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Category Archives: Musings
Strange and funny thoughts
Cartoon: How Many Marathons Does a City Need?
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The Secret Behind Impressive Corporate Language
Where do the heavy-sounding corporate statements come from?
You may have often marvelled at the corporate leaders’ ability to spew wise-sounding, inspiring statements in presentations and speeches, and wondered how they can construct such sentences with heavy-sounding words, effortlessly.
Well, wonder no more, because the secret is out! They get their phrases and sentences from websites that generate such statements on demand. In the next meeting, you too can go armed with your set of phrases, and insert them at an appropriate point to impress everyone.
Here are some websites that generate corporate (bs) statements on demand:
- http://cbsg.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/live
- http://www.atrixnet.com/bs-generator.html
- http://www.buzzwords4u.co.uk/
- http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html
Corporate to spiritual
So, what happens when these inspiring speakers ‘retire’ and there are no corporate captive audience to listen to them any more? They become spiritual leaders for people seeking ‘meaning’ in life. They expound profound theories in which the listeners look for hidden meanings.
These spiritual leaders are now assisted by a different set of websites that generate statements with the right set of keywords.
Here are some random statements (generated by the website http://www.wisdomofchopra.com/):
- “Making tea is a reflection of ephemeral confluence of divinity”
- “Interdependence quiets your own balance”
- “Hidden meaning results from precious mortality”
Another wonderful website randomly generating whole long articles is http://sebpearce.com/bullshit/ (just on click the “Reionize Electrons” button to generate an article).
Now, a Quiz
Please view the youtube video and guess whether it is a “serious talk” or the speaker is “making fun” of corporate jargon (use the “Comment” feature below for your answer).
If the video does not load, use the link https://youtu.be/QkwhKxzNrVY.
Please share your thoughts in the space below for comments! And don’t forget to answer the quiz: “Serious Talk” or “Making Fun”?
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Future Moves of Low Cost Airlines?
People who regularly travel by air are well aware of the strategies adopted by low-cost airlines (we shall refer to these airlines as ‘CheapAir’ in this article). Some things that they already do, allegedly to compensate for their cheap base tickets are:
- Charging for food/ drinks in the flight
- Express check-in queues where you pay extra for faster check-in (last time I managed to complete the check-in faster than those who paid the extra amount – I smirked a ‘bye, take your time’ to the folks in the express queue 😉 ).
- Special, variable charges for many of the seats – seats in front, aisle seats, window seats, emergency row, etc.
- Lowering the limits of free baggage and being strict about charging for excess baggage
- Reducing the weight carried by the aircraft to reduce the fuel consumption by:
- Getting rid of ovens from the aircraft (no warm meals)
- Making seats lighter (and making them thinner to accommodate 1-2 rows more)
- Hiring crew with small build (I have also noticed on one of the CheapAirs in India that all cabin crew members are always of one gender – I am not sure whether this is discrimination)
More than a strategy to recover some money, I think it is a strategy to project themselves as really cheap (low-cost or budget), so that the travelers do not critically look at the ticket prices (which are sometimes higher than the ticket prices on ‘full-service’ airlines).
More to Come?
Here is what else you can expect from CheapAirs in the not so distant future:
Free weight limit will be based on the total weight (weight of the traveler + check-in baggage + hand baggage) and the free total weight limit will be really low (maybe 50Kgs?). There will be weigh-in and payment facility at the boarding gates, and special charges for ‘express weigh in’. As this may make people serious about losing weight, the CheapAirs will be partnering with weight-loss industry and getting a commission from them.
Eventually, after everyone shrinks and carries little baggage, the CheapAirs can add more seats and use the baggage hold area better too.
Use of toilets on the aircraft will be charged. The charges will have to be paid before you enter the toilet. The charges will be based on the time that you plan to use the toilet. At the end of the paid time, the toilet door will open and the honored guest (passenger) will be ejected. There will be no refunds for non-usage or reduced usage. All toilet material (water, tissues, loo-paper) will have to be purchased on a non-returnable basis. Used toilet material will have to be carried back by the guest to reduce the cleaning cost/ garbage disposal cost for the CheapAirs.
Eventually, as people get used to not using the toilets, the toilets space will be used to accommodate more passengers (I don’t think that they will make the passengers sit in the toilets, but will modify the aircraft to replace the toilet cubicles with seats 🙂 ).
Garbage clearing and cabin cleaning charges. Every passenger will charged for the amount of mess he/ she leaves behind. A refundable charge will be levied on the ticket and the balance amount will be refunded as a credit for the passenger, to be used towards future travel.
Passengers acting as part-time cabin crew. For a fee, travelers will be able to role-play cabin crew members for a flight. The fee entitles them to a cabin crew uniform and free meal and the privilege of experiencing the glamorous profession of airline crew. Breakages and complaints from other passengers will mean additional fines for the part-time cabin crew.
So, one passenger seat saved and one less cabin crew member. And fees collected from part-time cabin crew.
The CheapAirs are also contemplating disposing rubbish from the mid-air. I think a pilot study is already on, going by the reports here and here.
Eventually, there will be less load to carry, less cleaning cost and faster aircraft turnaround.
A leader in innovative pricing in the ultra-low-cost segment is Ryanair. Here is a video highlighting their ‘ultra cheapness’.
If the video does not load, click here (you will be charged a viewing fee that is computed based on the dynamic market demand-supply situation) :-).
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Cartoon: Get Ugly Billboards Removed?
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Cartoon: Corporate Managers and Sports-persons – Sharing Best Practices
Wish you all a very happy 2016!
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Cartoon: The ‘Missed-Call’ Mode of Communication
Increasingly, ‘missed-call’, or ‘miss-call’, or ‘miskol’ (Philippine lingo) is being used as a means of communication, not just by individuals, but also by organizations, who openly ask their customers to ‘give a missed-call.’
I did find it difficult to explain the concept of ‘missed-call’ to a friend from a Western country. His question was “How can I give you a missed call? If you don’t pick it up, you miss the call. The caller cannot control whether it is a missed call or not – only the receiver can make it a missed call or picked call.”
Anyway, here is another attempt to explain what a missed-call is.
‘A missed-call (or miss-call or miskol) is a telephone call deliberately terminated by the caller before being answered by its intended recipient. The missed-call (sometimes a sequence of missed-calls) communicates a pre-agreed message without paying the cost of a call.’
This is now being used in an organized way by large entities, for getting prospective customers to indicate their interest in the organization’s product/ service. It is being used by political parties to collect opinions. It is being used by game shows to collect answers/ votes, etc. That is creating a large load on the communications network, without any revenue for the telephone companies.
Here is some data (unverified):
- Missed-calls make roughly 70% of the cellular phone traffic in Bangladesh
- The Indian industry of cellphone service providers has estimated a revenue loss due to missed-calls was between 20 and 30%, in 2007
I guess eventually the cellphone operators will find some ways to recover revenues, especially for usage by organizations openly asking the public to give a missed call to a specific number.
Maybe they will create special phone numbers only for missed calls (like toll-free numbers).
Until then, let us continue using missed calls:
- One missed-call if you read and liked this post
- Two missed-calls if you did not like it
- Three missed-calls if you did not read it
- Four missed-calls if you are unaware of this post
🙂
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Cartoon: Keep Bangalore Clean
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Cartoon: Buddha As Spa Brand Ambassador
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Cartoon: Dynamic Surge Pricing Innovation (?!?)
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