#lifeatindicus

It’s a different joy – almost like a high to have someone believe in your idea. We recently connected with BS and speaking to him replenished my faith. We’re at a crucial stage with UnEarth, end of this month will decide whether we continue with our weekly bulletin video and daily news products!

Obviously, I am so close that it is getting harder to see scope for improvement each day. I do believe that we have something of value and my bias/love has nothing to do with it. I spent the day today inn reaching out to organisations to share our newsletter and bulletin video and introduce them to UnEarth!

I am consciously avoiding the trap of doing my internal individual work first – which always seems easiest and hence what most of us gravitate towards! (It’s true – the trick is to do that which involves others (which is external) first – try it.) Post lunch I began transcribing our IDEA roundtable discussion.

The conversation was intense and packed with knowledge, insights and to-do’s to fix Delhi’s pollution – I enjoyed it, but my fingers didn’t. To end the day – I mapped policy recommendations to central, state and local authorities!

As I am ending the day, I realise I am so grateful for work which I look forward to, especially in these times. What are you looking forward to this week?

I experienced a new joy today…the joy of having someone believe in my idea. We’re hiring interns to help us grow our communications network (and honestly, also bring in a fresh perspective and energy.) Over the last week, we received a lot of interesting applications. The last week has not been fun – our Top Environment News video did not do well and although I kept telling myself, ‘failing fast’ is better – knowing that there are strangers who believe in our idea fuelled me!

After doing a round of shortlisting, I spent the day improving our video. Free video tip anyone? A square video makes it easier to read text on mobile. After editing the thumbnail and format multiple times – when I was out of file names, I switched to editing our newsletter design.

I ended the day figuring where our subscribers are from – their age, location, gender and interests!

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I wish you all a very happy (belated) Ganesh Chaturthi! May Ganpati Bappa take all our troubles away soon (and help me write more consistently!)  

From the time I woke up today – all I’ve been thinking of is 500 views! After having put in worst-case scenario numbers in Excel, I was confident. Fate and YouTube had different plans.

I began with promoting our videos on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. The hope is to reach out to people who would be a part of our community. Luckily, we don’t rely on just hope – I’ll be preparing a trailer/teaser video advertisement to give people a glimpse of our work!

I spent the rest of the day today sharing our videos in online communities – on Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, Pinterest, Wimp, Daily Motion and Blogorama. Most of it was mechanical – almost meditative. An exciting new video format I was shown today morning– fast-paced with foot-tapping tempo kept me going!    

Today was slow and not particularly exciting. Thankfully the goal of 500 views remains and is challenging!

I’m the kind of optimist that believes even the dead can come to life. Always have been! Yet, glass-half-full excites me. Why? For the last year and half, each time I’ve found something missing – it’s turned out to be an opportunity for me. No information on how informal businesses function turned into my research paper on The Business of Doing Informal Business in India. No comprehensive details on protocols during Covid19? We published a video on them.

Today as I spent hours trying to find sources of all major global environment news and had no luck, a small part of was constantly dancing. It’s going to be a long journey, so in the meantime, I worked on creating carousel posts, stories and quizzes for Instagram and Facebook– to make it easier for you to know about the environment and give us time to convert the lack of comprehensive environment news site into an opportunity!

As I end my day with half glass of coffee, I cannot wait to come back tomorrow and study how to create an environment news channel! Cheers!

15 platforms. 50 applications. 30 shortlisted candidates. 20 telephonic interviews. 8 personal interviews. I spent most of last week on hiring video interns. We finalised 1 for an in-house engagement from our office and she refused last night. A part of me was annoyed, yet luckily, I had other things planned which allowed me to enter office with my usual excitement. I hurriedly reached office and immersed myself in work, selecting and sending news options for the upcoming newsletter.  

I took a quick 10-minute break to share updates on our rooftop solar awareness campaign on social media. The difference and tone and content for an individual and organisation tweet seems natural to me now, and I don’t know if it is confidence or practice or both, but last year it took me way more time and validation to put out a single post (not to forget the nervousness that followed after!) I’m already psyched that my next goal is to master live tweeting!

Post lunch, we had a short but intense discussion on what The Unearth Bulletin would be in 2020. Happy with how far we have come and thrilled on the roadmap for the next few months, we spent some time interviewing two more candidates to help us in this journey. Although we didn’t find our co-drivers, I did learn an intuitive but unrecognised hiring tip: a person’s schooling is crucial since that’s where the foundation is laid for basic communication and core attitude.

I ended the day focusing on strengthening our base – the newsletter coverage and reach!