Mobiistar IndiBlogger Meet

After a long gap, Indiblogger was organizing a meet in the city of Delhi. I have been to many Indiblogger meets over the years but still it gives me the same kind of excitement I had when I first attended an Indiblogger Meet. It is the mecca of all blogging events where you get the chance to meet people who are just like you, who think like, have similar interests and most importantly they all share the love of blogging. In a nutshell, you are at home with your kind of people when you are attending an Indiblogger meet. 

This meet was special as it marked the laumch of a new brand of mobile phones in India. Mobiistar is a popular brand in south east Asia with presence in Vietnam but they wanted to have a grand opening in India as they wanted to have a grand presence in the country in the years to come.

The Co-founder and CEO of the Mobiistar was present at the event to inform and discuss with bloggers about their future plans and give bloggers a go ahead regarding the launch of their mobile phones.He was a very polite and sensible person who gave a wonderful presentation and answered as many questions as he could.

They launched two of their mobile phones in the event and captured everybody's attention with their amazing price range. The most amazing part of these phones are that they provide awesome selfie experience. They are trying to build their brand a mobile phone which is not heavy on pocket but provide excellent quality selfie experience while still matching other brands in other parameters like display and memory. 

The Mobiistar XQ is actually the most affordable selfie dual camera available in the market. Many of the bloggers became instant fan of the mobiles and pre-booked their phones in Flipkart. These phones are exclusively available at Flipkart.

One more thing about this Mobiistar Brand is that they are a very thoughtful company as they have started their India operation with 1000 service centers across India. So, whichever part of the country you are staying, you are going to find a service center near you.

After the interesting session about Mobiistar, there were snacks for everyone and a very fun filled activity. In the activity bloggers were divided into teams and were told to tell a story only using selfies. I was one of the captains and we had a blast creating the story and taking pictures.

The most important part of the meet for me is to meet all my friends whom I have known for years and this is the only time of the year in which we get to meet each other and spend some good quality time. It is wonderful to connect with people who share same interests and now after so many years we also share our journeys, the ups and downs we face and how we are still making the time for out blogs. The love of blogs which binds us all together is just an amazing feeling to have. This time I met lots of new bloggers as well, who all were brimming with energy. As Renie told that they can archive the forum, I realized that some of us are becoming "old bloggers". 

All the pictures are selfies taken by me and now you know why I so much liked the Mobiistar event. Keep blogging. Stay blessed.

Hurr Hurr

Pearson Workshop on Design Thinking for bloggers

Learning and improving are a continuous process. There is no end to learning so when I got the mail from Indiblogger Team to be a part of a Design Thinking workshop, I just instantly said yes. Meeting all my dear blogger friends whom I identify as my extended family was another big motivation.

What is the first thing that comes to our mind when we hear about Design Thinking ? No, it is not related to designers or about designers. So before going forward, first think which one should know is that Design Thinking is not related to Interior Designing or Graphic Designing.

So, you are going to ask me what is it about ? It is about humans, it is about us, it is about the processes we use or we are involved in. It is about streamlining the process to get some better or futuristic results.In a nutshell, it is creative problem solving methodology.

About the Workshop 

The workshop was about the basics of Design Thinking. We were invited at the Pearson office at Gurgaon. As the invitation suggested that Design thinking has redefined norms in many industries, all the bloggers who have gathered there were really enthusiastic to learn something which could help them transform their blog.

The workshop started with Vikas Singh and Vikram Dhamija telling us about Pearson and how they are working worldwide and in India. It was very interesting to know that how they have transformed themselves in this era of technology. I only used to relate them to books before this workshop but there expertise in digital learning is commendable.

They are focusing in India and I think India is a very huge market for Digital learning. We already have many players who are trying to catch our attention with free courses. People in Pearson know that they stand for quality and that is what they are trying to project to the people as well when they informed us that they don't offer any free courses.

I really liked the analogy of a free course with gym membership. Every year we make a resolution in the starting of the year to become a fit person and to satiate that resolution we end up enrolling ourself to a nearby gym. Similarly, as we cross a financial year, we end up enrolling ourselves for these free courses which we actually don't end up completing. 

We need focus and motivation to complete a course. So, when we are actually focusing the we will surely pick a course which is going to be the best and Pearson for sure is offering some really great courses which you can check for yourself.

Coming back to the workshop, we were given a hands on experience on a software which helped us understand the process of Design Thinking. It is about understanding all the point of views, having empathy, having an receptive mind and most importantly being humble. 

What we got out of this workshop ? We got the chance to meet the top brass or the decision makers of Pearson and understand their point of view on learning industry, blogging and on Design Thinking. I personally got the chance to meet my blogger friends after a long time. 

Most importantly we took great ideas from the workshop regarding implementation of Design Thinking on our blogs. How Design Thinking can impact our blogs and the blogging community as a whole. I think as a learner you what some to teach you how to think rather than what to think and this is what exactly this workshop did. It gave me a new perspective to use my blog and my readers.

I am sharing some of the pictures from the meet.

Meeting my blogger friends after a long time...

And finally receiving the Certificate for the Design Thinking Workshop

Stay happy. Cheers.

Indiblogger Meet #BergerXP

The festival of bloggers returned to Delhi this saturday, 25th Feb. 2017. It was more than a year that Indiblogger arranged any meet in the town. So, when I got to know that this meet is going to happen, I just thought I would have to attend it anyhow. 

I reached the venue and saw some familiar IndiTeam faces and said yes I back where I belonged. It has been a hectic last 3-4 months for me in the work front as you would know demonetization has hit the bankers the hardest.

I have attended many meets but I felt Express Painting was one of the most entertaining meets conducted by Indiblogger. The main reason for this would be that they involved every single person in the room in the activities and the activities itself were very interesting.

After registering yourself, there was lunch for everyone. Then, we had to go to the siting area where the first activity of the day was going to happen. The first activity itself was really interesting. everyone was given chits with description of other blogs and bloggers and people would have to identify the person with the description or the blog. It was a good ice-breaking session as people started interacting a lot. 

One of best part of these meets are that you got to know people who are like you, who have struggles like you and who like to scribble like you. where else you would find a lot have same kind of interests, a hall filled with people who love writing, sharing and travelling.

After this activity there was a very interesting speech by Mr. Das from Berger paints. He was very knowledgeable about every aspect of the work which his company does. He was also interacting with the audiences a lot. One thing which is very good about the Delhi bloggers is that they are always listening and when given a chance to ask questions they never stop. So the Q&A session became very informative.

Some interesting facts that I learned from the session

1. Berger is working towards skill India and imparting training to people to become trained painters.

2. It is being about a change in the profession of the painter and making this a respectable job.

3.The process of painting is becoming more technical and advanced thanks to Berger which is using some great equipments

4. Berger is reducing the time to paint to about 40% of the time which it used to took earlier.

5. All this things at the same price which you used to give to your neighborhood painter but you will get a really high worth of product and result.

After this informative session we were divided into teams. The first activity that the teams have to play was about scrubbing. All the teams were given a board which they had to scrub and make it clean enough for painting. This activity was planned in such a way to give bloggers some insight about the work the painters do.

I was the part of team number 1 and we were totally up for the challenge. I think all of us got along very well from the word go so it was amazing working with the team. You can see the picture below of Team 1 standing with their finished work.

The next activity was about painting and we were given the topic to depict Delhi. We discussed in the tea break what we can do and then we started off in a journey. I feel all of us have put our heart out in the activity. The best part of this activity was that all of us were really enjoying it. We were actually a happy team which was enjoying the work rather than thinking about what will be the result.

After the activity we were told to explain the work which we have done, I felt the most confident at that moment to explain our master piece so I took the stage and I feel I did a good job ;-)

It is said if you enjoy doing something it is bound to give some good results and we came second in the teams event. The winner was declared counting the points of both the activities.

I feel if you are gaining something you are a winner as in indimeets you always win some great friends and enjoy some amazing moments. Hence, everyone comes out as a  winner.

I do not love you except because I love you

I do not love you except because I love you; 
I go from loving to not loving you, 
From waiting to not waiting for you 
My heart moves from cold to fire. 

I love you only because it's you the one I love; 
I hate you deeply, and hating you 
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you 
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly. 

Maybe January light will consume 
My heart with its cruel 
Ray, stealing my key to true calm. 

In this part of the story I am the one who 
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you, 
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood

By Pablo neruda

I read this poem and couldn't find any other word to express it but to replicate it. This lines have so perfectly depicted the love hate relationship. It would have taken such deep understanding to write these lines. Such great impact and such a pure soul this poem has.

Life as we know it

When I was young, I used to think what will happen to all of us after these many years, how will the life turn out to be and various other questions. Life as people say is unpredictable but still people like predicting, may be that's fun. Sometimes you are right and sometimes you are wrong.

There used to be a question which every teacher, relative and family friends used to ask me... what will you like to be when you grow up ?

I used to have few different answers. Depending on the people and mood I am in, I used to give the answers. I think cricketer and astronomer were the two prominent choices. These two choices even have their backgrounds. The main thing was that I used to feel that we can be anything and that is the child like quality which I think we must possess.

I used to feel, if I will put my mind on some work then I will.definitely succeed. Further, my mother is a really inspiring woman who has been a fighter in her life. She used to tell me one thing always that if people can do it then you can do it. It can be done and you can do it.

After some years while I was still growing up, the people around me changed. I think the world is like that only. People became judgemental. Everything that you will say was measured with what you are doing. The end result is you become circumspect. You grow up and you stop sharing what is in your heart. You start talking as the world talks and do as the world do.

In that part of my growing up journey, I feel I was completely lost. I was hardly aware where I was going. In life change is inevitable. I was waiting for a change to come to my life.

There were many changes that came to my life. It swept me off my feet, blew me everywhere and I hardly had any idea where it was taking me. The only think was I that I was travelling and travelling really fast. I covered lots of places in this phase of my life. Lots of learning that happened in this place.

Still the peace eluded me. Till the day I finally found the answer for the question which I was asked in my childhood...what will you like to be when you grow up ?

I wanted to be happy. I wanted to be at peace. I decided that from this day onwards I will try to remove every negative thing from my life, everything that doesn't help me grow and everything that makes me sad. I decided from this day nobody will be in a position to put me down, to make me feel bad, to stop me from growing and who will not let me be happy and peaceful. I decided that I will follow it whosoever had it may be but I will never let myself reach the situations and places which I have left behind.

The good thing is I have seen life...the good, the bad and the times which people don't want even their enemies to see. I understand life and could tell where things will go. With this I come to full circle in my life where in childhood I used to wonder why people predict but it is hardly predicting. It is kind of a wisdom that tells you a probable outcome of the situations.

Now I feel I am ready for more journeys in my life.