WSJ has a great article yesterday about the fashionable re-branding of the ‘Homeless’ brand. A bunch of Beverly Hills kids created a fashion label inspired by a West L.A homeless dude who has been nicknamed "The Crazy Robertson."

The clothing brand is sold in high-end boutiques like Kitson with the Crazy Robertson hoodies selling for as much as $98. John Jermyn aka Crazy Robertson gets 5% of net profits although he  refused to accept cash and instead asked to be paid in food, liquer and paper for his art projects.

I’m not sure where I stand on this particular brand building endeavor. The entrepreneurial kids also set up a MySpace page complete with videos of Jermyn saying, "My name is John Jermyn. Welcome to my myspace.com website."

The whole venture strikes me as funny. But it is fantastic microscopic vignette of the various forms boredom takes and the various solutions we come up with to continue to keep ourselves fascinated.

Facebook has become a hot topic of discussion and scholarly study. Since facebook applications platform opened up, there are about 5000+ applications only with no real monetization channels. I have expressed my views before about the facebook applications — but there’s an interesting social awareness that is surfacing in this sphere: almost a sort of cultural megalomania.

People are taking pride in sharing their ‘bookshevles," movie interests, virtual gifts, traveled cities and causes. Essentially, all applications that allow them to display their ‘cultural worth’ or ‘cultural currency." I have been guilty of this as well — having toyed around with each of these applications and then removed them because I got lazy of updating my ‘cultural hall of fame’ or simply realized that others had more fuller maps and more gifts and more drinks from their friends and that I would just look lame with such a meagre supply of all of the above. It’s interesting to me that there is a visual metaphor on facebook for all kinds of cultural behavior people engage in — and that people are taking pride in & engaging in that sort of cultural bragging where they think of those graphics as trophies and reflections of who they are and what their online worth is.

It is also, a very strong tool for people to control and sometimes manipulate exactly what their online identity will be. I am hard-pressed to say this is new to facebook. It probably started when we first spent hours trying to pick the right email handle, the right icq name, the right AIM name, the right msn name….The handle reflects our personality and it a strong representation of our physical self into a virtual world. Online diaries, livejournals and blogs allowed to portray our virtual handle in the real world — and supplement it with constant data and feed to promote it, build it further and even, live up to it.

Facebook applications and facebook itself — by allowing visual and graphical representations of more than one aspect of our intelligent/ the culturally assimilated self, as taken this cultural megalomania to a whole new level.

And that’s the extend of thought I’ve given this right now —
what about you?

Ironically enough, I left India on 15th August — it’s independence day. This year, I almost forgot to celebrate my sixth anniverary and my love affair with America. I’ve been thinking a lot about my place here, my place back in India and whether it is fair to belong to any one place after six years of nomadic experiences. I was having this conversation with Kim, my dear friend and colleague, a few days ago on our way back from work.

I’ve been thinking this for a while you know. Why I have this strong desire to defend America? Why so many of us claim to miss home (whatever that country is..) but never enough to want to return home? Why friends and family not in America are the first to lambast on how the country has no culture, no values?
I’ve been thinking about this and I think I know the answer to this.

We come here to be ourself. Stripped off all the layers ladled upon us by our cultures (in this case, my Indian upbringing) we come here to get to know ourselves. I can be a journalist here, I can be an ad-planner here, I can dream of writing songs for Walt Disney- heck, I could be a custodian if that’s what I wanted. I am allowed to be a misfit, allowed to stay in touch with only the relatives I truly cared about, could fall in love with anyone I wanted and build an uncomplicated, interference-less life with them. And if I don’t like someone or something, I could say – Fuck you. THAT. IS. FREEDOM. Being able to say fuck you.

What outsiders don’t understand is that America’s cultural tapestry has been created by not one, but many histories. Our stories are told by not one, but many voices. And our independence day is celebrated by not one, but many nationalities. And that’s saying something. (Where else have you seen Punjabis, Koreans, Chinese come together to celerbate any nation’s indepdence day?)

As much pride as I take in the fact that I am an Indian — I take in being an American. And yes, I will have my passpost soon enough to validate it 110%.

I have been unable to devote any real time to publishing my thoughts here since the last few months. Work, among other things, has certainly kept me busy and mind-numbed. I’ve been thinking a lot about my home in India as well. So I wanted to take some time today to spill these various bits and pieces floating around in my head.

I grew up in a lovely row-house where my grandparents first found shelter after escaping the India-Pakistan separation in the 1947. It’s a tiny house, very middle-class by most Bombay standards. If you’ve been to an Indian middle-class household, you will know that the concept of personal space, doesn’t really exisit. My sister and I shared a bunk bed until I was 12-13 — we moved on beyond bunk beds but they were still, the fold-able kinds. The kinds that turned into a sofa during the day. Space was precious. I didn’t have my own room until after I graduated college. And it was no bother. Thats what I was used to.

Anyways, going back to the house I grew up in….
In the six years since I’ve made another home in America, the real-estate around my humble town has suddenly shot up through the sky. A five-star hotel, a major express highway, a growing industry — appeared (what feels like) overnight. My home and those familiar surrondings of 17 years felt a little strange with each visit. And since the last 2 years or so the little row-houses have become a point of interest for builders. They want to build shiny new ‘towers’ for the row-house residents – more space, a hike in the real estate value and ofcourse, the added privilege that comes with belonging to a high-rise.

Now well understanding the polticking and bureaucracy — I do not know if the row-houses will ever be torn down in lieu of the promised paradise. But what I do know and what I have been wistfully observing since these discussions ensued is the hunger, the thirst, the determination these row-house families (including my parents) have to get ‘towers’ built. Every meeting with a new builder sparkles with hope and possibilities and everytime they are dashed, someone walks in with a new lead, a new direction….a new contact.
These are people who once resisted change and held on to their guts. Now, they fight, they scramble and they try to win, for that one leg up the social ladder.

It is a natural state of being, I know. And there are rationalizations behind this once instance as well. But the way I look at it — it is clear in my eyes. The Indian middle-class, are not satisfied with staying exactly there. As an outsider who was once an intimate insider, I watch this energy and this drive with fascination, with eyes wide open. Its like my countrymen, are entering their youth. Vital, pulsating and not willing to take no for an answer anymore.

lies on the intersection of culture and commerce. (and how!)

Ofcourse I pre-ordered. But something tells me, I will be rushing to the Walnut Street B&N at midnight to buy a copy….

Yesterday I dropped in at the student exhibition at University of the Arts. A bunch of book-making students had their wares for display and for sale. A particularly engaging letter-press card set by a female student caught my eye and I asked her if she owned her own business. She shrugged and as though the idea was totally alien to her, said, ‘ I’m still in school. I’m a junior." The quality and sophistication of her work suggested otherwise or maybe I was just feeling so awed by the creative energy in the room and the intellectual breadth of these students, that I was unable to differentiate between professional and student work.

As I looked through other student’s displays, my ears caught a lingering piece of conversation the junior was having with her next-table neighbor. It went something like this,

Next Door neighbour: so did you sell anything?

Junior female: A little… but I made tons of REALLLY COOOOOOL swaps.

Next door neighbour: Yes!! Swaps are wayy coooler.

I was sort of bemused to hear this. In such a creatively charged atmosphere — there was little to none importance given to the monetary aspect of the product. What got these students more excited were the swaps they made with one another. A poster in exchange for a set of cards — or a letterpressed book in exchange for a framed photograph. The swapstories go on.

I wondered why ’swaps’ were cooler than ‘being paid’ for your work. And that’s when it occured to me, swapping is such a strong two-way exchange of likeminded synergies. Whether it is a mutual relationship that two brands agree upon without exchanging any money, or two budding entrepreneurs swapping their skills to move further — I found this phenomena way more exciting than a simple commerical transaction. When no money exchanges hands – parties are more involved in each other’s works and the feeling of ‘connected-ness’ is definitely more pronounced.

In other news, University of the Arts has created The Center for Creative Economy to focus on driving creative growth in Philadephia and beyond. On May 22nd (Tuesday) the visionary economist and professor Richard Florida will be speaking at the University about his concept. I will be there and would love to meet up if any of you plan on being there.

Zoodango (what a catchy name!) is a natural iteration of a social networking site — instead of keeping your relationships online, it allows for offline connections.

Like any other social networking site, you build a profile that includes professional and lifestyle information (a cross between linkedin.com and facebook.com)  Users can then request in person meetings at events or public venues like Starbucks with the other members on the network.

I don’t think their techonology is revolutionary. Neither can I make claims about the longetivity of this site. But the reason I profile it here is to highlight a new learning curve in social media – we are slowly moving beyong simply forging friendships and/or connections online to strengthing them in the offline world.

Not that this never happened before this site was launched — people have always connected to each other via blogs and other social sites, but I think the launch of a site that exclusively promote face-to-face meetings gives this non-traditional (for some!) means of meeting people some sort of legitmacy. It is more of a cultural statement than a cool spotting.

Trivia – The founder/CEO of zoodango.com is current on the L.A Apprentice.

It’s been two years since I graduated college and there couldn’t have been a more perfect time for me to learn about this.

I read about the OpenCourseWare Consortium in today’s Wall Street Journal. More than 100 universities and other organizations worldwide have joined hands in creating a body of open coursework available to public with the idea of sharing knowledge and democratizing education. (it also works as a great recruiting tool for these universities, but I choose to look at the non-commerical aspects of this fusion of education and technology)

In USA, universities like MIT, Yale, University of Notre Dame, UC Berkeley, Tufts and Stanford among others have opened a diverse offering of classes (ranging from esoteric topics like Modern Theoretical Physics to timely topics dealign with American cyberculture) for the public.

The value of education is non-negotiable. And when world-class institutions such as these make a select few courses available to everyone, it forms a telling story of how our culture has evolved and how traditional hierarchies are suddenly shiftless.

I’m thrilled! It’s only after graduating college that I’ve appreciated the anticipation of sitting in a classroom not knowing what I was going to discover. With Opensourceware, I will be able to enjoy learning again. More so because this time around, it doesn’t involve homework, midterms or grades!

There’s must reading and then there’s absolute-reads. Very Short List falls into this category. I’ve been recieving this newsletter since their launch and I just realized how much I look forward to reading this spot-on newsletter that delivers exactly what it promises: one cultural gem each weekday. Be it unknown feature films or documentaries, TV shows, novels, magazine, websites or a cool youtube video that has been making rounds of the savvy nyloners.

I rely on VSL to ensure a continuing cultural education – you shoud too.

They don’t. Really. I am sick of reading on the About Us section of most new companies words like, "We provide…solutions..integrated… ignite your brand….revolutionary…embracing…platforms.. etc etc"

No. You do not do that to poor unassuming visitors who are just on your website to learn more about you or to understand what it is you really do. All that ’slapped to impressed’ jargon only ends up confusing highly ordinary folks like me who do not care if you are revolutionary or not. (because frankly if you were, you wouldn’t try so hard to impress your visitors)

I especially detest it when new companies have short abbreviated terms for their supposedly-groundbreaking solution-oriented systems, or whatever the heck that is. Why not use plain, simple, layman’s english to convey what it is that you exactly do?

I’ve helped many friends write copy for their websites or brochures – but my explanation that people want simplicity and not difficult, intelligent-sounding words has fallen on deaf ears. "It looks professional," is the repsonse I always end up getting.

Ofcourse. Time-tested formulas that have somehow become the norm are now lumped into the professional category. What is professional, in my opinion, is you making it easy for your potential customer to understand what you do, what you offer.

For example, if you are a marketing company- My only interest is in knowing that your methods will increase my sales. I do not care about the copyrighted, patented formula or your solution-oriented ideology. It hurts my head to read information that takes the highway instead of the shortcut to doing it’s job.

This approach of simplicity works best with the recent flux of internet sites in the social media area that have created a major traffic jam on the internet. Cool technologies are awesome, but when it takes you more than 3 lines to explain what it is, there is something inherently wrong with either your technology or your portrayal of it.

I’d love to give you examples but if you read my blog, you already have come across such websites and are nodding your head in approval as you read this.

Smart Tip of the Day # If you are starting your own company or a website or anything else — keep your copy succint, short and simple. Instill humor, when you can or atleast warmth. Everyone knows robots don’t write.