Digital Enlightenment

If the Ramayana were to happen in the time of Facebook

Manish T — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 12:02:02 +0000

In such a hyper connected world, is it possible to imagine that we can live without the internet? Can we now imagine life without that daily dose of connectivity that facebook provides us? Difficult. But there was a time when life was not as complicated as it now has become. This here is a light hearted take on what would happen if the Ramayana were to be live updated on facebook! Read and share!

Candle Walk to Support The First National Mental Health Awareness Day by Cause an Effect foundation

Bharathi — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 07:16:46 +0000

Cause an Effect Foundation conducted the 1st Mental Health Awareness Day in Hyderabad yesterday, the 6th of August. The evening began with enthusiastic participation by over 80 people. We started the program first with a brief introduction of Cause an Effect and how the organization came into being.

Presentation of the first National Mental Health Awareness Day by Bharathi of Cause an Effect

We then went on with a presentation on the Erwadi Tragedy and about the activities done by WMFI and Banyan Tree Team. On 6th August 2001, two dozen hapless mentally ill patients were roasted alive in Erwadi, Tamil Nadu, when a fire engulfed the Moideen Badusha Mental Home. Chained to poles, they were unable to escape and their charred remains were found the next day. We then explained about the efforts by the Whole Mind Foundation of India and the The Banyan Tree in bettering the conditions of the mentally challenged in India.

We had the participants pledge support to the Mental Health Awareness Program by reading out a pledge and everyone put a green ribbon on their lapels. After this, participants were given pamphlets and extra ribbons

Candle Walk by Supporters of the Cause for Mental Health patients

which they could distribute to others. About 80 of us then set out to departmental stores, bus stops, parks etc in the vicinity of the iridiumInteractive office and pinned the ribbons to others and gave them a little information about what we were doing and why they should spread the word about these efforts. Then we lit candles at a bus stop and went on a candle walk on the return stretch to the office. At the office we read out a prayer for the mentally ill and pledged to do all we could for their betterment.

This is a very small step in bettering the conditions of millions of such patients who need our care and supports and instead are languishing in institutions and subjected to inhuman conditions. Join us in spreading the word about this pressing but understated issue. Join us in making 6th August known as the National Mental Health Awareness Day.

If you would like information and support in taking up this cause mail us at bharathi@causeaneffect.org.

Lets Light a Candle in Remembrance of Erwadi-Save the Date, 6PM on 6th August, 2010

Salaudin — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 08:44:41 +0000

Dear All,

It was on the 6th of August 2001, when at least two dozen hapless chained mentally ill were roasted alive at Erwadi, Tamil Nadu, when fire engulfed the Moideen Badusha Mental Home.

Sadly, when we enter the decadal year of Erwadi, we remain at Ground Zero to improve the lot of hapless tens of millions, suffering from one or other mental illness in the country. Needless to say, lakhs of them remain incarcerated at lunatic asylums, prisons, and street. Moreover, sufferers at the bottom of the pyramid-poor and homeless- suffer maximum and lead a life full of stigma, darkness and discrimination despite the fact that mental illnesses are largely preventable, treatable or manageable in most of the cases.

Friends, every cause needs a rallying point- 6th August, 2001, and Erwadi tragedy is the defining one for Mental Health Movement of India.

Let us all come together and Join hands together to observe 6th August, 2010 as India’s First Mental Health Awareness Day.

Request all of you to kindly participate in the “Light a Candle Program” at our premises at “6 pm on the 6th of August 2010″

Please take this First Baby Step in Creating a Purposeful Mental Health Movement

Team @
Cause an Effect Foundation,
8-3-1084/1&1A, Srinagar Colony,
Hyderabad – 500 073
Tel : +91 40 2373 0266, 6557 7602
Fax : +91 40 2373 0537

How Social Media has changed humanity?

Sriram Bharatam — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 06:46:15 +0000

“It is our nature to be social”, true, and I could not help but wonder how social media has given a whole new meaning to the word “social”. It has opened doors to meet new people, make bigger communities, and most importantly provided a platform to talk your mind out. With the advent of Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and countless other social networks, least have we realized how this has metamorphosed us into digital beings.

Last week as I spoke at the NASSCOM Emerge Friday 2.0 and while sharing my experience on the Causeaneffect.org NGO initiative, it dawned onto me that social media has always been around, only its importance has accentuated in the last few years. Attending conferences all over the world and presenting the case of social media and the experiences of iridiumInteractive, it was pretty apparent that social media has no barriers across countries, it is a unified digital revolution that has been transforming our lives, only under different names since more than a decade. How has it changed our lives has not been introspected yet.

Here are the some of the reasons how social media has changed our lives and why we should make the most of it.

1. It has made us more social, we know a lot more people than we would a few years back.

2. Larger networks- college friends, school friends, people we meet at social occasions, relatives, and friends met though friends, this used to be our typical networks, social media has exponentially increased our networks.

3. More vocal about your thoughts- Forums, blogs, tweets, status updates are allowing us to speak our mind, wondered why? Because we know we will be heard by some or many.

4. Enhances PR skills- you do not have to take PR lessons to talk to people on social media.

5. Converse with like minded people on these social networks.

6. Get in touch with thought leaders, influencers and even people who inspire you.

7. Reconnects with old connections- People you have lost in touch with since a decade can be traced from any corner of the world (provided they are on these networks themselves) on the wide world of social media.

8. Your virtual network is always ready to help. All it takes is to put forward a question and there you will have experts recommending the best to you.

9. Ease of companies to get in touch with their consumers and vis a vis.

10. Looking for a job or looking to hire someone, your professional network helps you find the best fit.

Social media brings out the extrovert you. All that matters in social media is your network, communities, connections and finally your discussions with them. Social media has reduced distances both for individuals and companies.

Have you seen a change in your social profile by social media, do post what you have gained from social media.

Image Source-Rosaura Ochoa from Flickr

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Fast times at iridium Interactive

Salaudin — Wed, 26 May 2010 07:28:37 +0000

Sometimes there is no better place to start than right in the middle. So keep the title of this post in mind and bear with me. The excitement of the past two weeks has made it a little difficult for me to summarize and I’ll try to make my experiences at iridiumInteractive as clear as possible.

First was this fantastic meeting with a 37 year old CEO of a large Indo-American business house for which I had gone with Sriram, CEO at iridiumInteractive. A first generation entrepreneur and the driving force behind this group with extremely diverse interests, he had approached iridium to manage his group’s online reputation. Sounds straightforward, right? The twist came when his queries shifted from being merely branding oriented to how we could use our web expertise to help his group’s business model using the internet. The fact that the internet is now an unavoidable force in every field hit me just then. Resistance is futile, Douglas Adams had written and I think thats the way with the internet and the revolution that is social media. Just as the impact of this conversation started to sink in, Sriram announced that I would be managing the client’s reputation enhancement efforts from @iridiuminter’s side. So here I am at iridium, happily creating conversations about a company that is creating an economically viable ecosystem in rural India using IT.

Second was a NASSCOM Friday 2.0 session I attended at the Taj Deccan. The topic was core IT related, concerning how organizations could derive maximum value from IT through effective service management . The session was a revelation in itself in the sense that these were problems that I had never even knew existed and here people were discussing them and offering custom solutions!

Third I think is how we are helping a leading B school on the west coast solve a communication roadblock which they have found hard to solve. The problem has dominated our discussions at iridium over the past few weeks and the elusive solution is now taking shape on Sailesh’s laptop.

Even as I speak, Sailesh is putting the last touches to the B-school ppt and Purvvi is creating a survey for a major telecom firm that has approached us with their problems. Time is certainly at a premium and the enthusiasm in our team is contagious!

Here’s looking forward to more such excitement!

Talk to us @iridiuminter, we’re extremely patient listeners and even better problem solvers

Digital Enlightenment

If the Ramayana were to happen in the time of Facebook

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Candle Walk to Support The First National Mental Health Awareness Day by Cause an Effect foundation

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Lets Light a Candle in Remembrance of Erwadi-Save the Date, 6PM on 6th August, 2010

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How Social Media has changed humanity?

You may find the following posts interesting:

Fast times at iridium Interactive

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