The world around us

The worldwide phenomenon of Build-A-Bear workshop has arrived in India. Shoppers’ Stop launched the first of its Build-A Bear workshops at its Shoppers’ Stop outlet in Andheri (W) last week. Initially the workshop will be available only at shop-in-shop Shoppers’ Stop stores and will be launched at  exclusive Build-A-Bear standalone stores at a later time. Shoppers’ Stop has a non-exclusive tie up for three years with the Murjani Group that has brought the brand to India.

College is one of the greatest periods of most people’s lives. It was a time that we became independant of our families, developed friends and personalites on our own, thought of who we wanted to be in life and partied a lot. Yes, we partied a lot in college. For some people, that is the main reason to go to college, and for others it’s a nice byproduct. College was a series of incredibly fun and carefree days, and though I got an excellent education, I had a great time too. My friend Patrick was a Paintball fanatic and took me to play a couple of times. He had a great collection of paintball guns, that he would not let anyone else use at all. Of all the super memories I have of college, this is one of the most fun ones.

I found this quite interesting as it is likely to very well among the younger crowd. Coca-Cola India announced that it will soon launch the Red Lounge as a one-stop destination for all Coke products. The first lounge will be in Pune which has one of the largest pool of college students and based on the feedback from the Pune store, the company will decide on its strategy for opening additional lounges. The Red Lounge is to be a place for young people to relax, chat, watch TV, play video games, surf the net and catch up with friends. The comapny already has such lounges in the US and Singapore.

My friend from college Sarah was a huge car fanatic. She had a Ford Mustang in school and got a brand new Ford Mustang convertible as a graduation present. She used to spend half her free time scrubbing, polishing, buffing, fiddling around with her new car, much to my consternation. It was the first time I realised that car accessories are a really huge and profitable business. People love their cars and love decking them out even more. So, if you are one of those people who love equipping their vehicle out with accessories, then you’re going to be happy with this find. EmpireCovers.com has a huge selection of car covers for all cars, trucks, SUVs, vans, station wagons, motorcycles etc. They have great offers for bulk orders and have covers for all types of weather. So, you can buy covers specifically for rain or sun or hail. I sure would have loved a cover to protect my car from the regular hailstormes we had in Kansas City.

I’ve often wondered if there is such a things a conincidence? If you’ve read James Redfield’s Celestine Phrophecy, you’ll know what I’m talking about. It is definitely one of the most profound books I have ever read and affects me on a daily basis. The basic premise of the book is that everything in life happens for a reason, which may seem as a coincidence at the time, but is actually either a hint of something to come or a pull towards a direction one should be making. The book is not written as a self help book, but almost as a travelogue and novel combined.

My first car was a red Ford Escort hatchback, the exact same car, model and color as my hubby had at the same time, although he was 1500 miles away and we were to meet 5 years later. Is that a coincidence or a hint to the future? You decide! 

I wrote earlier today about vacationing in Georgia, in it’s famous Blue Ridge Mountains where you could rent a cabin for the enitre family, but I thought I must add something for those who are interested in buying a property there as well. I’m definitely one of those people that if I like a place enough, I will revisit it. I know there are lots of new places to go to, but I like the idea of familiarity just as much as I like to experience newness.

I simply love the idea of having a vacation home, since we’ve grown up with having a summer home in the hills, where we could go at the drop of a hat and didn’t need to take anything with us at all. At a rental cabin, you have to lug all your personal stuff each time, but if you have your own vacation home, it’s ready and waiting for you to arrive anytime, all the time.

So, where do you start looking for property in the Blue Ridge area? Jason Towe is where you go, as he is the most experienced real estate agent for Blue Ridge Mountain properties and has the dibbs on some of the best properties. Being a long time resident of the area, Jason can make the perfect suggestions for what kind of properties will suit your lifestyle as well as your budget. To get a head start on the area, have a look at his Local Resource Center that gives information on local acitivies and attractions.

Bloggerwave is the latest marketing platform that connects publishers and advertisers to companies and marketing agencies to promote products and serivces using social media forms such as blogs. While the concept has been around for a year or so and has raised a lot of questions on the validity and integrity of such promotions, advertisers have found it to be immensely valuable in increasing their reach to consumers who are hard to target via mainstream media formats. As a publisher or blogger, all you need to do is to sign up and get your blog approved, select opportunities and write them up on your blog. Once approved and on your blog for 30 days, Bloggerwave will deposit the money into your PayPal account. It’s really a win-win situation for all, advertisers get their product known to a wider and newer audience, bloggers increase their viewship and earn some money. The company seems to have great potential and looks like it is correcting all of the issues that earlier formats of the same kind had.

It’s definitely the right time to be a blogger and be part of the social interaction and networking scenario. I find it so interesting that every new day brings another new concept with it, in some part of the world or the other and thanks to the Internet and social media, we get to know about it pretty fast. This is a radical change from how information spread and filtered down in earlier times. Now, it is filtering up from the small guy instead of filtering down from governments and large corporations. Earlier, unless you were ’somebody’ no one bothered even listening to you, but that’s not the case anymore. The entire concept has turned on its head and it feels great to be part of this new generation of social mediologists (is that even a word?), even though I’m not in the top league, or even close to it. You don’t have to be there, to be counted anymore.

Corporate event planning is a huge and very profitable business. It is the need of the hour, as companies are increasingly hosting more and more events and promotions as a marketing and PR exercise. So, instead of letting one of the office flunkey’s take care of it, let your event be taken care of by professionals, as it’s your brand that is on the line and not just only about the event any more. Take Innovative Entertainment, for example, a California event planner that was founded in 1983 and has built a repotoire of some of the most creative and interesting events. Innovative is one of the most well known firms in the business and takes care of event planning and management, corporate event planning and trade show promotion, pretty much taking care of everything that is required to manage an event or promotion, to create a professional and successful event. Global companies need not worry as they can take care of all your events in Canada, Europe, Asia, the Caribbean, Australia as well.

Did you know that using a feed reader you can organize and sort all your feeds? I use Bloglines and simply love them. It’s easy to add new feeds, selecting the type of feed you want to subcribe to and if you want to keep them public or private. I have subcribed to over 50 feeds at the moment, but need to cull some of the ones that are not as interesting anymore. Google Reader is also said to be good, but I don’t like that you have to tie it in to your mail, since that complicates everything for me as I have multiple accounts. I do use Google alerts that come directly to my mailbox, and can be as specific as you like them to be.