competitors are being talked about and work out how to enter those forums.

How To Benchmark Your Online Reputation

We use a three step process here at Chameleon Net to benchmark the online reputation of our clients’ brands:

Step #1: GATHER – scouting the web for mentions of specific keywords relating to the brand in question, and recording how positive or negative the conversations are about the brand. Keywords here would include variations of the brand name, categories, and competitor brand names where appropriate.
Step #2: ANALYSE – working out what the comments mean according to pre-defined metrics, and benchmarking this information over time and against competitors.
Step #3: ENGAGE – making amends where there are grievances about the brand, and reinforcing positive comments about the brand on behalf of the client.

Tracking Your Online Brand Identity – For Free!

There are already a number of free tools that companies can use to find out what people are saying about their brand online. Tools offered by Google include:

• Google Search: visit http://www.google.co.uk, type in the name of the brand into the search box, and see a list of the websites that mention your brand.
• Google Blog Search: visit http://blogsearch.google.com, type in the name of the brand in the search box, and see a list of the blogs that mention your brand, along with the date of when it was mentioned.
• Google Alerts: visit http://www.google.com/alerts and sign up for alerts that will notify you by email about the latest web and news pages that mention your brand.

Limitations of using these free tools for tracking your online brand identity

If you have a good internal team who have plenty of time on their hands, information on conversations about the brand can be gathered fairly simply using the free tools listed above.

However, although the tools are good for finding the raw data, that’s where it stops. The next step is to analyse the gathered data with metrics to make sense of it, which requires a natural human touch.

Recently we tracked the brand identity of one of our clients in the not-for-profit sector who wanted to see how they are perceived online. We benchmarked our findings over time, and against similar charities in the sector.

Engaging: handling negative comments

So what happens if you discover negatives comments about your brand? What can you do to recover from an online reputation crisis?

The article at http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2008/01/five-steps-for-recovering-from-an-online-reputation-crisis.html suggests the following steps:

1. Respond from the top
2. Admit your mistakes and apologise
3. Host the conversation
4. Seek resolution
5. Turn detractors into evangelists

To recover from even the severest of mistakes, base your crisis communication on sincerity, transparency, and consistency.

Engaging: encouraging more positive comments

Suppose you find positive mentions of your brand at the websites and blogs that you find, how do you leverage that?

Simply go to those websites and say “thank you” in the comments section. Then suggest other innovative ways that your product or service can be used.

Engaging: starting a conversation

Sometimes, you’ll look around the web and find that no-one’s talking about your brand. What can you do there to create positive exposure?

Well first highlight where you want to be mentioned, and then build an innovative ePR campaign to get more people talking about your brand.

Chameleon Net ran an ePR campaign to launch ‘The Survival Kit’ – a cookware kit developed in a collaboration between Jamie Oliver and Tefal. Get in touch with us to request our ePR case studies.

Is ‘Online Reputation Management’ ethical?

Some may refer to this process as controlling their message, while others may look upon it as ‘gaming the system’. What do you think? Is online reputation management ethical?

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Source: Chameleon Net blog article: How to Manage Your Online Reputation by Suraj Shah

Ever since going down the vegan path in April, I stopped having coffee at the office as the coffee there is instant, and the milk always curdled whenever I made it the coffee with soya milk.

Now I’ve discovered a way to enjoy instant coffee with soya milk that doesn’t curdle.

How To Stop Soya Milk Curdling In Instant Coffee In 3 Easy Steps:

• Step #1: Boil the kettle, put the instant coffee granules in the mug, (add sugar as required).
• Step #2: Pour the boiled water into the mug, and let it sit there for 5 minutes.
• Step #3: Add Alpro soya milk and enjoy your coffee!

The trick here is hidden in step #2 - waiting for the coffee to cool down a little before adding milk will stop it from curdling.

So, when shall we get together for that authentic conversation over a decent (instant) coffee?

The enemy is not outside me.
It is right here within me.

Why must I punish those who care for me?
The challenges I face, I brought them to me.

May I stop fighting with the enemy outside me,
So that I may conquer the enemy that’s within me.

On the day of my birthday earlier this month, I had the opportunity to have lunch with Peter Thornton who previously worked in his family business (Thorntons Plc) for 30 years, eventually retiring at the age of 54 as Chairman.  Prior to meeting him, I sent him an email saying…

My grandfather ran a utensils retail business with his brothers when in Mombasa (Kenya), and my father ran a menswear retail business with his brothers in London (UK), and I would love to launch a business several years down the road with my own brother.  There’s something very magical about family businesses, and naturally I’m sure they have their own challenges and a unique dynamic (!)

When you have a moment, it would be wonderful to hear what your top three tips for running a family business would be.

Peter then sent me a very thoughtful response to my request.

I thought what he shared would be valuable for my friends who are reading this blog, so asked if he would be happy for me to publish it and if he would give a little more information about himself, his background and his services, in case any of my friends would get value from having a longer conversation with him or engaging his services.  You’ll find some gems very much applicable to marriage too I’m sure…

—

Here’s what Peter wrote…

My Top Three Tips for Running a Family Business - before ever starting!

Relationships & Roles

Your suggestion is that this is with your brother only.  Naturally this is far more simple than if there are more relatives involved.  However there is a need for various roles to be covered in the initial team, for more on that see below.

The most successful operations are run by emotionally mature people working in equal partnership.  By ‘equal partnership’ I do not mean that every decision however small or large has to be always taken by all partners mutually but there will be specific areas where each individual has primary responsibility and within which, to understood limits, they can make their own decisions without reference to the other partners.

This paragraph has certain built-in requirements which need to be understood in advance:
‘Emotionally mature people’ - this is of paramount importance, whether in business or in marriage!  The totally emotionally mature person hardly exists most people are immature in some way.  Going into business with your brother has advantages and disadvantages; on the positive side you know him extremely well already, on the negative side you automatically and permanently have an emotional relationship with him.

You need to understand each other’s state of maturity, do you both feel yourselves to be totally independent, adult individuals? have you progressed beyond the childish relationship?  Do you behave like two adults to each other? does either of you have a serious emotional problem, such as the need to be always dominant, or the need to always be right?  Do you entirely trust each other in terms of honesty, intentions and communication in individual, team and family relationships?

A major contributor towards ‘progressing beyond the childish relationship’ will have been to work completely independently of each other in separate organisations doing separate things for a period of time prior working together.  This will establish the individual’s independence, abilities, self-confidence and usable experience to bring to the business relationship.

‘Specific areas where each individual has primary responsibility’ - to run any organisation it is necessary to have specialists in several different roles.  Mike Southern in his Beermat set of books defines them extremely well as: Sales Cornerstone, Technical Cornerstone and Finance Cornerstone.  One or more of these will be the Entrepreneur, most likely the Technical Cornerstone.  The Entrepreneur is essential of course.  The operation can manage without the Finance Cornerstone at least initially because this can be delegated to somebody else part-time.  You therefore need to be certain about each other’s strengths, one needs to be fully capable of being the Sales Cornerstone and the other capable of being the Technical Cornerstone.

The individual running each of these areas will of course have primary responsibility and decision-making powers in those areas.  The overall corporate governance will probably be shared equally between the two of you initially that it will eventually become necessary to decide that one individual will make the final decision in corporate matters having fully sounded out the other’s opinion.  In other words this person will become the CEO.  Whatever happens this role must not be decided on the family hierarchy basis but only on the basis of ability as must every other role.

Future Family Governance Systems.

You need to be fully in agreement in advance of starting the business what your objectives are.  Do you intend always to run this between the two of you and eventually to sell it without involving any more family members or do you intend it to become a family institution for the long-term?

If it is the former it is essential that you do not ever bring in, at a later stage, any other family members because if you do so you will immediately turn it into the latter.

If it is to be the latter then you need to agree with your brother in advance the principle of and some outline rules for the following:

• The Governance Structure for Business and Family.
• CEO Succession
• Agreeing Vision and Strategy
• Rules for Entry of new family members
• Future Share Ownership
• etc.

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As requested, a few paragraphs about Peter himself…

I started work in the family firm of Thorntons Plc (manufacturing retail confectionery business) at the age of 10 working during the holidays until I was old enough to start full-time. I became a director of the company when I was 29 and retired when I was 54 in 1989 as Chairman.

This gave me much valuable experience as a director of a family company where at one time there were six members of the family all working together.  Since that time I have studied the theory and practice of family business thoroughly preparing myself for working with family businesses.

Conflict can become very serious and destructive within a family business and it needs an outsider to relieve it.  I offer my services for this purpose and also for prescribing the stages that follow resolution of the conflict so that systems and procedures can be set up to avoid these problems occurring again in the future.

Please contact me at: peter@thornton-asc.co.uk or by telephone: 01395-548199 or Mobile 07836-212713. www.thornton-asc.co.uk

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Hope you found the above words by Peter useful.  Are you running your own family business at the moment?  What are the highs and lows?  What tips would you offer?  Would these tips translate well into the world of marriage too?

If you are using a version of Microsoft Outlook which is older than Outlook 2007, then you can download a file which updates all public holiday information in your calendar, giving you details of public holidays through till 2012.

Visit the information page at http://www.outlook-tips.net/howto/missinghol.htm and download and install the file which resides at http://www.outlook-tips.net/files/OUTLOOK2012.HOL if you are running Outlook 2002/2003.

I now have an up-to-date Outlook file which gives me the heads up on all public holidays right through to 2012.

Today a squirrel helped teach me about compassion.

Driving near home this morning, my friend Heena and I witnessed a squirrel running into the road, and being crushed under the wheel of the car in the opposite lane.  It lay there on the road, motionless.

I was shocked, and didn’t know what to do.  Heena’s deep well of compassion led her to turn the car round, drive up and stop at the middle of the road where the squirrel lay with blood on the ground, put her hazard lights on, and she stepped out of the car.

She then got a couple of carrier bags from out of the boot, walked over to the squirrel who was most certainly dead from the blow it would have received, and picked it up with the carrier bag.  We certainly couldn’t have left it to continue getting crushed in the road.

I took the bag off her to find a place to dispose of this squirrel’s body, then got into the car and we went on our way.

You should have seen this poor squirrel, it’s body still warm, wrapped up in the carrier bag in my right hand, blood seeping out of it’s head.  This is one squirrel who won’t make it home tonight.  This is one squirrel who may have been out collecting food for it’s dependants.  This is the last Easter that the squirrel would have spent with it’s family.

My biggest lesson learnt was from Heena, and her solid determination to do the right thing at the right time.  It would have been easy to drive off and let someone else handle it (as if anyone really would have), or let the squirrel continue to be crushed in the road.  But no, she decided to stop, and it appeared to me that if she witnessed it, then she’s responsible for it.  She did what was most important in that moment.

So do you believe that?  Do you believe that if you witness something, that suddenly it’s your responsibility?  Do you believe that you are creating the world that’s around you, and that if you see a problem, you must accept ownership of it?  What are the problems and difficulties you’re witnessing in the world around you, and truly ask yourself - how many of those are you creating?  Or is it just easier to put the blame on someone else, and let them fix it?  Is it just easier to have let that other careless driver take responsibility and come back and move the carcass from the middle of the road?