Akshay Surve

What to change?
Simply put I would like to start getting up early (be in the early riser group) and see if it affects me positively. Do you feel the same?

Is something wrong without it?
No, in fact I can go without it. Currently, I consider I have a schedule which allows me to put in the requisite amount of hours in my work and other activities that I want to indulge in. Overall I am happy with the pace of things and I have learnt to avoid the areas which produces the guilt feeling.

I will give you a small example here: Now the ideal time to go for a run/jog is early morning. I have tried my hand at it numerous times and finally settled at time around 9 pm. Now, I wouldn’t say I failed in all the previous attempts because all the times I consoled myself rationally that it was not the right time *for me*. Sometimes saying to myself that ‘I need more sleep as I have slept late’, ‘I am not the early riser kind of person’, etc. Bottom-line: I decided that it shouldn’t make a big difference if I jog/run at evening/night plus I get to avoid that guilt feel of not being able to meet my goals. This has worked wonders for me. I have been able to do all the things I want to in the time I have and surprisingly without the guilt feeling of not waking up early. For all these years I have enjoyed working late nights. I Feel it comes naturally to me. I love the calmness of the night, I love its silence. I feel hitting all-nighters (here, here and so many times) is a trait which I am proud of and has benefitted me over the years.

So, why now?
Right from childhood this has always been in the back of my mind. I have tried but I have not stuck with it for various reasons (they may seem rational while hitting the snooze button but not any more). I want to give it one more shot and for the simple reason that I know I can. But, from my past learnings I also know I can come up with some rationale to avoid it and so this post and a call for everyone who wants to cultivate this habit. So, let not make it an individual struggle but a collaborative experience.

What’s the game all about?
Lets play this game as a team. Remember, together we can.

Format:

• We shall draft the rules of the game together. :) All of them should be personally acceptable to each of us participating.
• We play this game for a fixed time period (say 30 days)
• We won’t make it a closed struggle. We shall publish online our small victories (waking up on time on a particular day) and write about our big failures (not waking up on time on some day)
• Seek active advice from people and allow anyone to comment of scold us if we don’t act by the rules.
• We shall not give up unless we are out of the game (you break the rules more than x times and you are ousted). Winners get accolades, looser feels the shame (but they can give it one more shot if they feel like and emerge as winners)

Hope you get the gist?

Vision
Is this only about getting up early? No, not at all. This is about change. This is a part of an un-named project that I am initiating (its yet to have a name and I am open to your suggestions, any?) Oh yeah, I can hear in the background cheers of… “yes we can, yes we can… ;)”

So are you game?
If you want to become an early riser than this is for you. Please leave a comment below or contact me on my email.

Updates

Barka and Anil have joined in :) Please give them a standing ovation (or better send them some words of appreciation in comments below. Pokes and vampire bites a strict no, lol)

For updates head straight to 42times project wiki project page:

• 30each

If you would like to join in, you can leave me a message below or contact us through the contact page on 42times project.

Take a closer look here on Wikimapia.

I have submitted an entry to the N2Y3 Mashup Challenge.

From the N2Y3 website:

The N2Y3 NetSquared Conference brings together a unique mix of people from the public and private sectors to develop and release Mashups designed to provide deeper insight into the social issues affecting communities around the globe.

I have proposed ‘SocialHub - Dashboard for Social Change‘.

Thought behind SocialHub:

If you think you do, when you do you should share because when you share you spread awareness and make people think.

SocialHub is all about aggregating the latest and most popular content from various social change initiatives (platforms, websites, blogs) together and create a dashboard for social change.

SocialHub will act as a starting point for you and me who want to keep themselves updated about the latest and most popular content related to effecting positive social change. In addition this will also be of great value to social change initiatives to be showcased and build traction among its constituencies.

Proposed Status:
This is at a concept level. I would also like to add that like a true mashup its best to hack a version 1.0 and follow it up with an iterative approach to build upon recommendations from the community.

Proposed Roadmap:

To achieve our goals plus build upon learnings from verticals like web2.0 and technology. I would like to propose an approach which is heavily borrowed from ‘popurls‘ and learnings from ‘techmeme‘ and ‘digg‘.

To start with we will feature the latest and most popular content from top websites in their categories. As we move on we will take into consideration click-through, social filtering, recommendations and personalization to leverage the long tail.

Project page at N2Y3 Mashup Challenge:

http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/socialhub

I would really appreciate if you could vote for my mashup entry provided you like it. Also do explore the Project Gallery which boasts around 120+ mashups.

Voting ends in the next 24 hours so you need to Hurry!!! (reads like a super-bumper offer).

Voting Rules:

1. Please register and log in to the NetSquared site.
2. Go to the project page. http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/socialhub
3. To vote for a project, click on the voting badge or “Add Project to Ballot” link at the top of the page.
4. You may only vote once for a project.
   You must choose at least 5 (and up to 10) of your favorite projects. So please visit Projects link to review project proposals from others. Your ballot will only count if you have atleast 5 projects.
5. Submit your ballot to cast your final votes. Once you SUBMIT, that’s it!

General Observation:

I was going through the mashup proposals in the Project Gallery and most of them (I am generalizing, but thats what I feel) were in BETA. Contrasting it with SocialHub I would say is at the Concept stage. So here are some encouraging words from the Netsquared team:

We want to help separate apples from oranges this year. That is, we believe projects at the ‘concept’ level would benefit from being evaluated separately from projects that are much further along. To this end, please identify which phase you believe your project is in

I would like to add that although SocialHub is in its ‘Concept’ state its very much hackable ;)

Thanks:

I did mail people who I thought would be interested in the mashup challenge for some feedback and support. It was good of some to revert back quickly in support. Thanks. I am still scouting for your views and feedback.