Unicef - Award winning advertisements

Ads that speak for themselves. Pictures that'll sell it all.

No wonder our ancestors preferred depictions than a million words.

Many languages have come to existence and many have been ceased from existence.

In

7 Continents

193 Countries

6700 Languages

There is

1 Common language...

The means of communication that has stood the test of time...

"Depiction" --- Pictures perfect and imperfect...

Here are a few ads that will hopefully leave everyone thinking and responding...

.....................................Think !!!

Pictures-Courtesy : Internet

Good evenings !!! The day that wasn't... ;)

So much has been happening over the week that I've hardly found time to blog all that I wanted to.

Leaving aside the fact that I've wasted a lot of time too... Nevertheless, here are the sparkles at your visions offer.

It had been an uneventful day as I sat on my couch killing time in front of the television Oblivious and unbothered of what they next minute had in store for me. Little did I know about the turn of events that evening, until it happened. Enlightenment was the word. Enlightenment struck me.... Enlightenment struck???

There was no tree... only a TV (With Bloomberg tuned in - watching the channel blank) ... hmmm, I guess I'll have to rephrase it. I'll call it an Idea, The Idea for an awesome start-up which would feed the market needs in near future. Creativity, Innovation, Management and entrepreneurship. These are the elements that I'd love to mould my future with. So there was a want... a void that needed a well materialistic thought. It was this thought that I was in search off. I also realized that, there were many of the similar sorts available all around us. But then, picking the one that gives you the satisfaction and the feeling of fullness is a task way more than mere words. It was this evening that eureka content that struck me. This idea that came from nowhere was too good to be "now here". It connected all the dots that till that very moment were vague and pathless on the whole.

The next day, as I discussed this idea with my friend and we came up with another one & once again in no time I was brimming with start-up ideas in umpteen quantities. It was the research and analysis that were to be done. On the whole the next day proved to be a refreshingly resourceful one.

The evening prior to the day of the " enlightenment :P " I had met an entrepreneur who is presently based in Sydney.

A person who's venture now helps a lot of people to find the right colleges to study abroad and the vice versa. The evening turned out to be one which i wouldn't forget in the years to come.

I still couldn't figure out the reason why he chose me. It could probably be that, of all people, I was the one who needed his advice and guidance the most. And so was the wish granted even before I could voice it. He chose to give me personal guidance and advice, something that wouldn't have been possible if not for a seminar. I was glad to have attended the seminar in which he addressed the students in common. A seminar which I wasn't even aware of and thus had no plans attending. The only thing that I did was to be at The Park hotel on a day which eventually turned out to be an eventful one.

Life is full of experiences and every moment has something to teach us. I strongly believe that it is in this ability of a person to perceive, understand & learn from every moment that time has at offer that the value of true experiences are gained.

A Story to tell... :)

I really wonder how to describe the situation am in... A time when am obviously supposed to be free, I've managed to keep myself occupied to make sure that I don't miss my under graduation days at college and a lot more... I realized that it had been a long while since I'd got off my blogging spree and I intend to change that. After all, what good is a man if he is incapable of managing his very own time?

Every day begins and ends with share of surprises and the day before yesterday was one such day with a different pattern. I got myself to be the events coordinator of "Wordsworth International Spelling Bee - National level Finals". To coordinate events in a totally new environment for a very diverse class of students ranging from grade 3 to 12 was an experience worth the time spent. As this busy day mellowed out with a satisfaction of a job well done, it was time for me to be a part of the Chennai road traffic. Awesome sight with lights close to each other all over the roads, everything bright and beautiful yet so silent. All this beauty and splendor for one to enjoy is all there, only from a bird's eye view. As we move closer things become clear with dust, sharper with horns so profound that their tiding decibel levels are a musical treat to the Deaf. With every ticking minute the vehicles move from start to start to start. They are very much there in the same place where they were minutes before. With no space to walk and a long way to go, I sat in the car amidst the tiring city traffic. Laughter... oh, I almost forgot to mention. It was the driver who sat behind the wheels and the only thing that bothered me was the time that was being wasted on the journey back home after a long day. Traffic has been this way for a very long time and by now I'm very much used to it ;). In company of various franchise partners & directors the journey back home was full of laughter over various issues and impromptu cracks. Although i had planned to blog about the day that night, as I reached home an interesting article in McKinsey Quarterly caught my attention. I'll be blogging about this article tomorrow. And after that article, it was a good a good nights' rest and the rest is assured to be the same for a good few hours... :)

The day's Toast ;) Feeling tired... Take a dark bite!

It sure has been a long time since my last post... With lots of interesting things happening and lots to share, I confine myself to one post. Time sure is on a very high demand, and I'm on a spree to chase it down. A tiresome job rite ;) ?...

Well, here is an interesting piece of information that I brushed past.

It's dark, delicious and definitely health...

And now, their makers sure seem to have become a happier bunch, with have another feather to play their market.

It's the "DARK CHOCOLATE"

Researchers have it as follows...

"Dark Chocolate fights Fatigue."

To be precise, a daily dose of dark chocolate may help patients suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

It has been found that dark chocolates lower the level of serotonin when consumed.

Serotonin is believed to play a major role in the regulation of one anger, aggression, mood, sleep, body temperature and appetite.

A cautionary note-

Anything over your bin could leave with a dirty spin. Like the famous saying goes, too much of anything is good for nothing... Dark chocolates are no exceptions.

Over consumption could lead to over stimulation of the nervous system.

Consuming two cubes is good enough to get one a fresh start.

For all those who count the calories with a menu card by their side, here is an excuse to dare a bite ;)

And for the rest... enjoy your day :)

!!! Lighter side !!! laugh your heart out !!! # 8

You should be worried !!!

Problems caused by deforestation!!!

Laugh !!! But, give it a thought...

If not grow, at the least... Help SAVE Trees... !!!

Teaching the world to change

An article on Social Entrepreneurship by Dan Viederman

Teaching the world to change

An estimated 200 million children work in developing countries. Another 25 million people are enslaved in factories, farms, mines, and homes. Hundreds of millions more are cheated out of wages that are rightfully theirs and have no choice but to work in conditions that put them at risk of injury and even death.

It is easy to be numbed by these figures. So let’s consider the story of Rani, a girl we met in India in late 2009. Rani is now 14 and has worked at a spinning mill in Tirupur, a textile city located in the southern part of the country, since she was 11, bleaching cloth and using chemicals to wash garments. Her family sent her to the factory, which produces clothes for export, under the sumangali scheme, in which underage girls work far from home for three years, in return for a lump sum payment of around $750. Rani’s family had no other way to make enough money to pay her dowry. But after repeatedly burning herself with chemicals and suffering under the risk of sexual abuse from her employers, Rani ran away—returning home injured, poorer, and in conflict with her parents because she had forfeited the payment due to her.

Verite can resolve the specific problems Rani faces by intervening at that factory in India to improve its management, and by ensuring that Rani has the support she needs to stand up for herself. But our only chance of reaching the tens of millions of vulnerable people around the world—to achieve large-scale change—is to change the practices of others. Our primary approach to scaled change is to ensure that businesses around the world integrate the interests and needs of their most vulnerable participants. Our best chance to improve the rights and livelihoods of the many is if others replicate our intervention.

Here’s an example. One of our initial innovations was finding a way to elevate workers to the status of full stakeholders in the factories and farms where they work. We make sure that workers’ knowledge about the places that employ them becomes part of the picture we develop about working conditions. We do this in a deceptively simple way—by talking to them. But this conversation can be difficult to come by. On a recent assessment visit to a farm in the western United States we were told by the owners that work started at 10am, and that we should arrive at the field then. Instead of taking the owner at his word, our auditors showed up at 6:45am, to find two buses of migrant workers just arriving for work. We spent the next two hours hearing their stories, learning about their experiences and discussing their problems. Our findings from workers then become part of the facts we present to factory or farm management, and to the companies that buy their goods.

Too often this sort of investigation ignores the perspectives of workers. We set out to change this. After a year of multi-stakeholder conversations around the world we promulgated a standard for the conduct of social audits. This standard has now been adopted by a coalition of the world’s largest companies. We have simultaneously begun to train others outside Verite to conduct social audits according to this standard. As a result, our approach will be implemented by thousands of people around the world undertaking investigations at the behest of those companies. We leverage the information they provide to guide change in standards and management. Last year, our approach was formally adopted as an emerging standard by a coalition of the world’s largest companies. It will be implemented by thousands of people around the world undertaking investigations at the behest of those companies into the daily operations of factories and farms.

It’s important to note that this replication-oriented approach to entrepreneurial innovation may present some challenges. Sometimes investigators will undertake worker engagement effectively, but sometimes they will fail to follow the standards that we have promulgated. Some companies may decide to adopt and apply the standard completely, while others may choose portions of it or implement it halfheartedly in certain circumstances. In scaling this innovation, our recruitment of implementation partners necessitates that we give up control. The result may be some “implementations” that we don’t entirely endorse. But when companies take a first step towards responsibility, they have at least started walking forward.

This approach to scaling implies two challenges to the typical understanding of social entrepreneurship. First, entrepreneurship is often seen as a solitary pursuit, one that glorifies the individual (or her institution). At Verité, however, we believe that collaboration is an essential part of scaling social impact; our efforts require partners—both businesses and governments—at every step of the way. As with any partnership, we may in some cases lose control over the intervention. But we embrace the trade-off between control and expansion, believing that the problems we’re trying to address are so dire that it is imperative to reach as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. Our work with the world’s largest companies leverages billions of dollars of spending, vast but intangible corporate reputations, and thousands of daily business transactions into better working conditions for millions of people. At the same time, we recognize the limits of business “responsibility.” Social entrepreneurship can often overemphasize the role of private-sector frameworks. However, we believe that market mechanisms can make the achievement of human rights less costly. They can ensure, for example, ensure that Rani is more likely to prosper than face danger and disgrace in the workplace——but they can’t guarantee rights.

Only governments can guarantee rights for individuals and only governments can ensure that rights are respected wherever people are at risk. As social entrepreneurs we have to be clear on the limits of our own models—in particular, that markets are neither more nor less effective for delivering social goods than they are for delivering private goods. Our work with business, then, aims to create an environment that is conducive rather than hostile to government action. Over the past ten years, for example, multinational businesses have opened space in China for an explicit conversation about labor rights that the Chinese government may not have begun. Our work with international business lays the groundwork for changes in the acceptance of social regulation.

The question of scale for Verité is how we can reach tens of millions of people whose rights are constrained. We ourselves are about fifty people worldwide, a number small enough to be quite at odds with our aspirations. Like Archimedes, we seek a lever long enough to move the world. For us, this is the business world, which we hope to inspire with the feasibility of doing things better.

Courtesy : Internet.

Aqua Night ~ Wednesday delight ;)

It's been a long time since I blogged... And a lot has happened...

Well, what do I start with... The Aqua Night >>>

Yeah, one of my really close buddies had decided to treat me and a few other friends at

The Park hotel.

Restaurant Aqua situated on the eight floor opens out to a blue jelly textured rectangular pool

surrounded by fount white fabric draped cabanas, arc tables, luxurious beds under the night sky,

live music, beautiful lighting and a lot more.

This is one perfect place to unwind with friends.

Wednesday nights are a must check ones. The flower power barbeques on Wednesday nights add a smoky touch to the place.

The Azure pool and the night sky with a good view of the city and natural breeze give this restaurant the flavours it needs to justify the name "AQUA".

I had a great time with friends. We were enjoying the evening to the fullest that we never realized the ticking time until it was just an hour before the next day.

I'm running short of words to explain the !!! FUN !!! part. I guess it's well understood without words. :)

It was an awesome night. A few beautiful memories are to be cherished for a long time. This is one such occasion. Hoping to have many more of these awesome memories :) :) :)