The Company of Zeros!

Ola! My reader friends,

The last few months have been really busy and eventful. The best thing of all, I came back home from Pune and got a job as a content writer with a small company that provides a number of web based services.  93% of the people in this company are engineers. They do not take even a fleeting interest in beautiful subjects like history and politics. Instead, they chat excitedly about machines and programming in a language that is certainly not English.

We gel pretty well over movies and computer games . On that note, considering their lack of interest in politics and their interest in computer games, I have come up with a suitable nickname for my new place of employment: The Company of Zeros (hereafter referred to as TCZ)

Services provided by TCZ include web designing, web booking portals, computer sofware, mobile applications, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Marketing (SMM).  SEO is a process by which you get your website to rank as high as possible in Google searches.

TCZ’s current clients include one Indian online travel booking portal and a British website that sells jeans online. The company also has a small mobile app which will leave you questioning the sanity of its designers.  The app has a blog in its name.

I write content for the blogs of the two websites and the app. This new venture has led me to discover things I never knew existed.

Travel, fashion, and LOVE!

I write a blog giving travel tips for the travel site (dear inner voice, stop reminding me that I have never travelled anywhere apart from Pune and Mumbai)

I write love and relationship tips for the blog in the name of the buzzing app (despite double crossing diplomacy being my core subject)

And last but not the least, I must write one blog post every day giving fashion tips-for women.

Now, one might ask what a defence and intelligence expert is doing writing blogs about such trivial topics. 

Well, take a look at my next task.

My second task is writing ‘home’ and ‘about us’ descriptions for various websites just so, that they get a higher rank in Google searches. It a pretty simple task.

Using a set of tools called Google Webmaster Tools, the SEO expert finds out what ‘keywords’ people enter to search for a website. For example, they will enter ‘jeans online uk’ to search for the site that sells jeans.  A list of such most popular keywords and phrases then comes to me. I have to insert those keywords in the description of the website. For example, I will take the above phrase and write a sentence “we are the most reliable site when it comes to buying jeans online in the UK”

The website is then submitted back to Google webmaster tools. Google’s programme bots called ‘crawlers’ will then ‘read’ the text and index the site on google.

Search Engine Optimization, you see, is a gold mine of information.

As of the three articles, I depend upon some quick phone calls to my friends in the media for travel tips. The love and relationship blog is kept alive with data from a great facebook page called ‘psychology today’.

Getting information for this fashion blog is also not a problem for a guy who was the only boy in the class of 15 at the University and one of only two guys in the German language class of 25 students.

My phone is my lifeline.  My friends are my life.

TCZ is also trying to redesign its website and brainstorming for design ideas is an exciting exercise.  I am responsible for providing text for the website along with some design ideas in co-ordination with the company’s graphic artist.

Work is fun, but the way this company operates has taught me a thing or two about management.

Work hours are from 8:30 to 5:30 pm with one hour lunch break. However, thanks to my friends, I finish my work quickly and spend time researching for my next book. Unfortunately, anything other than company work sometimes draws the ire of some of the bosses. They have insisted that I let them know two hours before I finish my work so that they can immediately assign me the next task.  I really do not understand why these people squeeze the employees like this. If someone delivers ahead of the deadline, that guy should get the leftover time for himself.

That does not seem to happen here.  

I have found a way through this situation-research.

I spend my free time researching travel tips and ideas. Basically I just read some awesome travel blogs:). On that note, I was reading about history of Britain the other day and stumbled upon the Scottish international storytelling festival and the legendary Royal Edinburgh Military Tatoo. Also, take a look at this funny blog of a Russian traveler who seems to be madly in love with Berlin. And for the cherry on top, here are some short history and geopolitics briefings that will help one better understand the countries one plans to visit. Studying destinations will keep one motivated till one manages to accumulate enough money :)

When I am not reading travel blogs or researching history of some country, I try to get some Web design inspiration to contribute ideas for TCZ website redesign.  Surfing all those beautiful sites actually drives me into vivid daydreams of how I will design my website when I become a successful author. The graphic artist then shakes me out of these dreams. I especially liked this website called Beard Design. It belongs to another great web design company. Do check it out. 

I have made so many discoveries and taken so many notes that my Pinterest boards are buzzing with activity. The Company of Zeros is a gold mine of information.  The only issue is that I might not last long here due to the company's strict management practices. I want to get back to my liberal and loving 'home'- the media. On the bright side, I have identified some key websites and people that will keep open, the treasure chest that holds one of the most valuable treasure in today's world.

Search Engine Optimization.