Ali Bytes: Bullet-sized strategies for modern living

This is the second of two posts comparing India and the U.S. I started with 6 differences and now that I’ve been back from India for a few weeks, reflect on similarities.

While working at a women’s organization, I remember a news channel interviewing one our directors on the “battle” between couples with children and married adults with no children. DINK groups (dual income no kids) were calling for child-free sections at restaurants. Our stance was that focusing on the differences between the groups raises the wrong questions and that we should instead talk about policies that make workplaces and restaurants better for everyone, like paid sick leave or smoke-free policies.

I share this because it often seems harder to think about similarities, even though these are where sympathy and understanding stem from.  Unfortunately, differences and conflict sell news. I think differences and similarities are like criticism and praise or coffee and tea - you shouldn’t offer one without the other. So here is my attempt at highlighting similarities.

1. People want to be helpful (and probably will be if given the chance): I get energized by how willing people are to go out of their way to help me. If I had a communication problem with an auto driver in Hyderabad, I could call a friend and they would speak to the driver for me. I was always offered rides to and from hash every Sunday and I was given dozens of phone numbers and emails of friends of acquaintances. I have found since I’m in full networking mode, that people in the U.S. will enthusiastically do the same when asked. In my experience, the best way to get the help you need - ask for it and be as specific as possible with the request.
2. Education is considered the key to success: I was in a conversation this week with a man who said the best thing he gave his kids was an education and the rest is up to them.  At the Ashoka conference, a strong case was made that if we solve for education (and convince individuals they can make an impact), humans can solve all other problems for themselves. While every community in the world seems to be focused on providing a quality education for young people, I think the sub story is worth paying attention to. Especially in India, education needs more emphasis on creativity and critical thinking as opposed to factual memorization and skill learning. ASCD (my former client) is working on this in the U.S. with their whole child efforts and The Akanksha Foundation in India provides after school arts and athletic programs for children. Interestingly, the founder of Akanksha, Shaheen Mistri, is also leading Teach for India following the famous Teach for America model.
3. Love of ice cream (and other frozen lick-able treats): By most measures, it feels like I never left DC, but the eruption of frozen yogurt shops is an undeniable sign of change. I cannot understand how it’s possible DC residents can eat more and, yet, within walking distance of my house, I can get Mr. Yogato, Sweet Green, Tangy Sweet, Yogen Fruz and Fro-zen-yo, and that’s not even mentioning where I could get ice cream. At the same time, I can confidently say that at every meal I ate out in India, I had the option of ice cream for dessert. Despite all the differences between consumers in the U.S. and India, I think selling ice cream is a bulletproof business model in both places.
4. Relationships are everything in business: In the U.S. as in India, people want to like and trust who they work with so who you are is often more important than what hard skills you bring to the table.  To me, this is why networking and sales are art forms - you have to get personal enough to make a connection and business enough to make the case for the deal.  Sometimes scheduling happy hours and adopting an affinity for Makers Mark is time better spent than drafting proposals and cover letters.
5. Everyone loves a discount: While in Delhi, I bargained hard for a couple of block fabrics and the guy working there said “you are part Indian now.” I took it as a compliment, though my attention to not over paying was becoming an unhealthy obsession. He was referring to the severe price sensitivity of Indians. Though it is more appropriate to bargain for goods in most places in India, which is not true in the U.S., consumers in both countries want to pay as little as they can and getting a discount is very attractive, even if it is just psychological. Side note: there’s a great scene in the book Inscrutable Americans about this topic
6. There are more problems than solutions and a lot of entrepreneurs trying to figure them out: There are hundreds of foundations, incubator organizations, and venture capital firms - like Echoing Green and General Atlantic - dedicated entirely to encouraging and funding innovative people to figure out business solutions to the worst social problems around the world from youth violence and suicide to poor sanitation.  I asked a friend who works for a solar light company in India whether they are afraid of the competition given how many similar companies exist and she said, no that they are only scratching the surface of the full market. 

A lot of friends both in India and in the U.S. have asked me what I do on the weekends. Though time passes and I feel busy, it’s been tough to answer that question because every weekend has been different. I’ve posted about going to the zoo and TedXHiTechCity but here is a larger sampling of what my weekends have looked like in Hyderabad as I come up on my very last just a week from today.

1. Saree shopping at Pochampally: A little known attraction just outside of Hyderabad is Pochampally, the home to handmade silk saree manufacturing. In 1970, some village headmen decided to integrate silk weaving into cotton weaving to improve the livelihoods of the village and now they are leaders in the industry. We arrived with tempered expectations and were amazed by the selection of incredible silk sarees and equally incredible tour of the huge factory. The lack of crowds, friendliness of the staff, and up close experience of seeing silk dyed and woven made for an awesome experience and I got a saree to remember it by. Now I just need an Indian friend to marry so I have somewhere to wear it.
2. Senegalese hip hop band concert: BBC Sound System was an awesome group that stopped at the Novotel on a 12 city tour. Despite their mostly unknown music, they had an audience of ex-pats and Indians captivated for the couple of hours they played. I highly recommend them.
3. Sight seeing in Mumbai with Abbey: My good friend likes to wander the back roads with a camera, exactly my style for traveling making for a perfect first visitor. We spent a couple days in Mumbai, where she was the pied piper for little kids looking for a few rupees and then a few days in Hyderabad where she was a celebrity taking photos with young Indian guys at Golconda Fort. It was fascinating to notice the difference in how I am treated alone versus when I’m with another white, blond woman.
4. Playing Holi at the Hyderabad Children’s Aid Society: There really is no better group to spend a festival of colors and water fights with than 80 teenage boys. They were quite excited to see they had blank canvases as Mary Ann and I arrived clean with pale skin. It was a lot of fun but almost two months later, I still have pink streaks in my hair.
5. Exploring road number 11: Every day I leave my apartment building, I turn right. It took me until a few weeks ago to turn left to see what the rest of road number 11 looked like. On my journey, I met these two kids Mansoo and Akoo (”like Hakuna Matata” is how they told me to remember it) who walked around with me for about an hour while I took a lot of pictures. Last weekend, I took a bunch of the pictures I took back to the people and it was pretty awesome to see their faces as I handed them the photos of themselves. Two days ago, Mansoo spotted me getting into an auto and called out “Ali Auntie”; he wanted to invite me to his birthday party. These moments are some of the best I’ve had here.
6. Getting baptized at Hash: Each time a “virgin hare” lays the course for the Hyderabad Hash House Harriers, the individual gets baptized with a name and a showering of beer. A few Sundays ago I was up at 7am with a bag of cement and 3 other hashers to lay the trail. It took almost three hours and then I spent the entire day trying to recover before having to do the course all over again with the group in the evening.
7. Fundraiser for the Hyderabad Multiple Sclerosis Society: Last month, I joined a few Deloitte friends for a Saturday evening art auction, dinner and cocktails to raise money for the MS Society.  It was interesting to get a small glimpse into the Indian philanthropic community which a Bain study (full report) recently reported is about 0.6% of the country’s GDP (compared to 2.2% in the U.S.). The event was well done with about 50 pieces of art for sale starting at around 13,000 rupees up to a couple hundred thousand. 
8. GreenMango retreat at the Pocharam Wildlife Sanctuary: On this Saturday, about thirty of us spent an hour walking 6km around a wildlife sanctuary only to see one deer (that we could actually pet) followed by listening to a park ranger talk for over an hour about how we shouldn’t feed plastic bags to cows because they will expand in their stomachs and cry (while motioning a tear running down his face). Lucky for most of you reading this, I didn’t capture it on video or I would make you sit through the joy of Kindergarten-level environmental education. The rest of the day was equally entertaining as we picnicked in a park full of wild monkeys.
   
9. Pedicures at Juice: A couple times I’ve splurged for a 400 rupee (about $8) pedicure. Given that I, like most people, wear sandals every day and there is dirt and trash everywhere, a good foot scrub is the perfect way to pamper.

In late February I heard about these two informally organized groups that completely changed my perspective on Hyderabad and entrepreneurship.

1. Hash House Harriers: This “drinking club with a running problem” was started in Malaysia in the 1938 by a group of British soldiers and has since spread all over the world. The idea isn’t that simple but once you try it and get it, you may become addicted like I am. The group, open to anyone almost anywhere, meets at a different location at the same day and time each week (or month) to go on a run (or walk) that is set by a couple of “hares” who lay the trail using a powdered substance (usually flour in the U.S., cement powder here in Hyderabad). The trail is a series of clues that include sending you down wrong paths so you have to “on back,” retracing your steps to find the right path. It’s an amazing way to explore any city - particularly one where running outside is an alien endeavor; I often feel like we are a parade drawing people out of their homes to watch. Every group in the world customizes it to their liking - some try to catch the hares, some take beer breaks in the middle, etc. - but they all finish with beer at the end and members who have been initiated have nicknames, mostly NSFW. While I only did it once in DC, I joined H4 (Hyderabad + HHH) in February and haven’t missed a Sunday run with this fun group of quirky people from all different backgrounds.
2. Couch Surfing: How does one afford to travel around the world when hotel rooms in some places are $100 a night or more? Well couch surfing found an amazing solution to the problem - allow people to offer up their couches at no cost. While there is no money exchanged (or any other favors actually) between the surfer and couch owner, there is a small fee to register on the site which goes towards maintenance of the site and employing a couple of full time employees of this nonprofit organization based in New Hampshire. What’s most fascinating to me, however, isn’t just the simple genius of the idea started in 1999, but it’s the community that has grown around it. Each year couch surfers meet for a kind of conference, hang out and talk about couch surfing. It’s amazing that there is such a strong common identity among a group of people united by the fact that they prefer to stay in a stranger’s home than pay for a hostel. Though perhaps it’s more than that as the slogan adopted in 2006 suggests: “Participate in Creating a Better World, One Couch At A Time.”

Despite the sporadic evidence, I love blogging. The analytical and expressive exercise allows me to synthesize thoughts while creating some (maybe minuscule) incremental value. However, there are two things that paralyze the blogger in me: people talking into an echo chamber and human tragedy. So with the SXSW conference this month and a good friend in DC in the hospital, I’ve been out of commission. I can’t justify indulgent reflection when time and mental energy are better spent on someone else.

And then some time passes, something fires me up and I come back to it. This week I had a couple of long conversations with nonprofit organizations - both in India and the U.S. - that have highlighted assumptions that, in my opinion, are flawed and need to be questioned. I’d love to know what you think.

1. Employees need to commit to the cause: I’ve worked for nonprofits in nearly every capacity - as a full time employee, consultant, board member and volunteer - and one of the biggest weaknesses I’ve consistently seen is this idea that people need to live and breath the issue they are working for. Rather than look for someone capable of solving difficult challenges with a willingness to bootstrap or for a specific skill set, it often seems that a demonstration of one’s allegiance to the cause is more important. As a social change generalist, I think nonprofits need to start looking first for the right abilities and then let enthusiasm for the issue be icing on the cake.
2. Voting is a good idea: When online voting became popular about five years ago and significant buzz around crowdsourcing began, voting was different and an innovative way to get mass amounts of people to participate in an effort requiring very little information. However, now that these efforts seems to be launched around everything - two recent ones being the Pepsi Refresh Project and the Unreasonable Marketplace - voting has become a (mostly) irresponsible use of time and energy.  If I email my entire network and encourage people through social sites to vote for my personal idea, then that’s my prerogative.  But when nonprofits have to bring paid employees together to develop a strategy to drive their supporters to vote for them to win something, I wonder if anyone has calculated the value creation. How much time, energy and money is spent trying to get something that isn’t worth even a quarter of that time, energy or money?
3. Consumers are either cause-driven or quality-driven:  There’s a belief that people either buy from their head or from their heart and that the latter is not sustainable. In other words, a quality product will sell in any climate but a product that is branded with a cause will only sell as long as the cause marketing is strong.  This actually may be true in emerging markets, but certainly in the U.S. I think this has changed.  Consumers are not so polar; people can buy for cause impact and because they want the product - like Paul Newman products or Dove’s Real Beauty effort.  I think the notion that products can be both practically and emotionally useful will only continue to expand.
4. Volunteers can’t be counted on: There’s a belief that volunteers, or “most Americans” as one person said to me, are looking for easy answers. They want to come in, do a small amount of work only to wash their hands and walk away feeling better but never thinking again about the organization. In short, volunteering is a short-term, selfish pursuit and therefore volunteers are an unreliable, uncommitted group. On the one hand, this seems to be supported by the existence of these one day clean ups, community improvement projects - or even Race for the Cure and cause-related exercise events - where volunteers just show up and are handed paint brushes. On the contrary, however, I think many nonprofits don’t effectively use volunteers because they are missing a basic point: volunteers are human and want to feel they have made a difference. When visible day to day change isn’t realistic - which it’s not in many cases - it’s up to the organization to help show why they are doing what they are doing. If nonprofits could help individuals see that they are needed and making a difference in the big picture, I know they would find a more committed and helpful free workforce.