Why Yogesh for MLA - Bommanahalli?

Those following my posts on Facebook might know that I have been all about Yogesh Devaraj and Yogesh Devaraj - MLA for Bommanahalli for the past couple of weeks. Forgive my spamming you with it and please bear and share until May 5th ... have tried to restrict the spamming to FRIENDS in BANGALORE for the vast part but for the occasional rant.

Who is Yogesh? 

Yogesh is a friend who I met through two of my closest friends in Hong Kong way back in 2007. Yogesh was travelling back to India for a vacation and had a 6 hour stop-over. Yogesh wouldn't miss a chance to meet his friends for the world and since I was at home that afternoon, I decided to join and meet them. My first impression of him was as though he was my friend too and not just Pushpa & Deepak's. We ended up chatting for long and he almost ended up missing his flight. He just about made it to the boarding gate on time and pretty soon, I forgot all about him. A few days later, a mail and a Facebook request followed and we stayed in touch for a long time. 

A few more things about him that you might be able to connect with ... Schooling in Marimallappas, Engineering in RVCE, Sr. Manager in CISCO, Born in Mysore, Living in Bangalore since 2007 in Pride Regalia, near Bannerghatta Road, Arekere, Founder President of BANA, Active Volunteer of IAC, AAP [worked full-time for IAC coordinating various activities], BIG Fan of Anna Hazare & Arvind Kejriwal. :-).

He quit his JOB

I heard from friends that he had quit his full-time job and was committing to social causes. I heard about a few things he was doing (An NGO, A School, Fights against Corruption in Government Agencies like BDA and BBMP, founding and leading BANA - A group of RWAs, Organizing Socio-Cultural activities to encourage young talents) and the impacts it was having (again from friends and the occasional update on Facebook). When he got actively involved in IAC, I always admired what he was doing, the courage he was showing, the conviction he had shown to go the whole hog and wanted to join ... but like 90% of the Facebook crowd, I just liked and commented and never did anything to follow-thru in terms of even attending a dharna OR a meeting OR a candle-light.

I AM CONTESTING

Things changed on a lazy Sunday Afternoon when I was chilling and checking out Facebook in early Feb/late Jan (Not sure), I saw an update from Yogesh that he was going to contest the coming Assembly Election ... while I was happy for him, I didn't know a lot of what, why, etc. Continued giving free gyaan on various topics around what he should do in his campaign, what he should not do, etc ... all along frustrated with myself that I was not able to do much.

FREE GYAAN ENDS ...

One fine day, Yogesh had had enough with my free gyaan. He pinged me, asked for my no and almost immediately called me back. Spoke about his campaign, what he had been doing (in more detail) and why he wanted to contest the election, his vision and how this would be a game-changer for Bangalore and Karnataka Politics. He also spoke about how he is different from all other candidates including some people with a good-image but who were all talk and little action. He spoke about his sacrifices and the motivation for his sacrifices. He had got a lot from the State and the City and the people here and he wanted to give back to society. More importantly, he saw the clear need for people like him to come into Politics and clean it up from within. If not, he said, the day is not too far when all of us will need to pack our bags and move off to a Europe or a South-East-Asian Country (since US would anyway not be able to handle all of us).

I obviously knew most of what he was saying about Doomsday being near being an active follower of politics and corruption (in the State by the BJP, Congress & JD-S) and in the Center by Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and her bunch of servants. And the nagging feeling of not having done anything to fix the mess that we are in and disaster we are moving towards finally got me to say "Yogesh - What you are saying sounds great, how can I help?". He sought help in 2-3 areas that included Social Media Campaign Management and Website Optimization. These were obviously my strengths being an Online and Social Media Analytics Consultant at one of the world's most active company in Social Media and one of the early movers in the eCommerce space (way back in 1995). So, I jumped at the opportunity.

AND ACTION BEGINS ...

Since that day in the first week of March, a lot has changed.  I have met him and talked to him so many times. I have actually gone on a couple of campaigns with him in his constituency. I have asked him so many questions including many that people in his Facebook Page ask as well as many of my own. I have learnt so many new things about him. So many unsung achievements (schools he has transformed, NGOs that he has given a huge fillip too, enabled a signficant increase in voter registrations in his area) and transformations he has been able to achieve in the last 4 years of full-time public service that I am convinced that come what may, we need to ensure he makes it to the Assembly on May 5th. I don't care if the richest businessman (embroiled in the land-mafia) OR the worst goon is contesting. We need to make sure Yogesh wins and he's going to change not just Bommanahalli, but politics in Bangalore and Karnataka too.

HIS PROMISE

As many of my friends asked me, I asked Yogesh too. So, what are your promises to your electorate? What are you going to do if you win the election. His answer is simple ... people are tired of promises. People need MLAs who can deliver and have shown a track-record of delivering, a track-record of service, someone who they can approach when they need something, someone who will make sure that all the basic needs of a human being (whether rich OR poor) such as Water, Electricity, Roads, Employment & Self-Employment Opportunities (by Skilling, Training & creating Jobs), Health and Hygiene and sufficient well-equipped Civic Amenities and someone who can ensure that there is zero-tolerance to corruption.

He says once I achieve this, then we can think of the moon and the stars and then I'll refer to the manifestos of all these parties. The other thing he says is why second guess what people want ... he seeks opinion from people at every stage in his campaign on what they want and more often than not, he is proven right. The odd occasion when someone brings up a valid point and it makes sense, he is quick to absorb into his vision and also then start talking to various people in relevant roles / departments about how that can be achieved. E.g. One such point that came out from a young graduate who was looking for a better job (he was doing some part-time work) was how are you going to help people like me in terms of opportunities and skilling. He took the youth's number, spent the next few days thinking about this and talked to various friends in companies in a range of sectors and came back with a clear answer and an action plan of what he would do. The kid was not only impressed ... he now volunteers with Yogesh (and yes, he volunteers - not paid employees just called volunteers to feel good about themselves)

WHY YOGESH IS INDEED THE BEST CANDIDATE?

I asked several trying questions to him around how will you achieve each of the objectives and there are five key traits which I feel will help him achieve whatever he has set out  to do:

1. He understands the pulse of the people really well. He knows exactly what the people on the street want since he's talked to 100s of 1000s of people over the last three years in his various community service initiatives and activities. His conversations with people are so wonderful. It almost feels like his pitch is exactly what everyone on the street is looking for. And no, this is not just a pitch. He feels strongly about it.
2. He is fully committed to this cause. Who would quit a well-paying job and work full-time on various activities that affect society in terms of governance, social-welfare, education for 3-4 years. Most candidates I know are either full-time businessman OR employed in some kind of role.
3. He has clear ideas on each and every need and how he is going to fulfill it. But, more importantly, he has the humility to seek inputs from the grass-roots and experts, listen to them and implement suggestions when good ones are made.
4. He totally believes in democracy and empowerment of local bodies. So, while his priorities are the basic needs, he is not going to go and start doing what a corporator OR a Govt Employee has to do. All he will do is to get the team to focus on achieving his vision of meeting all the basic needs and give his 100% to fulfilling it.
5. He is a doer. Unlike most other well-minded candidates, he is one person who has achieved in his short public career achieved so many things that he's built a huge fan-following across the constituency and actually across the state and even in the US during his time there.

As regards his winnability, he is super-strong in 3-4 wards of the constituency (where he stays and where he has done a lot of good work for people there) and is also gaining a lot of traction in others with strong teams of volunteers getting formed. And every new ward that his team goes after, people are seeing him and realizing that there is still HOPE and the HOPE is leading to a WAVE for CHANGE across BOMMANAHALLI. And more importantly, this time is going to be a 6-way fight (BJP, JD-S, Congress, KJP, BSR and Independents/Small Parties) and even if TOTAL VOTES go up to about 150-180K (from 120K last time), getting about 40-50K votes should get him into the reckoning. Then, it's just a matter of a few more things falling in place and we should have Yogesh as our MLA for Bommanahalli. :-)

THE FINAL REQUEST

My request to my friends and family is this:

1. Please VOTE for him (irrespective of what your political affiliations are, what your friends tell you about any other candidate, what Social Media tells you about the race being between BJP, Congress and JD-S)
2. Please spread the WORD between now and 5th May (Talk to at least 3-4 people about Yogesh every day, Share our stories about Yogesh and his campaign on social channels, email to friends, chat with them) - Basically do what it takes to help Yogesh win. DO IT FOR YOURSELF (even if he is not in your constituency, I believe his winning will change KARNATAKA and NATIONAL POLITICS). For more info about Yogesh OR pass on the word, please refer to www.vote4yogesh.org OR www.facebook.com/YogeshForMLA. Use this post if you like.
3. Please VOLUNTEER and join his campaign team. Believe me, you'll really feel good about yourself. I thoroughly enjoyed the two days when I was part of it and am sure you will too. Don't worry about not being in his constituency ... I am not too. I plan to take part in as many as my JOB and my 3-month old kid allows ... to be fair to her, it is more my wanting to be with the kid than the kid wanting me right now since she's settled down significantly now (touch-wood). :-)

That's it for now. Over to you in terms of Liking and Sharing this post on e-mail, FB, Twitter, LinkedIn and every other channel that is available. Let's get working!!! :-)

Coming Up: Some interesting stories from the Campaign Trail including one on how not to mess up our Social Media campaign (as one of the other candidates did) :-)

My First Ultra Marathon ... yeahhhh!!!!

Coming back to the topic of this post, it's been a life-long ambition to complete a full-marathon and this was a spur of the moment decision to "Just Do It". Late-September, I was debating between the 12.5K and the 25K and the 12.5 would have been the more reasonable choice considering the longest I'd ever run was the TCS 10K earlier this year. But then, I thought what the hell. What's life without a challenge. This post is a long (really really long) time coming. I was once an avid blogger and wrote on the smallest of events of my life. This past month has been the most eventful month of my life and I felt that it deserved a post even if it doesn't become the restart of what was once a regular habit.

The two events:

Event 1: Nov 11th, 2012 - Ran and completed my first ever Marathon (OK, it was just a half marathon rather a 25K race).
Event 2: In just a little under 4 weeks after that, we were blessed with a little angel (To-Be-Named) at 5:38 am on the 8th of December. After some initial breathing troubles and a minor bout of Jaundice, she is now back at home enjoying her long naps interspersed with frequent smiles immediately followed by frowns which keeps us amused all day.

The next 6 weeks were spent in diligent training. lots of useful advice from my experienced marathoner friends (Special thanks to Rajit), lots of purchases (shoes, ankle and knee support, running clothes - all to keep me motivated & fake preparedness:-)) and tons of (pre-exam day like) anxiety over if I would be able to do it. Before I knew it, race-day was onto me. The longest I'd run in my 5 week training on my long run days was about 11-12K and the race was double the distance.

Race day started really early. Got up at 3am (after a couple of hours of sleep) and drove down to MG Road to get on the Bus to the race location. Reached the race venue at 5am, did my stretches, ate some light snacks since by my estimate the race would only end around 10am for me (Positive thinking that I would make the end) and started at the back of the line-up when we were called to the starting line. Start late, start slowly was what everyone had told me. I followed the advice to the T.

I really was at the back of the pack and even the few who started behind me started running past me pretty soon ... was jogging that slowly. It wasn't until the 3k mark that I finally noticed a few people who'd raced ahead starting to walk and I slowly jogged past them. Since it was a 6.25x2 loop that we had to repeat twice, I made the half loop in around 48". Relatively slow, but I was still jogging and hadn't once stopped but for the occassional walks at the water junctions.

I continued on and surprise surprise, was still jogging at the 12.5 mark. When I was about 200m from the half-way mark, I heard a lot of chatter and excitement on the loud speaker. I did for a moment begin to wonder if all the excitement was for my completing the biggest run of my life ... I looked back and saw a tall lanky dude running after me. I suddenly realized that this was the "To-Be-Winner" of the half-marathon who was running towards the finish line. I definitely didn't want to get lapped, not even by the winner of the race ... so I ran like I was actually racing him to the finish line. Was probably a funny sight for the volunteers ... but it definitely mattered to me. :-) I crossed the half-way mark at around 1'45". This speed and I would make the full race at 3'30" which would have been amazing for a first-timer.

Happy that I'd made it past the half-way mark, I continued running/jogging till about the 15K mark ... that was when I started feeling a real pain on my left heel. I'd strapped myself around the ankle and the ankle-brace while keeping my ankle protected was starting to hurt near the heel real badly since I'd not strapped it on correctly. I stopped to remove my shoe & the ankle brace and that was probably the first big mistake. The break was a long one (atleast 5-8mins) and I lost a lot of time and momentum. After that, I was not able to jog continuously however hard I tried. As I neared the 3/4 distance point the runs had reduced to a few meters followed by long walks.

Lot of pain, lot of hobbling and several failed attempts at running later made it to about a km of the finish line. I definitely didn't want to walk past the finish line and jogged the last km despite being in real pain. Was a satisfying finish in 3'50" ... much slower than what I'd hoped for at the half-way mark but within my worst case scenario of 4 hours. And better news was delivered a few minutes after I finished ... the announcer announced that there were still around 75 people still running after I had finished. I wasn't the last one and that was good enough for me.

Finishing a half-marathon was probably never a big deal ... finishing it when I am at my heaviest & most unfit without picking up any major injury both during the training & during the race is the real story.

Having spent the last month gloating over having finished a marathon, I signed up for the Auroville Marathon to make sure that I keep up my running and don't give up on my dream to one day complete a full-marathon. After a month of lazing on my backside and resting on my so-called laurels & accolades (read likes), I ran my first training run yesterday. The goal for Auroville is to complete the shorter distance of 21.2K (Half-Marathon) at a 2'30" OR atleast a 2'40". Might be ambitious ... but what's life without a challenge or two. Wish me luck!!!

A side note: I did make sure I told my gym instructor about this. In early October, the dude gave me a "you must be joking" look and laughed his heart out when I told him that I'd signed up for a 25K. Saying that "he was shocked" when he heard that I'd completed the 25K would be an understatement.  :-)

Top 7 Resume Improvement Tips - For even the best

I gave out Free Resume Tips to improve even the best CV all of July on Facebook.com/Randhir.Net. While it has been shared and liked by many friends & clients, I thought it would be great to share them in one place.

#R2J Tip 1: Resume is about what you achieved and what you can achieve and not about what you were supposed to do as per your job description. Check every line of your CV to make sure that this is what it is doing.

#R2J Tip 2: Tables look lame on your CV but are a powerful way of Formatting your content into multiple columns/sections. A cool way to get the best of both is to create the tables, but remove the borders.

#R2J Tip 3: Make sure your most important content is on Page 1 and at the Top of Page 1. A good way of doing this is to make sure your Professional Summary is your 2 minute pitch and the first 1-2 lines of the Summary is your 30 sec pitch. Add Skills, Achievements, a work summary

#R2J Tip 4: Have Certifications, Affiliated to some Industry Forum? Worked with Big Brand Names and are proud of it? Make sure you add the logos in appropriate locations on your CV so that they stand out in your CV.

#R2J Tip 5: Having a Social Profile (atleast on LinkedIn) is more important than ever before? I get 50 visitors on my LinkedIn profile every week and atleast 50% of them are prospective employers or consultants who are checking me out. My company does most of its sourcing on LinkedIn. Make sure you maintain it appropriately. Why is this a resume tip? If you have some great recos on LinkedIn, make sure you highlight that in your CV (Possibly in the Footer)

#R2J Tip 6: Want to switch industries? Want to take on a new role within the current company/industry? Freelance/Weekend projects & Internships in your area of interest and other areas too and a separate section that talks about all of your independent initiatives will help showcase you as a well-rounded individual and a go-getter.

#R2J Tip 7: Last in our Resume Improvement Tips, but definitely not the least. Matching the CV to the Job Description is very important. Matching could be as simple as moving bullet points around, highlighting keywords from JD or rewording parts of the CV to reflect relevant achievements that the Job is looking for. I typically start with a 1.5 page resume and cut down to 1page depending on the role I am applying to.

Do like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/randhir.net to keep getting tips such as these, special offers on our services and trainings and a lot lot more. Share this with your friends and family if you think they will benefit from our services or tips.

Also, go to the Photos section of our Fanpage to see Page#1 of my 1.5 page resume which has most of these tips incorporated. Feel free to learn from them and do it yourself. If you need my services, I am just a phone call away (+91.9945.254742). You can also book an appointment by going to our website and clicking on the meeting scheduler at the bottom right of the screen.

Best Business Travel Innovations - A Guest Post

This is a guest post from Logan, a friend who is an expert on private air charters. He writes on some recent innovations and projects related to his field travel. 

Best Business Travel Innovations

As someone who is not short on travel experience, I can appreciate a good innovation in the field of business travel. Turns out the folks at Fast Company and the Global Business Travel Association share the same appreciation. On July 22, Fast Company and the GBTA will present the 2012 Business Traveler Innovation Awards. The awards has 7 categories including “Sustainable Practice,” “Traveler Comfort,” “Travel Personalization,” “Outstanding Apps,” ”Travel Convenience and Efficiency,” “Travel Management” and “Traveler Productivity.”  Visit this link to check out more information about the nominees. Of the many worthy nominees, I wanted to spotlight a few of my personal favorites.

The Carbon Dioxide Emissions Calculator

This handy tool allows customers of Avis Rental Group to calculate their CO2 emissions. The formula Avis uses was developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and can calculate emissions for any time period and location and allows this information to be reported by businesses which have established rate codes. In this age, more and more people are conscious of and curious about their carbon footprint. This is a great tool to give people an idea of the impact they are making on the environment.

The Travisa Visa App

The Travisa Visa App gives relevant information on Visa and passport services to you via your Android or iOS device. This can be a life saver when you’re traveling between many different countries and keeping the various rules and regulations straight gets tough.

Cabforce.com

This site allows users to find, book and pay for a taxi in Europe from their mobile device. Gone are the days when you had to wait half an hour in the pouring rain simply trying to hail a cab. With this site, you have the power to do it all from the comfort of home. The company will also be launching its mobile app at the GBTA Conference.

TRX Travelinx 

If you’ve ever had multiple flights in a day or simply had many places to be in a short period of time, you’ll appreciate this app. The Travelinx app converts your entire travel itinerary into one simple-to-use list. This is the easiest and most efficient way to handle a schedule chock full of meetings and flights and bus rides.

Those are just a few of the nominees for awards at the GBTA Conference that I really appreciated. Check out a few of the nominees for yourself and next time you find yourself traveling on business, be sure and take advantage of a few of these great innovations in business travel.

Author's bio: Logan is a guest author and expert on private air charters. He uses Teterboro airport to fly all around the world.

Certifications - Great Opportunity to add a few to your CV today ...

One typical feedback I give most of my clients (especially freshers and young professionals) who come to me for Resume Improvement - Try and Add one or more Certifications relevant to your Profile to your CV. This will help prove yourself to potential employers (especially when you don't have relevant experience in the field/tool). The obvious question is which ones, how much to pay for it and aren't there free certifications that are worth going for to prove ourselves. While most certifications worth the paper they are printed on cost Rs. 5000 upwards, over the next two days, you and I have an opportunity to get certified in a few relevant courses from Brainbench.

This is what I got in the e-mail from Brainbench today or within the next two days (when it is free). Go ahead and register on Brainbench and get certified. In fact, do your bit for your country and get India to the top of the leader-board (as on today - 3/7 as I post this, India is at No. 3 behind US and Ukraine in terms of Most Certified and No. 5 in terms of those certified with a 4+ score).

If possible, please let me know which ones you got certified as well.

Brainbench would like to invite you to participate in our online worldwide certification competition -Bench Games!

Throughout this event we are making ALL of our 600+ certification tests free -- YES FREE -- fromMarch 5, 2012 through March 9th, 2012.
Learn more about Bench Games: Click Here

The Bench Games leader board will be available starting March 6th. Find out which:

• Country has the most certified citizens
• Person received the highest score on a given test
• Country has the most MASTER level certified citizens

Support your country and get a chance to win free Brainbench annual subscriptions, all while enhancing your resume/CV and online transcript.

To take advantage of this great event, simply log-in to your Brainbench account during March 5th - 9th and start your testing!

The Brainbench Team