THE BRAIN WRITES

The present-day working class is drifting away, slowly yet steadily, from the monotony of a single career track; the emergence of ‘portfolio career’, or the ‘slasher’ career, is now attracting attention more than ever before. As a slasher, you juggle across various streams of income—your professional commitments are spread across photography, music, investment banking, and authorship—all at the same time. An acquaintance of mine, whom I know from my college days, has a 9-5 software developer job on the weekdays and works as a freelance wedding photographer on the weekends. While meeting him for a casual cuppa last Sunday, I asked him to provide his two cents on this line of managing multiple professions in parallel. He said, “PM, personal satisfaction arises out of the tasks or chores that you do willingly. I can’t imagine myself working day-in, day-out, as a software engineer. It makes me feel as if I’m missing out on photography—which is more than a hobby to me. I can do it

You snort an unwrapped condom through your nostril and bring it out from your mouth. This may resemble a grueling scene from some horror movie, but it’s just another fad in the name of ‘viral challenge’. Video sharing websites have enabled the preaching and sharing of ideas and thoughts with a broader audience. And content, that makes the viewer respond with ‘oh, that’s cute!’ to ‘is this guy mad or what?’, has taken this advantage to usher in a new era; one where manipulating the viewer’s emotions and intellect has become a piece of cake. Contemplating the trend in question helps draw a conclusion; these videos are akin to a multifaceted personality—one who could turn from seemingly innocuous to seriously damaging, that too in a jiffy. Starting with the positive aspect, themes such as the ‘Harlem Shake’, where you start dancing weirdly at the onset of a beat, are effective in bringing out the much-needed occasional chuckle in a mundane setting. A stress buster of sor

Do good things always come with a price tag? The advent of the internet in 1991 was accompanied with the arrival of useful and meaningful content in abundance. That is still the case today, with new websites coming up every day--blogs, webpages for cooking fanatics, forums for techies, and whatnot. Businesses are well aware of the fact that advertising on social networking sites, podcasts, live broadcasts, etc. is imperative for growth and development. To lure in potential customers, content with gold’s worth is given away for free. The question that now arises is, should it really be distributed for free or a price should be levied on the same? With millions of search results popping up when you turn to a search engine for your requirements, it’s unlikely that you’ll pay to access something which is available for free on some other site. It’s well noted that top-notch companies who often tried to wall off their services behind subscription charges have faced the wrath of th

Every now and then, I find myself speaking at length with my inner being—‘Did I do the right thing? I could have done this or that; the dots could have been connected in this peculiar way.’ The situation mentioned resonates with everyone out there. The conversation that goes on within, termed as introspection, is generally defined as examining one’s mental state, reflecting on a variety of thoughts. Now whether this is simply squandering of precious time or a necessary exercise to be performed from time to time depends on how one perceives it. Going through the annals of history, the innumerable discoveries and inventions were conceived when their respective inventors were lost deep in thought. This self-imposed seclusion, in turn, gave mankind some of its greatest achievements. The discovery of Benzene, in Friedrich August Kekulé’s own words, was, “the forming of atoms into a snake-like structure, the process continuing until the snake ultimately bit its own tail”. This v

As time progresses, the changing dynamics have made the environment more complex and volatile. The era of rapid globalization and innovation implies that the competencies associated with any kind of role within the organization are witnessing a paradigm shift; complex thinkers are being prioritized over workers who can’t function beyond their job descriptions. The ability to guide others towards the achievement of goals and targets, which is leadership, is no exception to this transition. Gone are the days when a leader was defined as the “one stressing supervisory control over employees”. The leader of modern times is meant to instill devotion within his or her subordinates for fulfilling the organization’s goals. The modern leadership style requires injecting high levels of enthusiasm into the team members coupled with the ability to think strategically in addition to managing changes efficiently. Clearly, such desideratum calls for what is known as “leadership development”. Why t