Life at Indicus

Life at Indicus is my daily work blog about work, life and everything in between. About me: My name is Aishwarya. To know more about me, read my blogs or buy me red velvet cheesecake!

[aishwaryaif]

Life at Indicus: 8/2/2021

Repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Yet, it’s surprisingly easily to fall for. At least it is for me. Over the last few months, my colleagues and I at UnEarth have been at it – making environment news and research interesting (and accessible) EVERY SINGLE DAY! As a tradition, we do take time to celebrate small successes from time to time (we recently crossed 1000 followers on Instagram!) – without warning a part of me had become complacent!

This week I plan to dig deep into the data and ask myself the difficult questions of why and how and most important of all – what now! I doubt I will have any epiphanies staring at numbers on my screen, but I am confident of figuring the next step forward. At the very least, I will know for sure if my theory of insanity is insane!  And isn’t that the first step towards change?  

Image: Pinterest

[aishwaryaif]

Life at Indicus: 17/12/2020

Telling someone else about anything – an idea, story or even something about self, helps one better understand it. We all know that. Today I finally understood why!

As I am working on partnerships with colleges, corporates and even fellow civil society organisations, I am unearthing what we stand for, what is non-negotiable and how flexible we are. As 2020 comes to an end, it is also making me relook from where we started and where are have arrived.

Of course, there is a long way to go, there will always be– but all of us at UnEarth are moving ahead with bags of experience and hard-earned learning!

I spent my day today speaking to the Revue team to prepare our UnEarth Bulletin for 2021, while also working on our year-end bulletin video.

What are you planning to carry in 2021?  

Image: Pinterest 

[aishwaryaif]

Life at Indicus: 14/12/2020

I like Mondays! There I said it. Mondays, for me bring a renewed energy, the freshness of a new start. Something of a weekly new year?

I spent the first half today planning for this week – most of our partners are either busy preparing for the year end or new year celebrations. I’m learning first complete ‘external work’, which requires working with those outside the organisation, since it typically takes longer.

The rest of the day I spent on identifying the most important environment headlines. The holiday mood got over me today as we had pizzas in office and I put together data for the weeks gone by and made goals for the year-end.

I have known about Monday Blues since I understood the concept of ‘work’ and  ‘job’, it’s been 4 years that I am working and I am yet to meet such Mondays. Yes, lucky me!          

Image: Coffee Memes

[aishwaryaif]

Life at Indicus: 12/12/2020

I had a chance to speak to a clean air warrior today! The 15-minute conversation fueled me for the entire day. It is such a treat to know people who are find meaning in their work and are candid about the challenges they face.

I spent my day looking for the most important environment news events of 2020 – to capture more stories of people striving, failing and striving yet again. It’s been over a year that I have been collating and documenting on environment events and yet the state of the environment continues to overwhelm me.

The rest of the day I reworked a funding proposal to fuel our work for many more days. I ended the day catching up with my colleagues on the week gone by and planned for the week to come. I believe one of the most critical parts of doing great work is to work with a crazy enough team. I luckily have the craziest of the lot!    

Image: Pinterst 

[aishwaryaif]

Life at Indicus: 11/12/2020

This week went by in a jiffy! There are exciting days full of ideas and yellow and there was today when I tied loose ends and decluttered – my task sheet, laptop and mind! In the last few weeks, we’ve been fixed on one destination – reaching our first 1000 environment evangelists but have open many different paths to get there!

I walked down each of those roads today, dusted our previous conservation and figured the way forward. Thank god we have a process and a messy excel sheet to keep tab of these many conversations via email, WhatsApp, phone calls and even Instagram messages! Honestly, it drained me – not just doing the same thing but the fact that despite the initial excitement there has not been any action…yet.

I spent the rest of the day working on a year-end campaign to restart all these pending conversations!

Sure, new ideas are exciting, but the joy of getting on top of pending things gives better ideas!

Image: poorlydrawnlines.com

[aishwaryaif]

Life at Indicus: 9/12/2020

I have known for a long time that writing helps me understand better – both the world and myself in it. I spent the better part of the day today documenting about our latest initative – HimDevi! With a brief in front of me and our multiple discussions in my mind and of course a cuppa, I was set!

As I asked myself questions and attempted to find the right words to answer them – I understood what we are trying to do better! When the words stopped flowing and my coffee was over, I took a break.    

The rest of the day I spent on collating data of our social media posts (which are thriving btw!) and preparing for a special campaign to bid 2020 goodbye!

What a joy it is that despite this difficult year – I continue to have something to look forward to.

How do you make sense of something new?

Image: Bored Panda

[aishwaryaif]

Life at Indicus: 12/10/2020

It’s a different joy – almost like a high to have someone believe in your idea. We recently connected with BS and speaking to him replenished my faith. We’re at a crucial stage with UnEarth, end of this month will decide whether we continue with our weekly bulletin video and daily news products!

Obviously, I am so close that it is getting harder to see scope for improvement each day. I do believe that we have something of value and my bias/love has nothing to do with it. I spent the day today inn reaching out to organisations to share our newsletter and bulletin video and introduce them to UnEarth!

I am consciously avoiding the trap of doing my internal individual work first – which always seems easiest and hence what most of us gravitate towards! (It’s true – the trick is to do that which involves others (which is external) first – try it.) Post lunch I began transcribing our IDEA roundtable discussion.

The conversation was intense and packed with knowledge, insights and to-do’s to fix Delhi’s pollution – I enjoyed it, but my fingers didn’t. To end the day – I mapped policy recommendations to central, state and local authorities!

As I am ending the day, I realise I am so grateful for work which I look forward to, especially in these times. What are you looking forward to this week?

Image: Pinterest 

[aishwaryaif]

Life at Indicus: 24/8/20

I experienced a new joy today…the joy of having someone believe in my idea. We’re hiring interns to help us grow our communications network (and honestly, also bring in a fresh perspective and energy.) Over the last week, we received a lot of interesting applications. The last week has not been fun – our Top Environment News video did not do well and although I kept telling myself, ‘failing fast’ is better – knowing that there are strangers who believe in our idea fuelled me!

After doing a round of shortlisting, I spent the day improving our video. Free video tip anyone? A square video makes it easier to read text on mobile. After editing the thumbnail and format multiple times – when I was out of file names, I switched to editing our newsletter design.

I ended the day figuring where our subscribers are from – their age, location, gender and interests!

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I wish you all a very happy (belated) Ganesh Chaturthi! May Ganpati Bappa take all our troubles away soon (and help me write more consistently!)  

Image: VC Cafe

[aishwaryaif]

Life at Indicus: 10/8/20

From the time I woke up today – all I’ve been thinking of is 500 views! After having put in worst-case scenario numbers in Excel, I was confident. Fate and YouTube had different plans.

I began with promoting our videos on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. The hope is to reach out to people who would be a part of our community. Luckily, we don’t rely on just hope – I’ll be preparing a trailer/teaser video advertisement to give people a glimpse of our work!

I spent the rest of the day today sharing our videos in online communities – on Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, Pinterest, Wimp, Daily Motion and Blogorama. Most of it was mechanical – almost meditative. An exciting new video format I was shown today morning– fast-paced with foot-tapping tempo kept me going!    

Today was slow and not particularly exciting. Thankfully the goal of 500 views remains and is challenging!

Image: Sayingimages.com

[aishwaryaif]

Life at Indicus: 4/8/20

One of the hardest things, I believe is to maintain grace. Especially while exiting – a relationship, person or even a job. Yet, how one leaves is what is always remembered, right? One of our interns quit today. Ours is an exciting, but long journey. Of course, people will come and leave – and although I am not enough narcissist to believe I caused it or could have done to stop it – it stinks!

Seeing LB unperturbed did not help either. Luckily, we spent the last few months creating systems and processes, so a person leaving does not make that much of a difference to our work. While I ended my day by restarting the hiring process, I began with creating a marketing action plan for our Top Environment News video. 500 views is the target!

I ended the day by reminding myself, whatever happens is for the best!

Image: Cartoonstock

[aishwaryaif]

Life at Indicus: 3/8/2020

One of my most significant (un)learnings this year has been to celebrate small wins! Winning is important to me, always has been. Whether it’s a college presentation or a random game with friends or even a bet – if I play, it is to win.

Yet, over the course of the last few months – we gloriously missed the number we set for ourselves. Today, on seeing the top environment news video that all of us worked on do well – I was beaming. Recently, I’ve been focusing so much on the mountains ahead of us, I’ve forgotten all the mountains behind. Throughout the day, as I pushed the videos on Google Groups, Reddit and WhatsApp and Facebook – all I could hear was Miley Cyrus singing, “…it’s the climb!!”  

Image Credits: Cartoon Stock

[aishwaryaif]

Life at Indicus: 23/7/20

I’m the kind of optimist that believes even the dead can come to life. Always have been! Yet, glass-half-full excites me. Why? For the last year and half, each time I’ve found something missing – it’s turned out to be an opportunity for me. No information on how informal businesses function turned into my research paper on The Business of Doing Informal Business in India. No comprehensive details on protocols during Covid19? We published a video on them.

Today as I spent hours trying to find sources of all major global environment news and had no luck, a small part of was constantly dancing. It’s going to be a long journey, so in the meantime, I worked on creating carousel posts, stories and quizzes for Instagram and Facebook– to make it easier for you to know about the environment and give us time to convert the lack of comprehensive environment news site into an opportunity!

As I end my day with half glass of coffee, I cannot wait to come back tomorrow and study how to create an environment news channel! Cheers!

[aishwaryaif]

Life at Indicus: 17/7/20

As I walked to office on the same route, with my same tiffin bag, with the same music– it seemed like I have been living the same day for months! My thoughts walked out of my mind and onto the table – as soon as LB walked in, he remarked, “I think we are living the same day every day!”

Due to our latest mask-wearing, sanitiser-cleaning lifestyles, a lot seems the same! Thankfully, the variety of the work I get to do is keeping me sane. Yet, a creature of habit, I started by selected the daily news for the day. Having dived into work, I edited and finalised a video on vertical forests! What is that? Go check our video on https://instagram.com/unearthlive/ (not so subtle plugin!)

Post which I used my middle-classness to find the cheapest ad words to help our videos to help the right people! Proud of my findings, I edited another video on the why the diesel and petrol price hike is actually good for the environment.

To take a break, I worked on our database sheet to find social media influencers on environment and economics! As I write this, I am finalising a script for a Hindi video!

Video editing. Writing. Research. Digital Marketing. All in one day! 

My walk back home may seem the same, but that’s okay…because work tomorrow won’t!    

[aishwaryaif]

Life at Indicus: 16/7/20

As I end my day today, all I see is numbers floating around. I spent the entire day working on excel and google sheets, putting in reach, views, likes, followers, social media handles and tags. Phew! Post lunch, with a dal makhani hangover, thanks to the amazing analytics YouTube provides, I discovered some interesting insights.

My mission for the second half of the day was to find cheap Google Adwords. Turns out, Google is smart! But it is still an algorithm, and I will not be alone tomorrow. My friend, Ms. Coffee will be there to help me.

[aishwaryaif]

Life at Indicus: 16/3/20

The entire last year has been uncertain. I managed to publish a paper, learnt how to hire and manage interns, deep-dived into market research, learnt the basics of social media marketing and now am working on setting up a sustainability video news network aimed at my generation. A lot of times I read and complied and did background study for the foundational work and midway it was realised we cannot take it forward. Not at the moment definitely. It’s amazing how looking back, it all seems to have tied in. Chaotically and indirectly, but beautifully!

Throughout this madness, the one constant was our ability to keep moving forward. Today, as I spent time on brainstorming and figuring ways to hold our quarterly roundtable digitally, in light of Covid19, I am thrilled. It is said that the world may not be the same in a few months, perhaps a lot of things may not survive, yet we have begun making ‘silent news!’      

Image Credits: CartoonStock

[aishwaryaif]

Life at Indicus: 14/3/20

Sometimes one hears/gets to know of something and life is never the same again. A few days back I was introduced to the 3-act structure (of stories) and I feel like I am seeing all video, social media post and article differently since. It’s great, except that I also realised that Godfather, is, in fact, a love story (think of the first scene and the last!)

After finding news and realising how Covid19 is all-consuming now, I spent the rest of the day practising my new-found skill of storytelling. When the words no more made sense, I took a break to ensure participation for our roundtable, despite Corona.

We’re planning an online roundtable this time. Covid19 will not stay, the changes it is bringing in how we see and do things might. All our lives are not going to be the same, perhaps for the better.          

Image Credits: Cartoon Collections

[aishwaryaif]

Life at Indicus: 5/2/20

This month is for experimentation. It’s personal for me since it is also my birth month! January went by in setting the base, and now we’re working on the icing. I spent the day today sharing our videos on social media and following up with placement cells, internship portals and Facebook group to find at least 10 good candidates to ultimately select two.

Post lunch, I worked on a funding proposal, thinking of all the lessons the previous grant applications had taught me. I had just begun to question the choice of stupid questions when someone called me for a meditation session. Although it was a subtle sales pitch, it was fun to try a few breathing exercises.

I came back to have a quick meeting with a colleague to move forward on our government job portal. It’s just been half a week, but February seems to be full of action! Hoping this year will be too!      

Image Credits: Cartoon Stock