Socially Yours

In the cyber-noise that is social media today, one can’t be blamed for wondering at the real value of trying to be heard out there in the midst of the world posting photographs of their school reunions, dinners, puppies, children, family get-togethers et al. 

However, recent numbers tell a compelling tale.

• Facebook is the most browsed social network on social media with a large base of 100 Million users, clearly it is not fading away anytime soon in India. More than 80% of those users access Facebook via their mobile phone.
• Total Twitter users in India are 33 Million and from this base 76% of users access it via their mobile phone.
•  LinkedIn has 26 Million India users, of the total 300+ Million users.
• Of the total chunk of 70 Million total users in Pinterest, 5.5 Million are from India.

(source: http://blog.digitalinsights.in/important-statistics-digital-and-social-media-users-in-india/05224987.html)

While the top brands on Facebook are dominated by the telecom industry, there is a very strong case for the social sector as well.

1. Monies: It is possible, without ANY expenditure, to run a hard hitting social campaign. Yes, even without resorting to buying digital media. This is important for cash-strapped social campaigns.
2. Honesty: Social media enables transparency and honesty like no other medium today.
3.  Immediacy: The response time on social media is very VERY fast. Almost instantaneous in the case of Twitter in particular.
4.  Reach: Time it right and post the right kind of localized matter and presto: you have a world-wide reach.
5.  Partners: With the right kind of content, you can reach out to partners who would be difficult to access outside of the virtual world. Tag them, follow them, play relevant content and watch the magic.   

These are only a handful of reasons why it makes sense to be on social media, in particular for anything social (forgive the pun) that you might be doing. I once ran a gender safety campaign single-handedly off social media and look at the kind of response it generated (without any media outreach or PR on my part).

Now that I have (hopefully) sold you on the “why”, let’s take a quick look at the “how”. This is fairly involved and like any other outreach, requires an understanding of basic principles of communication.

Just like any sustainable communication strategy, social media needs strong content. This does NOT mean inventing news when there is none, but feeding in interesting content in a strategic manner. The content life-cycle lies at the heart of any social media strategy worth its salt. The “offline” feeds into the online and back into the “offline” or real-world to create a self-sustaining cycle (see figure)

The key to social media success lies in engagement rather than just adding on likes and followers. And the key to that lies in how strong your content is and how well it is presented. Do you listen to your followers? Respond to them? Invite them to engage with you in a manner that is not lost in the sea of social media?

Think on it.

We’re always there if you want to take the discussion on social media further. Just join the doer’s lab on social media (22^nd January 2015). These labs are by and for practitioners and focus on practical tools and knowledge.

Some Much Needed Mash-Up Reveling

Just last weekend Niiti Consulting Inc. hosted a weekend long set of meetings for members of the internal as well as external Niiti Network. The Mash-Up weekend was not only productive for persons already in India's social sectors but it was also a learning experience for many, including myself, who is not yet in a particular space but has a friendly inkling that social entrepreneurship may just hold some unfound treasures that belong to a curious and social-remedied mind. 

This little event of just thirty odd people in a little village in little India is something I will never forget. As a youngin' setting out into the world for the first time since graduating in December, I feel that it was fate for Niiti and I to collide so well on this cold January morning. I met smart, thoughtful, and just genuinely  good people! Everyone had different talents and interests and yet everyone seemed to mesh on the nobility of the cause that had us all gathered together.

We talked about the world, i.e. concerns, issues, insecurities, creativity and discovered from between ourselves how businesses and society itself can interact in more ways than exist thus far. The various people who turned out was what made the experience so wonderful. There were elder business partners who were in the highest mark of their careers, as well as 20 year olds still in college and already looking for scientific and educational opportunities to expand their interests. From Niiti's five pre-selected experts, everyone that attended the mash-up was able to gain real insight into approaches for social entrepreneurship. The Niiti experts facilitated small group discussions on business strategy, design, finance, and marketing. Feedback from attendees was spectacular and as everyone shuffled out of the little room above the clothing shop in Hauz Khas Village, smiles lit up and pens were on the loose, writing down e-mails and exchanging information. I believe I speak on behalf of everyone that attended when I say thank you Niiti! Thank you for the opportunity and for everyone involved you were truly exemplary and I look forward to see what wonderful things you embark on in the New Year. Keep in touch.

Iliana Foutsitzis is a recent graduate of Northeastern University's Political Science curriculum. Before embarking on a law degree Iliana is spending a gap year in New Delhi, India interning with the Niiti Consulting team. Contact Iliana at ifoutsitzis@gmail.com.

Why technology can whisper humanity in politics

The Romans had it right.

On the triumphant chariots, bedecked with triumphant generals or emperors and their laurel wreath, they put a slave shadowing the victor, whispering amid the confetti showers, memento mori, roughly translated you are only a man. It was not a new idea to show a man his proper place. The Greeks had a name for the disease of hubris, pleonexia, or the craving for more than one's share.

The Guardian has referred to pleonexia while talking about Joseph Stiglitz's new book The Price of Inequality which talks about the defining theme of our disturbed times - why so few gain at the expense of so many?

Pleonexia could be a unique trait of the average Indian politician - the desire to gain much more than your share, often at the expense of others.

Why does this happen and why do people get away with it? We believe in India especially it happens because we have a functional democracy but not an experienced democracy.

The difference is simple: India is a democracy, every five years we vote in whoever we want (at least among the pool contesting) but otherwise our connect with democracy, our sense of daily democracy is missing. This means we rarely know our representative, the one we ostensibly knowingly select or elect, and have little or no interaction with the decision-making that happens on our behalf.

Power in India has always been applied by grandeur and fuelled by pleonexia. It comes from hundreds of years of invasion and rule through which the rulers, always a tiny set, could reign over vast millions by impressing an everlasting stamp of superiority and distance. It is a legacy we carry from Mughal and British rule and it has continued mostly unchallenged till now.

For the first time in India's independent history, there is a palpable sense that the gap between those who govern in the name of the people, and the people themselves, is thinning.

Why is this happening? There are multiple reasons from rapid urbanisation which brings people closer to pedestals of power and thereby takes away the mystique; the spread of education breaks the infallible myth; mushrooming media shows demolishes powerful people in our living rooms and bedrooms every night and technology brings not just people but also people in power closer and makes them human.
 

It is fashionable in some circles to laugh at media, and social media, as naiveté of the political imbecile. Ask many an Indian politician today and they will still tell you that elections are won and lost on money, caste and shenanigans, and on little else. That is true - in many cases. But in many more, the tide is turning and anger of the Indian politician, the private bitter and abusive jokes about the media (sometimes well deserved) come from a sense of insecurity that the politician in this country has never felt before.

We believe that one of the greatest boons of much abused technology is that it gives an instantaneous voice to millions - and immediately millions say nonsense - but with time, from the white noise, comes real, steadfast critique which incrementally changes the system.

We believe that the power of technology is not immediate revolution but a relentless barrage that wears, and ultimately, tears off an unjust system.

Technology is not the instant power of an army raised by Subhash Chandra Bose but the wearing effect of Gandhian satyagraha, every drop, every tweet, every post, every phone call, every email, every SMS attacks the unjust and refuses to let them sleep, until, tired and weary, they give up.

Think of a system where every allocation to a bed in a government hospital can be tracked real time - who is it going to, what is the need - is all in one hub that can be accessed at any time. Too big you think? But why? Do we not live in a world where one website caters to the relentless mutterings of reportedly 900 million registered users everyday (Facebook)?
Think of a system where the admission to every government school is online and on the cloud and can be accessed from anywhere, any time. You know who was admitted, from where, how and why.

Think of attendance records of students - and, most critically, teachers - of every government school placed online and on the cloud to be accessed any time, anywhere.

That's why at Whypoll we are staring with the small things - a platform to complain harassment, an app to reach out to friends and family, a system to ask questions of our MPs and MLAs. Every long journey begins with a question.

At Whypoll, we start at the start, at the why.

So when you dream of change, dream with us of a world where change happens in countless ways everyday, at every moment, and leave the age of the guillotine behind. Because technology today can help you whisper in powerful ears - oh, but you too are only human.

Hindol Sengupta is one of the two founding trustees of the not-for-profit Whypoll Trust, India's only open government platform. Whypoll works to create technological interfaces between the citizen and government. He is the author of The Liberals, on living through twenty years of Indian economic liberalisation, out by Harper Collins in August, 2012.