We're moving to Pune!

Will and I will be moving to Pune in January. I have accepted a new position with iPlace USA, a recruitment process outsourcing service provider, running their sister company, iPlace India. In an expanded Senior Vice President role, I will be in charge of HR, marketing, leadership development and career coaching, and responsible for all new initiatives for expanding the company and achieving the business goals. It's going to be AWESOME. Even better, the CEO is American and we're in synch with where the company should go and how we can grow it together as a team. The company has made some amazing hires and while most of the staff are very young, they have tremendous potential. The company works hard to treat everyone fairly, there is parity across the organization, and employees are compensated based on their performance and effectiveness, not by who the managers like or are related to. Nice change. Some of the managers in place are extremely impressive and I look forward to working with these rock stars. :-)

We're super excited! Will is looking for the right college and there are plenty of very good schools in Pune. We'll be closer to Mumbai and south Goa, a couple of our favorite places in India, and will enable us to focus our travels in the south of India, where we haven't spent much time. We've been all over the north of this great country, but the backwaters of Kerala are calling, Pondicherry has been whispering in my ear for years now, and the fact that I've never been to Bangalore is almost embarrassing to make public.

So, this blog will effectively end with this post. My thanks to all my readers, for all of your great feedback, support, laughs and fury. It's been a tough slog these past few years. I will deeply miss my current co-workers, some of the best and brightest women (and a few good men!) I've ever worked with, here or overseas. But fear not, dear reader! I have set up another blog, focused on Pune at http://american-in-pune.blogspot.com. Check it out! Subscribe to it, like it, share it amongst your friends and we'll continue our brilliant conversations from there, okay? Follow me!

Onward,
Jeanne

The Dignity of Your Workforce

Because of India's caste system, employees in India can have issues reporting in to a senior staff member who comes from a lower caste. Foreigners don't have any caste, but can be seen as either not applicable or unclean, depending on the caste of the person you are meeting. I've seen countless indignities forced upon members of the workforce based on their positions in the company and these other societal issues.

Every office has "tea boys" or "office boys" that run errands for staff, fetching lunch, picking up laundry, what-have-you. These "boys" can be any age, but many start very young. I've watched elder men slicing up apples and serving tea to really rude junior staff, not even acknowledging their presence unless to yell at them. They think it makes them look important to THEIR junior staff. Not so. You just look like an idiot.

I'm usually pretty friendly with this low level of staff because no one ever seems to interact with them, tea boys, cleaners, security guards... It's a shame. They're human beings and deserve at least a friendly hello just like any other worker. They're part of your team, no matter what level they are in your office structure. Without them, the office couldn't function. They should be treated as part of the team.

I once moved into a new building at a company I worked for a while ago here in India and noticed that the washroom cleaner was squatting in a corner on the floor. She wouldn't even look up at me. I'd say hello, and I'd get a very quiet, "Hello maam," while she continued to look at the floor. First - why is it necessary to have full time cleaners you ask? Bathrooms here are typically a nightmare. Water all over the floor, toilet paper either missing or fallen on the floor, soaken wet (if available at all), unflushed toilets, hair in the sinks... seriously, ladies, you're not the only one using these stalls. Clean up after yourself when you leave. Be considerate of your fellow workers.

Because of this, many offices have bathroom staff. Just to clean up after people who think they're "too good" to clean up after themselves. Second, I really felt it was unnecessary to force this young girl to sit on the floor, so I asked the admin guy to get her a stool. He refused. "Madam, she is a cleaner. No chair required." I insisted. He said to talk to the CEO. I went and got her a stool myself, which she happily accepted. It lasted two days. The admin guy removed it because, "She'll start to put on airs," he said.

Until a week ago, I thought this was typical only to very traditional old school Indian firms, but then a friend told me that she had recently been visiting the subsidiary of an American car manufacturer here in India and while using the restroom, saw the same thing. I have a problem with that. I'm sure that if the people at the company in the US knew about this, they would immediately put a stop to it. Americans don't treat their staff like that - we'd have all sorts of issues, societal and legal, if we did this. It could be a PR nightmare if this information were leaked out. Americans are very sensitive to child labor, indentured labor, and slave labor issues - just ask Nike.

I'm not passing judgement, but I'm frustrated. India does so many things well, but one of its main challenges that I see, is empowering its workers, not from a union point of view (which is another problem here), but from a "team" point of view. Your company is only as good as its weakest member. When you continually stratify staff into certain levels and only see them as going up to a certain point based on caste, religion, or state where you were born, you could potentially be missing out on the vast talents that they may be able to contribute to your organization.

For me personally, since I have no caste and my skin is white, I can enjoy stepping to the front of the line, as people will let me go first whenever I approach. They immediately see me as a "guest", and here in India, "a guest is next to god." While that is an awfully nice premise to work with, I prefer to wait my turn, as I'm really nothing special and shouldn't be treated like that. They've been waiting longer than me. But people feel uncomfortable when I wait because I'm not working within their societal rules and one of us ends up both feeling uncomfortable no matter which option I choose.

I love India. The lifestyle, the natural beauty, the amazing people, all have built castles in my heart. Someone asked me the other day, when I said I had no intention of moving back to the US, if I planned to apply for Indian citizenship. I immediately said, "No". It's not that I don't love it here, but I self-identify as an American and the most problematic? Visas! I travel a LOT. Indians need a visa to go just about everywhere. The mountain of paperwork is incredible. As an American I rarely need to apply for visas - only Brazil and Myanmar have required it, other than India. So I'll be keeping my American citizenship for the near future, thank you.

What are your thoughts on life in India? How do you interact with foreigners? What's the most difficult aspect of life here in India as an expat? I look forward to your comments.

All the News

RebelMouse has come up with a neat embed script that enables you to curate across the "interwebs" and post in one place. Kind of awesome. Actually, all sorts of awesome.

Truth in Advertising - Recruiting Staff in India

At a previous company, I had to manage staff that were completely untrustworthy, never followed through on projects, always had excuses why they couldn't work on projects, completed work poorly and were generally difficult to manage. Exacerbating the problem was top management who never shared projects with middle management but went direct to managed staff to get work done with no regard as to how other work was to be completed.

That said, I did my work to the best of my ability AND their work. One individual, who had the title of Senior Marketing Manager was by far the worst. Whenever asked where he was with a project, he had always never started it because he was "working on another project for the CEO". His work was shoddy at best, rife with misspellings. Once he had an entire trade show project, booth panels, printed deliverables, etc. to work on and instead of using a reputable translation service, took it upon himself to pocket to costs and use Google Translate to put everything in Russian; it was a complete disaster. Did he get into trouble for this? No. When I asked for him to be replaced, the COO said that he had hired him personally and it was my responsibility to mentor him. While I agree with the concept, there is only so much that can be taught to someone who doesn't want to learn.

I'm no longer with the firm, but yesterday, I got a connection request on Linkedin from him. Here's what his Summary on linkedin states:

Hmm. Sounds familiar, methinks. First, he is writing sentences in proper English, something he was unable to do in the three years I got emails from him. Here's my summary:

Hmmm.  So what does he say he does at the company we both worked for?

Interesting. While he played a role in packaging and did all of the photography, he was not involved in any other aspect he has stated were his responsibilities. There is no way that he could write a requirements doc, do social media, write a film brief - he can't write a decent sentence in English. Here's mine:

A lot of what's written on his is from a previous version of my resume, something which he has in his possession because one time I had given him my backup external drive while at a trade show for him to use in case a project came in that required him to work on projects I'd been developing. He had copied EVERYTHING, including my personal files, photos, etc. onto his computer while performing none of the work he was supposed to work on. No one seemed to think this was an issue.

Unless his title really changed, he's still Senior Marketing Manager, not Creative Head. And he's still no good.

This is not an isolated case. I see hundreds of resumes that are cut and pasted from other people's CVs. Recruiters tell me that the single toughest issue they fight in recruiting staff in India is the veracity of people's CVs. This manager will likely find something else to do, another employer who thinks he can actually do this work, which he very much can't. And that's too bad, because honest hardworking staff should get that position, not a liar. I feel bad for the company that hires him because what they expect as an employee is hardly what he represent himself to be.

What do you think about this issue? As a recruiter? Potential hire? As a company?

Will the "I" in BRIC become Indonesia? CNN Says So.

What Indian Management Needs to Understand About the Global Economy

I watch CNN a lot. Recently on "Quest Means Business", Quest asked an Indian business analyst, "Aren't you concerned about India's failure to deliver?" Fareed Zakari of "GPS" on CNN recently did a spot on the potential of Indonesia and forecasted that with India's slowing growth, and Indonesia's rise, that BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India & China) may soon replace the "I" in BRIC with Indonesia.

There are substantial flaws in India's ability to evolve, from its lack of quality education for the majority of its citizens, its substantial failing at providing infrastructure (roads, water, electricity, housing, etc.), and by far the worst, the deep, long term and entrenched corruption at local, state and national levels. Manufacturing and (some) innovation have been making substantial change, but I keep hearing, "Where is India's Google, Facebook, or Groupon?" What's built here, while some are wildly successful, are copycats, not gamechangers.

Indians like to point at the Tata Nano as a gamechanger and I scoff at that, especially for India. While the idea at heart makes sense, there problems that make it not a game changer:
1. It is a cheap car for the masses in a country of 1 billion that doesn't have roads to handle the current traffic.
2. It uses fossil fuels. If this car was green -- electric, or built on a Stirling engine using hydrogen, thereby reducing CO2 in a country rapidly succumbing to the worst pollution levels in the world, it could have been a gamechanger.
3. It's not as cheap as it was supposed to be. The design itself has issues (try fixing a stall on the road - you have to take the back seat out to access key components) so it won't work in Western countries (and I'm not sure it has the emissions technology built in to allow it to be sold in the EU or California).
4. An industry insider said that 25% of the components that make up the Nano are manufactured in China.
5. It was a marketing disaster.

Another weakness than many Indian companies have selling overseas is that many don't respect that the customer is king and you need to respond to them as such. One Indian CEO said to me. "Why should I bother with customer service when there are a billion of us here?" Ethics are expected in global business. Excellent customer service is expected. Product quality is demanded, on time at the price quoted. This issue becomes more dominant when working with Western buyers because we don't negotiate off proposal prices. What you've presented, we usually believe to be the final price. We respect that and pay it. Our Indian vendors consider us fools for doing so, thus their existing high profits. This is changing as salaries continue to rise and Western companies go elsewhere.

So where should Indian companies go? Start domestically. Every MNC is salivating on India's fast rising domestic market and there's a lot of money up for grabs. Foreign products go for high prices due to draconian tariffs, but people are willing to pay for them because they expect a quality product and customer service, things they're not sure they'll get with a domestic product. The Chinese have been successful here by producing low quality goods at a price that's more affordable, providing long term pricing contacts that allow for minimized risk, even though there are conflicts on their shared border. India is trying to keep the "Giant from the North" from flooding their market with cheap goods, but they're coming in anyway, cutting into the domestic market that India's companies should already be serving.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-magazine/huawei-will-china-conquer-the-world/article2243928/

Another issue is culture. Middle managers build fiefdoms for themselves and seek short term solutions, instead of convincing their seniors on long term strategies that will sustain them over the next decade instead of the next year. Incentives based on performance need to be standard practice. Communications from the CEO all the way down to the tea boy needs to be clear, measurable and effective. People need to know what you want, when you want it, and engage across the company, You're a team, people, not silos of information and skills sets to set upon each other in a drag-out fight for supremacy.

Invest in serious innovation, not copying other companies. Sure, you might be able to copy a widget, even make it better at a lower price, but that's not really innovation. Make a widget that the consumer doesn't know he wants yet. Find ways to see a problem and come up with a different, more elegant solution. Figure out how to change the world. That's innovation, and if Indian companies really do start investing in real innovation, no one would question the "I" in BRIC. Watch out.

Localization: More Challenging Than CEOs Think

One of the mistakes many companies make during expansion is putting up foreign language web sites and thinking this is the end of their localization initiatives.

Imagine walking down the street in New York and a guy in a hot dog costume hands you a flyer in Hindi with a call to action. When you pick up the phone and call, what language do you expect the call to be answered in? Hindi, right?

Once you start down this road, by putting up your first Spanish web site, you have set expectations to your visitor that you will support their language across all their touchpoints:

• Sales Literature
• Tech Support
• Customer SUpport
• Invoices and Billing Information
• Sales Proposals
• Contracts
• Technical Documentation
• Installation + Maintenance Manuals
• Social Media
• Blog
• Advertising
• Everything

Develop a cross functional team and list every deliverable to be produced, staff to recruit, procedures and approval processes. Finalize your budget and determine what it will take to establish return on investment (feasability). Implement one language at a time, doing milestone reviews and documenting any improvements that could be made to streamline processes, decrease costs, improve quality.

Also bear in mind that local languages come in all different flavors. Portuguese in Portugal is very different from Portuguese spoken in Brazil. For some languages, like Spanish, classical versions will enable you to serve more customers across the Spanish-speaking world. Prioritize your language set by markets and potential reach.

How to Maximize Your Social Media Strategy

Social media can be a very powerful driver of traffic to your web site. It can also be a major investment that doesn't justify the salaries of the staff involved. How do you maximize the effectiveness of your program and convert fans into leads that convert to additional sales?


NOTE: A technical issue - social media sites are not built as a vehicle for marketing. Making fake profiles for marketing purposes is against most Terms of Service. One of the ways that they catch “social spammers” is by capturing their IP address. Most company networks typically use a single IP for the entire system. If 20 people using the same IP address suddenly become active, their software will suspend or delete these users. A few suggestions to counter this issue is to utilize a number of different IPs, usually through a proxy, or to connect from mobile phones, or from different locations.

Facebook


WHAT: Facebook is the single largest social media site in the world and has the highest potential for growth. Search for SEO keywords, and identify similar pages and special interest groups. These groups can be utilized to link back to your domains. Even if you have an established Facebook Fan Page, all "public writers", i.e., any personalities that you use online, such as spokespersons, story-line characters, etc., should have professional profiles and Fan Pages as well. All staff should be fans and actively participate on your company's fan pages. Writers should post links to their latest stories.

WHO: 110,278,000 registered users visited Facebook this year, a 278% increase over last year. Facebook has earned more than a 45% market share, with 52 Billion page views/month. The average time on site is over 20 minutes. In 2007, Facebook eliminated its reporting of political views, but information from then indicates that 2.8 million identified as liberal, 1.9 million as moderate and 2.2 million as conservative.

DO:


Corporate:

• Enhance your Company Fan Page.
• Develop giveaways that can be downloaded for user pages, such as widgets, badges, etc.
• Develop an API construct such as a poll, game, etc. that links back to your web site (preferably to a targeted landing page that amplifies the interaction while pointing to other parts of your site for demos, downloads, product information and sales.

Individuals Profiles:

• Friend people of similar interests by joining groups, searching for interests, etc.
• Check in on Birthdays on the homepage (extremely high CTR).
• Respond to any comments on your wall.
• Post at least one status message daily.
• Share at least 3 interesting updates you find.
• Comment on at least 7 updates or status messages.
• Leave a message on 2 fan pages.
• Leave a message on the walls of 2 people.
• Respond to any event invitations by leaving a message.
• Recommend at least one person to your contacts.
• Add at least one update to your Group / Fan Page / Business page.

LinkedIn

WHAT: LinkedIn is the top most visited professional social network site in the world. It is the best platform to raise questions on your industry, recruit staff, talk about industry issues, etc.

WHO: LinkedIn receives over 14 million visitors a month on average with 42.9% from US alone. Visitors has been increasing at the rate of 3.75% on a monthly basis between April 2009 and April 2010. Their audience is between 25 to 54 years old, with 35-44 as the largest group on LinkedIn. Over 9 million of its members have a college degree and over 4 million have a post graduate degree or above. An average user views 8.45 pages on LinkedIn and spends over 6 minutes on-site.

DO:

LinkedIn Company Profile for Your Company
In order to have a brand presence on LinkedIn, you must have a company profile. To start one now, visit: http://www.linkedin.com/companies?didentcompy=. It gives your company a face and the visitor an overview of what you’re all about without having to visit your website. This will give your online presence a boost as well as bring in curious visitors.

Network with Thought Leaders and Potential Strategic Partners
LinkedIn groups are one of the best places to network with thought leaders in your industry and listen to what others are thinking and saying about in your industry. You’re allowed to join 50 groups on LinkedIn but don’t join all the groups in your industry. Find similar people in groups that are peripherally connected to what you do.

• Do market research and get feedback
• Depending on how active the people are in each group, the individuals should be sent links to blogs and articles on your web site.
• Asking questions in the LinkedIn Q&A Section can generate content as well as a community discussion. They can be asked what their take is on a particular subject with a link back to the original article or post.
• LinkedIn Polls will allow you to get sample data from your professional network as well as publicity on various issues related to your company and industry.

Become a LinkedIn expert
Once you volunteer to answer questions in the Q&A section of LinkedIn, you’ll have a chance to become an “expert”. You can monitor questions by subscribing to related topics via RSS feeds. Depending on how often you answer and how you answer questions, it may take a while before someone marks you as an “Expert”. It’s worth your time if you can answer things the right way, and really think about the answers. If you’re an expert in your area already, you won’t have to think about it much. Besides, you’ll be getting good LinkedIn karma by helping someone out, and others will contact you if your answer is interesting enough.

Nurturing and Generating Leads
The contacts you gain through LinkedIn will give you email addresses as well. They can be sent an canned welcome email on whether they’d like to subscribe to company newsletters or alerts. Personalizing the email will be seen as a personal invitation to subscribe and not as spam.

Host a Group on LinkedIn
Make a group for dialog between people who are concerned about issues and concepts related to your company and industry. Invite those individuals who are already in other related groups. Most groups have few members because there is no dialog or activity within the group. The right audience will be already there since they’ve joined other similar groups. Being a part of a larger group with a personal invite also means that they can engage in conversations that they’re have an interest in already.

• All authors, staff, and board/advisory members of your company should have a profile on LinkedIn. They should accept any invitations that make sense to accept.
• Enter any recent business cards to invite them to LinkedIn or connect with them and point them towards your group. 
• The dialogs from a conference can start and continue online through group discussions. The group should also link back to videos of panels.
• Recommending colleagues and partners is a must. Provide 1 recommendation every few days and be honest.
• Update your status at least once a day or tie in your status with Twitter.
• Make at least one introduction/recommendation to those with similar interests.
• Industry keywords should be highlighted as one of their interests on LinkedIn. The Linkedin group should also be prominently displayed in their profiles.

Twitter

WHAT: Top micro-social blogging site in the world.

WHO: Twitter had over 21 million registered users in the last year, spending an
average of seven minutes per session, with 6.57 page views each.

Goals in Using Twitter

• Generate Traffic
• Engage with users, readers, fan base, and even the critics -- controversial topics will spark more discussion.
• Reach a wider audience who might be following influential twitter people.

DO:

• Search for SEO keywords and respond to those tweets as appropriate.
• Have a Google Alerts set up for related keywords for news and articles.
• Retweet 7 things and reply to at least 5 people, with FULL replies.
• Recommend 1 person you admire (#followfriday).
• Follow back at least 10 people.
• 10 minutes of polite 2 way chit chat goes far.
• Tweet 3 business related Tweets.
• Tweet 2 personal related Tweets.
• Ask at least one question that requires answers.

Del.icio.us

WHAT: Community saves and shares web bookmarks.

WHO: 2 million registered users; 2 million visitors / mo. Somewhat young,
technical and web centric, but growing in reach, Del.icio.us has a broad audience,
but skews toward people interested in media and blogs. Visitors tend to average 3
minutes per visit with an average of 3.36 page views per visit.

Digg


WHAT: Community submits and votes on news stories.

WHO: 18 million visitors/ month; 4 million registered users, 94% young males (88% are 18-39 ) working in technology. 64% have an income of less than $75,000/year. 39% blog.

DO:

• Post articles as soon as they are live on the site in the correct category.
• Broadcast post and encourage digging them up.
• If it’s already been posted, vote it up.

StumbleUpon

WHAT: Community submits and votes on web pages, then people visit pages based on the number of votes.

WHO: 4 million registered users; 1 million visitors per month, (people use the service without visiting website) averaging 4:40 minutes per session, with 6.5 page views per visit.

Blogs

DO:

• Reply to at least 5 comments on your blogs.
• Comment on a couple of your commenters’ blogs.
• Stumble or socially bookmark your commenters’ blogs.
• Write the occasional blog post promoting another blog.
• Email a synopsis of recent posts at least once a month.
• Find 2 new blogs to comment on each day.

Forums


DO:

• Reply to at least 2 threads every day.
• Post one new thread.
• Make a point of thanking people who reply to you.
• Accept any connections that make sense.
• Recommend a member’s blog or website and say why.

Niche Groups

NING, Buddypress, Kickapps and Posterous are DIY social network builders. Any person can setup their own network online devoted to a topic of interest. Your company can build its own network and tie in to other existing groups to drive like minded individuals back to your web site. Ensure your site has targeted landing pages to address each online group's individual needs and their content interests.

Tie in to other social media more powerfully - use the interaction from other sites as adjunct content - let your readers also be active writers - enable them to upload content to the site. Make your use of SHARE buttons for social media much more prevalent. This makes them more loyal to you as well, and ask them to recommend you to their friends - this has the highest clickthrough rate potential you can get.