Ashish MaanA Leader, Visionary and Perfectionist

 VCnM is a Just-In-Time (JIT) curriculum to serve the ever growing need of the global creative industy. Uniquely designed content is full of rich experience that has been acquired after serving the different global creative industries for over 20-years. The curriculum addresses the needs of  the Entertainment and Education sectors, respectively. 

For the first time, Indian aspirants will view the Creative Skills from the Management’s perspective. The curriculum has already seen a success, when a pilot was done over 4-aspirants from different domains. These individuals wanted to grow in the creative industry. Their zeal and inclination towards creative work enabled them pass through the journey of 6-months curriculum with us. They all have found a good place in the industry, post 6-months. Few of them were found a right fit for the organizations in overseas.

India has a great respect for Education; however, few industries have not yet been able to cope up with the pace of the time. Training curriculum for the Creative domain has not been able to cope up with the speed on which the global needs are changing today. It’s unfortunate that the participation from the Government has been a quiet negligible. But severity of negligence mounted up with the constant ignorance shown by the private sector too. However, few bright individuals stepped forward to make a difference but soon they could see an opportunity for making money by exploiting the gap between incremental demands of the creative work force and an awareness of techno-creative  domain within the country.  

Today, youngsters are stepping out of these private institutions having nothing tangible in their hands.

VCnM is an effort to converge business with a cause. We are committed to set a right direction for the youngsters. So that they should be equipped with the right tools and information, when they be exposed to the real world –

1.       What are the industries available for them to address

2.       What skills are needed to be successful in the creative domain

3.       They could easily start any small venture on their own

4.       They are the right products for the global market

Their parents should also feel comfortable that their wards are learning skills that are tangible and JIT (Just In Time).

Visual Communication & Management sets a right perspective for its audience. The course has been designed around a vital component of creative domain - Visual  Communication.  What all skills and attitudes are needed for someone to learn and practice to be effective at work. Like any other industry/domain, Communication is an extremely important component for someone to be effective at work. Likewise, to be effective in the creative domain, one needs to have a skill of effective communication with the help of visual components.

Besides creativity, the course covers a significant distance to discuss the needs for managing self, project, team and the client. The importance of planning, managing, ensuring quality – are significant other contours of the curriculum.

We have been extremely cautious of the two critical components from a student’s perspective -Time and Money. This is the reason the duration of the course has been set for 6-months only and so as the fee. India is dragging herself to develop a creative work force of 1 million professionals, for the last half a decade. We had to achieve this target by 2008, whereas we have not yet reached close to 10% of the set target.

The studies, published in the past couple of years, have articulated a big loss to the country due to poor work delivered to the global players, by us. We have not yet reached to the global standard set by the creative folks across the globe. Our processes and standards are not so robust. The reason is simple, we don’t view Creativity from management’s perspective.

This article is for those, who are determined to pursue their career in the techno-creative space. Please feel free to revert to me on maan.ashish@gmail.com

We are planning to move slow and steady, while maintaining a quality of the professionals we produce. That’s the reason we have decided to enroll a few for the first curriculum that is to be launched in June 2011. The format of the course has been designed for the aspirants from the entire country.  The first month’s training will be conducted over the net, as Distance Learning. This will enable a student to sensitize herself/himself with the content and speed of the course. Also, 30-days time could be bought up for the home work (mental and financial) needed prior to dislocate from their respective cities/towns.

 We are willing to answer all your queries pertaining to this course or about the future prospects of the creative skills within and outside the country. Please feel free to get in touch by sending your mail on to the mail id, mentioned above.

Thanks – Ashish Maan

Concept of Managing the Grey!!

Everyone sees and understands the two distinct colors – Black and White. The only color everyone cannot easily make out is the Grey. Whoever develops a skill of seeing and managing this color has the real brilliance. It doesn’t determine individual’s capability of recognizing the grey but being familiar with the fact that most of the challenges are hidden within this color only - also the mantra of success.

To make it simpler let me take another example, of Communication. As we all appreciate the fact that it is communication that decides individual’s fate in today’s world. The one who is skilled at interpreting and responding to a message correctly and quickly is the one who manages a show. Everyone feels comfortable in his/her presence. As I have discussed above, about the visible and invisible colors – Black & White and the Grey. Mostly we human want to be specific in communication however, due to time pressure and a perpetual fatigue we work with, we lose out on the critical threads needed for an effective communication. Though this unspoken and unwritten piece is only 20% to 30% however the intensity it contains is immense. We communicate 70% through verbal or written communication and anticipate from others to interpret it completely – with the gap of 30% of the unspoken and unwritten too.

The terms we use for both communications – spoken and unspoken – are explicit and implicit. We don’t feel happy if other person responds to our explicit communication only and the implicit is ignored. If this is the reality then we all can understand what is required to be hundred percent at our communication skills to make another person comfortable while communicating to us. We need to learn skills of capturing explicit and implicit threads of a communication to respond likewise.

Yes I mean it! We Indian believe in fun all the time…every time. In fact the Tourism department should change its slogan from “Atithi Devo Bhav” to “Visit India for anti-depressive therapy”.

Nope…am not out of my head…if someone could not observe it…it’s not my fault. Well, just rewind the event of past couple of weeks and you surely will have some idea of it. Or, one can analyze various socio-political even that have taken place in the past couple of days, weeks or months. You will notice contradictions between action and spoken words of various known politicians, film stars, sportsmen, media people and other individuals holding responsible positions in society.

Lemme begin with the current controversial issue of IPL, wherein Mr.Lalit Modi is facing allegation of many unethical practices in managing the IPL. It was terrible for me to watch everyone coming up so strongly against Mr.Modi. A day back it was IPL acting as a magic wand to help various sectors to mint money. Today, the entire nation is facing only one problem, how to save the face of Indian cricket. I asked a villager if he has any problem to discuss or share he looked at me with surprise and after a pause of 2 minutes he unload a sack of problems on me. Amazing…there’s no cricket in the problems he shared with me. It prompted me to re-visit my previous studies around Indian culture and related problems. Even today approximately 60% India is part of village. They are far away of mall culture. They do have televisions and mobile phones however, they still are concerned of their basic needs e.g. growth of crops, government subsidies, water and electricity supply in to their villages etc. Cricket is the last thing they would ever think of. This is the reality we are living with but our politicians are more concerned over the growth of one game – cricket. The funniest thing is our Agriculture Minister is more active in resolving issues around cricket than the issues of his domain. These money chasers don’t find any fancy in developing the life of the poor countrymen. They instead are more competitive in showing up their muscle power in making the cricket popular in the world…as if the Britishers had given us the independence only on the condition of keep on looking after the game they originally had conceptualized.

The contrast is huge…we are chasing a bubble of hoax pride. In spite of our best information we are unable take a pressure of applying our own wisdom. Why?…perhaps our self confidence is shaky that’s the reason we believe in handy wisdom coming in my way from a handful of people who are set to keep on influencing the psyche of the society.

When it came to decide what all can we export, our honorary parliamentarians decided to export the values and ethics. They also thought of few other commodities to be exported to other countries like value of words…professionalism etc. Perhaps the needs of all these practices are more in the overseas countries than here in India. It’s really funny to watch our politicians struggling to find right word to express themselves. Sometime they sound so childlike that I feel ashamed of being looked after by them. One day couple of them was reacting over the issue of IPL as a mud of corruption. One of them has still being prosecuted on couple of million dollars scam. Another guy was so vocal against the woman bills in the parliament. I now have started finding lots of reasons to laugh. I don’t think country on this earth, which have produced so many jokers sitting with responsible positions. That’s the reason I find my country with a culture capable of curing depression.

I still can recall my memories of 1999, when I first time landed in US. Over a month stay in Seattle, I was deeply impressed with the professionalism of that country. But, at the same time I was deeply hurt to see our fellow Indians religiously following various US rules e.g. traffic rules, environment specific rules, rules around keeping the city clean and hygienic etc. They must have never followed all these rules and regulations back home.

Our politicians are morons that I know…but are we not responsible for helping them do away with their own set norms? Let’s ask to ourselves. Else, UPCM will continue grabbing the public lands – without bothering the instructions of the Supreme Court. The cricket board of India will continue ignoring all the government policies by stuffing everyone’s mouth with money. The Judiciary, Law-n-Order and other critical rules will surely be ignored by the individuals having money in the pockets.

I’m so much in terrible mood today if I may request to a true Indian to allow me state something on his/her behalf here. I will not do the following unless I am given enough evidence of the similar rules being imposed over people with power and money and Survival of the Richest doesn’t hold true in Indian contest:

1. If I may take a liberty to start ignoring Indian Revenue Department’s policy until the industrialists/celebrities and politicians start conforming to the same policies
2. If I may take liberty of not paying the electricity bills and other taxes e.g. house tax, water tax etc. until our dear politicians be religious on paying these taxes on time
3. If I may take liberty of trespassing into any public property or area to satisfy my own whims and fancy till the time our politicians are not stopped firmly for obeying the instructions of our utter most judiciary of India – Supreme Court. It appears our politicians are left un-controlled…they appear to have the entire country bought over
4. If I develop and impose my own rules and regulations in and around my locality and even force the police to help me impose my rules and regulations over the neighbors until our dear politicians stop misbehaving with the authentic house owners of their localities
5. I must be allowed not to be penalized by the law and order even if I commit an unacceptable fraud…till the time our gagsters continue contesting as representatives of our pride nation as politicians…and representatives of our religious sports completely go beyond all the norms and policy

I woke up suddenly…my heart beat was nervously pouncing …I found me completely drenched in sweat. It was one of the rarest moments of my life. I never felt so frightened even in toughest days of war during my service days.

Believe me the most abusive term that boils my blood is “Common Man”. I realized that I was in dream wherein I was being abused by someone with the same term. That shook me badly.

Handful of white dressed demon of my country have coined a new term for us to be kept proud of our being most important wing of this country – Price”less” Common Man!

This man is so commonly available to service 10%-20% powerful people of 1.25 billion country on any price which is too less to honor the dignity of this Common Man.

Interestingly this common man is the only breed following and practicing the values of almighty to keep him happy. Isn’t it cool?…this is where this common man looks adding some price to it – though this price is just a perception and in reality it doesn’t offer any tangible benefit to this C…cooooo…..mmmooon…..mmmmm…annn!!!

But despite all this, the common man is the hot topic everywhere. He is discussed in rallies, on TV shows and in every coffee lounge. He is discussed and fought upon to be snatched to be exploited through his emotions.

I’m sure I can’t stand to this term at any cost. I’m not a common man…! Oh Come-on! I have not risk my life for this country for so many years to be rewarded by these selfish lunatics.

Common man today is so dumb that he doesn’t get affected of anything. What if he’s asked to take responsibility of carrying the effigy of desh prem on his shoulder alone. What if he allows to be molested with the ever increasing price of vegetables and grains? What if his wards are not allowed to take primary education without paying extra and illegitimate money to a school other than the legitimate fee every month? What if he is made responsible to contribute from his small salary the load of developing his area/city or country?

You know the reason of this numbness? It is a fabricated strategy! He is blind folded with the stinking and crippled social practices. He has been made responsible to take care of such cramped measures. He is asked to sacrifices his for his motherland when a terrorist attack frightens us. He is remembered for a week to be ever forgotten. He is made deaf with the creamy obnoxious speeches that are written for these actors to perform at the time of casting his vote to act as ladder for greedy netas to enter parliament. This poor common man – don’t how long will he be able to walk like this – deaf and dumb!

Please don’t ever dare to call me a COMMON MAN! I AM A MAN!! Who can listen and also knows how to make his voice be heard!