Monday, June 27, 2011

What good is dreaming it, if you don't actually do it!

That is the tagline from an advertisement for Honda 2009/2010. The company created by Soichiro Honda in 1948, who after tinkering for many years started producing motorcycles and founded the company at age 42 to focus on making superb motors (the smooth sound, never hurts the ears).

Wieden + Kennedy, a London based agency produced this ad for Honda using the 1965 song "The Impossible Dream" written by Joe Darion & the original Music by Mitch Leigh.

The words of the song are like a charter for majamba:

Impossible Dream (The Quest)

To dream the impossible dream,
to fight the unbeatable foe,
to bear with unbearable sorrow,
to run where the brave dare not go.

To right the unrightable wrong,
to love pure and chaste from afar,
to try when your arms are too weary,
to reach the unreachable star.

This is my quest,
to follow that star --
no matter how hopeless,
no matter how far.

To fight for the right
without question or pause,
to be willing to march into hell for a
heavenly cause.

And I know if I'll only be true to this
glorious quest
that my heart will be peaceful and calm
when I'm laid to my rest.

And the world will be better for this,
that one man scorned and covered with scars
still strove with his last ounce of courage.
To reach the unreachable stars.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Building the "dream team"

As we continue to strategize, design & develop - we just realized that we are building the dream team that will allow us to launch a pretty powerful majamba platform.



The team is focusing on answering some basic questions:


- what can we do for our customers that no one else can do?
- how do we take our message to them?
- how do we ensure that we have the most interesting user experience?

The team is also made up of advisors (some of the people on this list), who are kindly providing feedback.

Once again thank you!

Sunday, June 5, 2011

I am not happy with status quo.

Look at the statistics (according to SwissInfo): In 2010 there were 205 million people out of work and 2011 does not look any better, especially in industrialised nations, hit by sluggish growth. Young people – 80 million are unemployed - are the worst hit by the current growth model that no longer works, says the ILO.


Think about it - 200 plus million people out of work and perhaps around 800 plus million people are trapped in jobs where their aspirations are not being met. Now some might say, hey why I should bother...let the Govt. and Inter-Govt. folks work it out. And some people want to help and find that the only option available for them is to donate money. I believe that indifference is uncalled for. A society with imbalance creates angry people who become puppets for manipulative politicians who tap into this feeling of injustice and only create chaos, grab power, accumulate wealth and then "air-brush" history. Giving a donation is almost as harmful as indifference. Imagine this - a person gets something without working on his own. Then gets more and more donation. It does not take long for the person to get addicted to getting money without producing some goods or services that can be consumed by the society. Micro-credit, another favorite of the elite who want to do good is equally harmful if its not accompanied by developing institutions that allow the person to sell and market what he is producing.

So what is the solution for winning against poverty?

Imagine a system by which products and services produced in villages & towns around the world could be marketed directly to consumers. Then people will not leave where they live and just move to the cities to get a job. Villages and small towns will thrive as people with the highest level of productivity will stay where they are and build a home full of wholesomeness. People with jobs can afford education, health care and do not become recipients of donations. When people have a cash-flow they do not fall prey to loan contracts from sharks disguised as micro-credit firms. Imagine free & fair market economics helping the world manage poverty; imagine every person having access to a fulfilling job; imagine parents spending time with their kids - own or adopted; imagine low taxes and small lean governments; imagine citizens of the world buying products directly from people who are producing them. Yes, imagine a world where its cheaper to work than to steal or to engage in corruption. Yes, you may have guessed, that such is a system has to built on the Internet. The biggest collaborative platform the earth has ever seen. Something the creators of the Internet or the Web did not not envisage, because they could not. The Internet has become what it has because Governments have been unsuccessful in fully controlling it.

So far the Internet has been used as a tool for information, communication, entertainment and commerce. Which is great! I propose that now we are entering the phase where the net will be used as the primary tool for development commerce. In the next 10 years, you will see companies that will use market economics to uplift millions out of poverty. That will be so satisfying, so cool and so wholesome!