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	<title>Abhijit Bhaduri&#039;s Official Website</title>
	<link>http://abhijitbhaduri.com</link>
	<description>The author of &#039;Mediocre But Arrogant&#039; &#38; &#039;Married But Available&#039;</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:56:50 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>What Writers Always Want To Know</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Chapal Mehra has chaperoned many well known books into the market. I asked him all the questions that plague first time and most ignorant authors like me. Here is a sample:

Abhijit: What are some of the watchouts for first time writers when they sign a contract with a publishing firm?
Chapal: Most professional publishing firms have standard contracts which they are not open to amending. It is the way they do business and these cannot be altered to every author’s requirement. In fact they are mostly standardized across organizations with a few changes here and there. As a first time author you need to know what you get into a contract with the publishing firm for : 
Copyright: Understand the difference between copyright and  the right to publish.
What territory are you signing the book deal for? Do you want to keep US and UK or Europe rights for yourself?
Please check the royalty clause. Are you happy with what the standard royalty is ? Usually it’s the same across publishing firms
Please check the subsidiary rights.  Do you want to give up or keep –translation rights, film rights, tv series rights etc. In most cases I would advise its best to let the publishing company keep these unless you want to do something with them or you think it will have enormous potential which you have a strategy to exploit.
If its an advance contract what are your dates of delivery? What are the conditions associated with non- or late delivery?
Its always good to discuss the contract with your editor to also understand why the organization is offering the contract that it is . Most large professional publishing firms are not out to rob you. But its important for you to understand their thinking.


]]></description>
		<link>http://abhijitbhaduri.com/2010/09/what-writers-always-want-to-know/</link>
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		<title>Learnt From Video Games</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I have always been interested in exploring what Corporations can learn from Video Games.  Here is what are top reasons:
1. How to design the work content/ an activity that people willingly come back to regularly.
2. How to design the task such that it is tough and yet people strive to improve their skills by working at it regularly
3. How to design a task that is so engaging that people will sneak back to give it a shot even when they are REALLY tired.
4. How to create reward systems that are intangible and yet meaningful enough to motivate people to excel even as the tasks become harder and harder.
5. How to effortless teach people to collaborate and compete with people across the world (think online games) and raise each others skill level.
The biggest insight I had was when I read that a focus on remaining (vs. completed) actions increases the motivation to move up to a more advanced level... ]]></description>
		<link>http://abhijitbhaduri.com/2010/08/learnt-from-video-games/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Peepli Live</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Natha (played by Omkar Das Manikpuri) and Budhia (Raghubir Yadav) are two brothers who are impoverished farmers who cannot repay their loans. The Govt has announced a "relief" of about $2000 to the family of every farmer who commits suicide. Budhia comes up with this idea of encouraging his brother to commit suicide. In a weak moment Natha succumbs to that passing thought.]]></description>
		<link>http://abhijitbhaduri.com/2010/08/peepli-live/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Pablo Neruda</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I love the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's poetry. Had he been alive, he would have turned a 106 on the 12th of July this year. If only I knew Spanish I would have enjoyed the flavor of his poems even more. If reading his translations can be so exhilarating, imagine the impact of reading those poems in in the language in which the poet thought of those words. Writing love poems is difficult. It is hard to become mushy or melodramatic. The ability to express this complex human emotion on paper is not easy. Neruda was a respected diplomat who always used green colored ink to write his poems. He felt green was the color of hope. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1971. He shared his insight on poets and poetry when in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. He said ...]]></description>
		<link>http://abhijitbhaduri.com/2010/08/pablo-neruda/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Make Better PowerPoints</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The Wikipedia told me about the "Chinese water torture". This was a torture that was supposed to drive its victim insane with the stress of water dripping on a part of the forehead for a very long time. It was characterized by the inconsistent pattern of water drips. Supposedly, the desire for the human brain to make a pattern of the timing between the drops will also eventually cause insanity to set in. That was then. Today that method is replaced by subjecting unsuspecting colleagues to horrible presentations that makes the water torture look almost benign. There are many reasons why presentations go haywire. You have probably suffered through many sessions where the speaker reads through what really looks like the pages of a book - except that all 5000 pages including the graphs and tables of research data are all put into one slide. The font is small enough to inspire people not delay any more the decision whether to wear specs or not. Worse still many presenters feel that the slide is like a teleprompter. They read it out line by line and imagine that the audience is either illiterate or so lazy that they will not read stuff even if it is in front of them. Here is the big secret -

   1. If you have sentences to share with your audience, use a Word document
   2. If you have data and graphs to show – use Excel. Give them a printout that they can either read ahead of the meeting or can sus out after you have gone home
   3. If have a conclusion to share or an idea you want them to remember use PowerPoint

The Slide Rule (pun intended): Have a single point on a slide – preferably with a visual. The visual should be about the story that goes with the slide. The slides are for the audience to remember as key take aways. Slides are not speaker notes. It is not about the slides anyway.]]></description>
		<link>http://abhijitbhaduri.com/2010/08/make-better-powerpoints/</link>
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