At the outset wishing friends , well wishers , clients , customers , contacts on linkedIn and twitter ,colleagues and ex-colleagues a Happy and Prosperous New Year. Every year brings its own shares of highs and lows , learning , lessons and at times keeping you guessing as to what is around the corner.

Quite a lot of things happened in 2013. It is now behind us and few moments left before we would be woken up into a brand new year. A small concise and brief list of things that touched me personally.

1. Became an adept smart phone user and started using many features. Realized that smart is not all that smart when it comes to power usage. It can’t have it all for now before we have some smart battery that replaces this nuisance otherwise a really smart add on which most of the population will sooner or later use.

2. Started using twitter and the 140 words is really a quick and dirty way to learn on things of your interest. You may wonder how is this possible , you can try twitter may be personally may be a late entry. But it is easy to understand what is happening in your arena if follow folks of your interest. No where in the history of mankind are people distanced by a tweet away. You can almost tweet anyone high or low from any country or race and voice your opinion.

3. The lonely boy fifteen as referred by Guy Kawasaki in one of his talks literally illustrates the power of the social media. Was able to voice my opinion on my twitter on two occasions where I expressed my displeasure on certain customer experience with products. Both the occasions the companies got back and try to win back the dissatisfied customer. This emphasized the power of social media where any brand is only as good as the last user experience. Good for the end users that big brands can no longer push things at them without a certain responsibility.

4. Lessons in how to run things by yourself when you start small ( www.eturnti.com). All things need to start somewhere and this was a step in that direction. All learnings here  give you a perspective of how it is to step outside and view things differently and more importantly make things happen. Thanks all clients and customers and folks who supported here and helped bring work to the table when it mattered.

5. An increase in the number of linkedIn contacts from all sections of the industry. Some people seriously interested in making connections others simply to extend the connection to tell their story (eturnti included). It is a good medium to showcase what you have to offer and tell your story .

6. Got to brush shoulders with people who have tasted success big and small and more importantly are out their to make a dent in the universe as Steve Jobs calls it. It is a humbling and learning experience to know all of them had started in a shack with no formal office / sophistication and no funding in the case of a few. Some funny cases of how people started out and some accidental entrepreneurs.

7.Every client is book in itself. What do you have to offer that he/she is interested in is a good question to ask before trying to sell your ware ?. Most of them have very specific needs and are rarely satisfied with an umbrella offering. Get specific and also distance yourself where you are not able to add value to the customer is a lesson here.

8. The young and old have started using technology. My family has a good exchange of messages on whatszapp apart from facebook. Who knows next it might well be snapchat. Anyway here have a see if the technology catches up before you get to use it. Bitcoin might eventually be the order of a cashless world . If that were to make things safe then you have cyber theives adding to the complexity. So always stay hungry and stay foolish before you are challenged.

9. You can almost sell anything these days including yoga and doctor services online which were thought of as the last things to be made available online as you need a personal presence. The world is shrinking and it is up to us to get our act in order to stay in tune with the new world order.

10. Meet people outside your area of influence it enhances your own sphere in ways that you thought not possible. Try it and find it out for yourself.

A robot will fly sometime soon from flipkart, amazon , ebay to gift your next New Year gift. This is not a distant thing as things stand today. We will be soon surrounded by robots . Be human and stay young at heart and keep staying foolish.