Introducing The PR School - online in-depth training in public relations

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* According to the New York Times Bits blog, a recent study funded by the US Department of Education (PDF) found that on the whole, online learning environments actually led to higher tested performance than face-to-face learning environments. “On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction,” concluded the report’s authors in their key findings.

Moving to newer technologies

Dear readers of Fridays with Rahul,

Thank you for your patience and time to read this column every Friday.

This columnist is experimenting with a newer set of technologies and can now be read on Twitter starting this very moment. You can follow him at @rahulvarshneya.

If you aren't already on Twitter, I would suggest you do get yourself an account, and follow me!

In the meantime, I will randomly update this column on some Friday that I have absolutely nothing to do, just like you who is reading my column right now! Well, I certainly hope you took this as a joke, or my chances or reaching 10,000 followers on Twitter will look rather grim!

So long and hope to see you on Twitter where you can catch my updates on a daily basis.

For health

There won't be any column this Friday for health reasons. The blog's got a virus.

I am told, Virus is a Latin word used by doctors to mean, "Your guess is as good as mine."

Some just don't care

I wonder, when most companies are retrenching in current times, how many top management positions are taking a cut in their salaries. I wonder how many CEOs are foregoing their bonuses. I wonder how many of them will take a salary cut. I wonder.

Top bosses at America’s financial firms that received bailouts last year, irresponsibly and shamefully paid themselves lavish bonuses. A country where ‘super-size’ is a way of life, loves to indulge itself when millions are still struggling to find a job, and million other trying to keep theirs.

The new President has cut their super-sized emoluments down to a reasonable size. Top executives at firms receiving extraordinary help from US taxpayers will have their compensation capped at $500,000 – a fraction of the salaries that have been reported recently. Just to put things in perspective, Wall Street paid out almost $20 billion in bonuses last year amid its greatest losses in history!

Bonuses of Indian CEOs have never hit the limelight for the wrong reasons. Allthough, stupendous payouts are considered extremely brackish according to the Indian palate. If not extravagant cash bonuses, our bosses are fond of exotic holiday destinations, sedans, palatial homes not just in the home country... and it goes on.

Companies are laying off employees across the board citing liquidity crunch as the main reason. Well, one can faintly make out where the liquidity is going. For one, I can see our cricketers and the cricket board certainly is pouring in a lot of liquid.

Our corporate honchos who are downsizing at one end are making statements such as Recession won’t hurt the IPL (Indian Premiere League) and there won’t be lavish bashes, but there will be bashes.

Some never learn. Some never want to. And some just don’t care.

Greed is good!

Corruption looms large not just in the developing economies, but is also quite prevalent in the developed markets. The underlying asset, greed, is heavy on the balance sheets of some of the world’s greatest corporations (or so they were touted till about a few months back) and their top management. One can quite easily assume that most of the world’s biggest companies would have, in some way or the other, spent the shareholders’ hard-earned money for their own personal interests.

The most recent incident is that of Citigroup. A corporation that lost $28.5 billion in the past 15 months and received a bailout package of $45 billion foolishly went on to purchase a new $50 million corporate jet, the exclusive 12-seater Dassault Falcon 7x.

ABC News reported that President Barack Obama, through a member of his team, quietly but firmly advised Citigroup executives that it might not be such a good idea to purchase a $50 million corporate jet from a company in France, not after Citigroup received $45 billion from the corporate bailout. The phrase used by the Obama representative reportedly was for Citigroup to ‘fix it’, which Citigroup apparently has done by canceling the corporate jet.

The world watched as the car chieftains (the likes of Ford and GM) got in trouble for flying their private jets to Washington to ask for bailouts, and the world’s biggest insurer A.I.G. got dragged before Congress for spending their bailout on California spa treatments.

Given the attitude of such a top management, the corporations are bound to suffer. Management that took Gordon Gekko’s word so literally when he said “Greed is good” in the famous thinking person’s movie – Wall Street, instead of learning a lesson from it.

Back home, Satyam’s 43,622 employees have finally found respite, from the corruption, in a new set of directors who have managed to pull out January’s salaries for all of them.

Raju’s illegitimate 10,000 others bite the dust.

One parting thought: a $35,000 commode is a lot like a new car — once you buy it, sit on it and take it for a spin, it does lose most of its resale value.

Luring vibrancy back

We read it in the papers all right. Yes, all of us did, and saw it on TV too. We’ve been reading up on the developments almost everyday since Gujarat announced it will be vibrant again on the 11th and the 12th of January.

This time we met after over two weeks for a round of beer at my place. Mahesh recently got back from Ahmedabad and brought back some of the vibrancy. “I have some yummy theplas (multi-grain and pulses Indian bread) for all of you,” he said.

The effervescent Gujarati, Mukesh, thrilled with the food from his homeland, exclaimed, “In the land of Modi, we love to eat!”

“In the land of Modi? When did it become Modi’s land?,” sprang Michael from the corner.

“The day his government could not control the fight for shelf-space between the theplas and the kebabs! The stores ran out of Kebabs,” replied Nafees, gorging on the yummy theplas, which by now were a rage, taking the focus away from the beer.

“If Modi becomes the Prime Minister, theplas will be served on trains and stations along with chai (tea) in kullads (a cup made of red soil and clay),” said Mahesh.

Michael said, gulping down the last bit of beer in his mug, “Our corporate big-wigs, the likes of Tatas and Mittals, will miss out on all the fun! Poor industrialists make a 'minority' in a country of 1 billion people. Modi apparently is allergic to 'minorities'. We need to make sure the theplas reach this 'minority'.”

“Oh, he’s good at keeping the 'minorities' happy. He has a clear cut strategy. Give them land to make their own theplas and offer the villagers broadband to buy those theplas online,” said Nafees.

Added Mukesh, “He is a visionary. He sells dreams. He has made sure the farmer does not have to travel miles for his/her basic needs. He can just log on to the internet with the new, fast broadband connection and place the order.”

“But of course, the electricity to access the internet, the road for the order to reach the farmer, enabling the farmer to be able to pay for his needs, will all be the promise to fulfill in his next term. There’s so much already to do to keep the minorities happy. Old graves, after all, are not meant to be dug up!” retorted Michael. Michael observed the beer was going down slower than the theplas.

The theplas polished off completely, it was time to change the topic. But Mahesh couldn’t help making the final remark. “The 'minorities' are ready to contribute towards his pay as the CEO for the country. They have already given their thumbs-up, satisfied that their share of theplas and kebabs are now secured.”

“I hope the shareholders are watching out for the CEO, the auditors and the independent directors of this firm in the making,” Mukesh couldn’t help adding.

The 7-year itch

‘7 year itch’, a phrase now often extended to refer to an urge to move on from any situation, and not even limited sometimes to those of seven years' duration. The original seven-year itch, however, wasn't a condition that supposedly began after seven years, but one that supposedly lasted for seven years.

B Ramalinga Raju has been conspiring for the last seven years! For seven years, he fooled one and all. For seven years, Raju has been showing profits that inflated more his ego than his assets. Satyam remained the fourth largest Indian IT company. Raju’s 7-year itch urged him to move on from the situation that lasted seven years. He finally confessed to his crime. If you’ve ever played Scotland Yard, Raju finally, in an act of clemency, revealed his whereabouts to a failed chase. Hah, no guesses for who’s the winner. Reminds me of a popular nursery rhyme.

Humpty Dumpty climbed higher on the wall
And how he got there, no one just could recall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
And all the investor’s horses and all the stakeholder’s men
While trying to figure out, where all the money went
Are now trying to put Humpty Dumpty together again

The itch that bothered the world for a little over seven years, well eight to be precise, is finally over. George W Bush held a surprise farewell press conference this week. He will itch his last in the coming week.

For years, Bush entertained the world with an outstanding comic performance as the ‘President of the United States’, a comedy of errors. A tale Shakespeare would have loved to tell. George W. Bush was asked in a recent interview what had been his biggest mistake in office. America’s 43rd president said he couldn’t think of any and that he wished he had been given advance notice. In his final and 47th press conference as president, Bush cheerfully supplied a long list of mistakes. The mistakes we all know are not worth wasting precious web space on.

I am sad though. I will miss his talk. His actions. His words. Something like this, speaking at his farewell press meet.

“You remember what it was like right after September the 11th around here?” Bush asked. “People were saying, ‘How come they didn't see it? How come they didn't connect the dots?’ Do you remember what the environment was like in Washington? I do. When people were hauled up in front of Congress and members of Congress were asking questions about, ‘How come you didn't know this, that or the other?’ And then we started putting, you know, policy in place, legal policy in place, to connect the dots. And all of a sudden people were saying, ‘How come you're connecting the dots?’”

:)