Sukshma

As we go about our daily lives we all come across stuff that others may find useful or interesting. This hyperlocal information may range from a small local activity to a great find on the TV or even a rare opinion on a current topic. The way I look at it, if you think you’re witnessing something that holds relevance beyond your family and friends, it’s hyperlocal!

For example, here’s a peek at my last three hyperlocal conversations.

As I am writing this post, Ishan Sharma takes the wicket of Matthew Hayden in India’s ongoing Adelaide test match against Australia. This event instantly became the subject of conversation. (Relevance: india wide)

After TATA’s Nano for the masses, there’s now a laptop for the masses – HCL’s MiLeap at a price of Rs. 13,990. I hear it’s available at the local Croma electronics store in Pune. Do you think it will gain traction? (Relevance: india wide and local)

The Save Pune Traffic Movement (yahoo group: sptm-sunrise) has started an experiment with the Kothrud Traffic Police. They need volunteers to hold a “follow all rules” sign at Athavale Chowk near Nal Stop from 8:30 am to 8:45 am, for a week or so. My mother reports that last weekend the SPTM volunteers along with the police caught close to 150 violators over 2 hours! (Relevance: traffic fearing residents of Pune)

Well, that’s from me on one Saturday morning.

If you’re stopping by this page, give us a peek at your last hyperlocal conversation.

Cheers to the era of an hyperlocal Web!

Scrabulous.com , launched by brothers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla from Calcutta is set for a battle with the makers of Scrabble, Hasbro who are trying to shut it down.

The question in my mind is – why now? The website has been around since 2006. It was later followed by a Facebook application in early 2007. What changed things at Hasbro? Was the magic number 600,000 registered Scrabulous users or 2.3 million active users on Facebook? What was going on at Hasbro as they sat watching the growth of Scrabulous over the years? Here’s one possibility.

If I were an evil genius running a board games company whose product line spanned everything from Monopoly to Clue, I might do this: Wait until someone comes up with an excellent implementation of my games and does the hard work of coding and debugging the thing and signing up the masses. Then, once it got to scale, I’d sweep in and take it over. Let the best pirate site win! If I were compassionate, I’d even cut in the guys who did all the work for a percentage point or two to keep the site running.

Will someone please start a Facebook group to save Scrabulous?

Well said!

Either way, evil or compassionate, I would do everything in my power to make sure the Scrabble loving population of the world continues to grow. Why make it a case of board players vs. online players? If the next generation of Scrabble players is meant to be online, so be it. I would not waste my time fighting it, rather spend my time figuring out how to make it viable. Shutting down the online version will move the online audience elsewhere. After all, Scrabulous was created only because the free website Quadplex where the Agarwalla brothers played Scrabble started charging its users.

What game or version of the game will this move by Hasbro create? We’ll just have to wait, watch and later play

“Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking.”

- Words of Anita Roddick, founder The Body Shop, who passed away this week at age of 64.

A true pioneer, who believed in the green revolution long before it was even considered something worth talking about. I was urged to read more about her by my mom, who has been practising vermiculture at home for the past 8 years and never misses an opportunity to show me that business need not be disconnected from the environment.

Anita started the Body Shop on a simple value – “Nothing the Body Shop sells pretends to do anything other than it says. Moisturizers moisturize, fresheners freshen and cleansers cleanse.” Drawing inspiration from her travels to Tahiti, Australia and South Africa, where she saw women rubbing their bodies with cocoa butter, and washing their hair with mud and the best part – it all worked and did not require the product to be tested on animals, a value that the Body Shop stands by to this day.

I always find it fascinating to learn what prompts people to take on entrepreneurship. In Anita Roddick’s case, the answer is as unthinkable as the Body Shop story that follows it. One fine day her husband announced that he wanted to fulfill his dream of traveling on horseback from Buenos Aires to New York, a feat that would take a couple of years, so Anita took out a small loan and opened her first Body Shop in 1976. Later, it was he who helped her execute her dreams and expand the Body Shop to 50 countries in 15 years.

Anita stuck to her principles. She defied retail conventions and applied lessons learnt from her mother during the Second World War. For example, why waste a container when you can refill it? And why buy more of something than you can use? Reuse, refill and recycle everything.

And what’s the story behind the green color that has become synonymous with everything the Body Shop does – “the only colour that we could find to cover the damp, mouldy walls of my first shop.” After opening the second shop within 6 months of the first, her husband came up with the idea of self-financing more stores through franchising. And, the expansion continues. The Body Shop is now in India thanks to their tie-up with master franchisee Planet Retail Pvt. Ltd. The company plans to open 50 stores over the next three years.

Her’s is a story that is beyond just “how it happened”. Most business leaders are remembered for their innovation or wealth creation abilities. Anita is one of the few who built a business on a value that is so close to heart. It questions our approach to living on this planet and what constitutes fair use of its resources. She sets the bar very high for all of us. Very few businesses would score on all these dimensions.

- Anjali

For the people of Mumbai. Originally uploaded by virgorama.

India paid tribute today to those hurt or killed in the attack on Mumbai. You can join in too, wherever you are – light a candle on CNN-IBN. For every candle, Re 1/- will be donated to a blast victim.