When my friend Theyaga first introduced me to Twitter, I was not really thrilled. I thought this was going to be just one of those million useless social networking sites where a stranger will barge in and have the nerve to say “hey! you are cute… Wanna catch up over coffee sometime babe?”

Well! I was wrong! So were many others. Twitter surprisingly, has changed the way internet businesses work in such a short time. From Techcrunch to the latest in the group, Hindu Metro Plus, everyone seems to love the retweet button. Latest update: there are about 1.6 retweet buttons on the prowl on the net, resulting in 6 million actual retweets! A dozen applications are created everyday for twitter users, and half a dozen clones are already in their beta modes.

Just today, someone has come up with a brilliant idea of combining sex with Twitter! A couple of days back, there was a huge argument about who had the real retweet button! Oh yes! It is a separate business to make retweet buttons! There are at least 13 other businesses that run successfully, just creating add-ons for Twitter.

Guy Kawasaki, an entrepreneur genius that many look up to, assures in his recent blog that repeat tweets are, by themselves a great traffic increasing tool! And can you forget the major race between CNN and Ashton Kutcher to be the first to touch a million followers that basically acted as a marketing strategy for CNN itself?

From sharing files to business cards, and running a standalone marketing campaign, there are a million things that you can do on twitter, with new things being found as you read this post.

I bet that when Evan Williams and Riz Stone found Twitter first, they wouldn’t have imagined it will become so huge! Well, it was only recently that they even created Twitter 101 which is a sort of tutorial for new users. Well, it was an eye-opener to me for one! And it was surprising to know that half the trends on twitter like the hashtag and @someone were created by users.

Will the world come to a standstill without twitter? Hell, No! Maybe, a dozen businesses will! But guess what? A few hundred years back, the world was functioning normally without google! A few years before that, without computers! And a few hundred years before that, even without electricity! Will twitter become a necessity? Many would say yes! Many would say no! Which of the above two do I belong to? I am still figuring that one out!

Meanwhile, you can catch me on twitter at www.twitter.com/krithikasuresh.

You just have to turn 20 in this country and everyone starts asking you “so when are you getting married”.. Family functions and cousin’s marriages are no fun anymore… You get phone calls on a daily basis about this prospective guy who has just flown down from America… It suddenly looks like everyone around except you are silently planning your marriage…
The arranged marriage is quite a long procedure! The parents first sit and make a flow chart and a event plan. Phone calls are made to all relatives, distant friends and everyone that you could think of in your own caste! Onnu vitta chitthi’s athai ponnu’s marriage suddenly becomes the most important family function. You are dressed up and presented to everyone with an intro “This is my daughter… I am looking out for her you know?” At this stage, mostly, some one or the other seems fit. Otherwise, the parents go ahead and put an ad in the matrimonial column. Once the prospective VARANs start coming in, the parents do all the research possible, and then come to the person getting married with the long list of shortlisted candidates. This is where you get the chance to choose YOUR life partner… And once you do more shortlisting than that, the meetings happen.. The old Ponnu parkara padalam is out of fashion nowadays. The families meet in a temple or a restaurant, and have a chat.. Beyond this, if you still like the guy, the next step for the family is doing detective velai to figure out if the boy has any “bad habits”. Once they are satisfied, they take the jathagam to the astrologer. Once he gives the green signal, more talks are followed by the nichyathartham on an auspicious day and a few months of shopping for various occasions that only they seem to remember. Selecting the mandapam, fixing the date according to the mandapam, selecting an invitation card that is novel and DIFFERENT. Exchanging invitations and then the marriage which is a 3-4 day ordeal which involves a lot of smoke, mantras in a language you cant understand, most uncomfortable clothing and doing a namaskaram to atleast a 100 people in a day… Phew! Doesn’t love marriage seem much simpler than all this??? It seemed that way to me at least!!!

I know I know! I promised this post way long back! Excuses apart, here goes 10 days to being an RJ! I shall be giving it in ten installments, and I request you to go one day at a time! At the end of 10 days, you might feel a little clearer about where you are heading…
Now, let us get going!

Day 1:

Being an RJ is not an easy task. It involves a lot of passion and a lot of effort. These 10 days are just here to introduce you to the art of RJing! But before you begin, you need to make a promise!
That you will continue to learn, to seek!

Radio is a local medium. Your city’s radio can be heard only in your city. And your radio talks through people like you: the RJs!
It is highly important for an RJ to know the city well.
Your first task does not teach you how to be an RJ, but prepares you for it.

Do you ride a bike? Lovely! Here goes Day one’s task.
Take a pocket notebook and a pen that writes. Start your bike and leave your house. You don’t need to know where you are heading. Take all the routes you have never taken before! But, keep looking at signs and boards. Stop after a while and note down the path you took, the houses you saw, the schools, churches and temples you came across, the supermarkets and roadside vendors that you noticed, and what they sold. This exercise doesn’t stop with day one. In fact, it is best that you make it a daily exercise, find new places in your city.

Once you come back, pull out a local newspaper (preferably in the local language) and read through all the small articles that you would generally have missed. Note down the names of locations you come across and see how many you are aware of.
Go online and pick out a road map of your city. See if you know the roads mentioned in it. At the end of the exercises, if you feel that you don’t know much about your city, take 3 more days to do research before you go to the next day’s task. Your ten days are hereby extended to thirteen!
If you feel you have a decent knowledge about the city, make sure you develop this knowledge further. Close your eyes and visualize the path to various areas in the city. Keep doing everyday hence. What is next?

Day 2:

Let’s test how much of an RJ you already are! First, Lets start an imaginary radio station for you! Think of a name for the radio station, and a by line to go with it! You can name it anything you want! If you are out of ideas, try Blue FM! The colour of music! I know! Bad creative! But trust me! If you can make this one sound good, you can probably sell anything!

Now for the real task! Take a paper and pen! Now write down 10 things you like talking about and 10 things you simply hate talking about! Don’t forget to number these things!

Done? Good stuff! Now what is your favourite number between 1 and 10?

Take the topic written across that number from both your lists! Try writing a small “LINK”. Now remember this word! A LINK or JOCKTALK is what the RJ talks between the songs. Make sure you include your Name, the station name and the byline at least once in the Link! And make sure it lasts for a maximum of 60 seconds only!

Done? Cool! You must have a recorder on your phone right? Switch it on and read your links!

You can overwrite the file only twice! Actually, you don’t get a second chance in Radio, But since this is your first time, you get a special discount!

Done? Great! Now go to sleep! We’ll meet again tomorrow! Don’t listen to what you recorded. If you start feeling bored, try the other 18 topics from the 2 lists! But don’t listen to what you recorded yet!

Day 3, 4, 5 & 6:

Who is your best friend? Get hold of Him/her! And who is the person who criticizes you the most? Get hold of them as well! You are going to need their help for the next 4 days!

On Day 3, play them what you recorded the previous day! Ask them if they like the way you spoke! But more important! Ask them if it sounded the way you’d speak to them!

And that, my friend, is the key! Even when you are doing a link as an RJ, you should sound just the way you do when you talk to a friend! If you do, you have crossed half the line!

For the next 3 days, write things: random stuff, random topics.

Try describing your hide-out! Try talking about the drama behind election in USA, Talk about the nuclear deal, about terrorism, about your neighbour’s little daughter, the loudspeakers that disturb your nights, porn movies, Kamasutra techniques, the life cycle of a butterfly, Quantum theory, goofups that you have done in your love life, the thing you hate the most about yourself, just any topic!

And keep reading out the links to your friends. After a while, try doing the links without the paper! Take down all the comments that come your way! Work on the comments! Improve yourself! Keep pushing yourself! Keep trying to make yourself perfect! Till you feel confident to go to the most difficult part of the 10 day training!

Day 7:

Your seventh day’s purpose is extremely simple! You need to figure the answer out for a simple question! But trust me! The task isn’t that simple!

The question is this: WHO ARE YOU? The Real You!

Before you try answering this question, let me introduce one more term to you! USP - Unique Selling Proposition! You must have heard this term if you are in the advertising or marketing industry. Basically, it is that special quality of any product that makes it stand out in a crowd!

Now, let me make the earlier question clearer to you. What is your USP?

Take the whole day to think about this! Ask your friends, ask your mom, dad, bro, sis, neighbour, enemy, anyone! Make notes, compare and figure out which part of you seems to be the most popular in your circle!

Well, your USP could be anything; you could be the funniest flirt, the craziest news man, the gossip uncle, the agony aunt, the live Discovery channel, the drama queen, Bollywood basha, the ape man, or even the love guru! Or anything that is not even close to this list! Whatever it is, be proud of your USP! That is what is going to give you your radio Personality! Now, having done this, go take rest! You have earned it! You have 3 long days to go, starting tomorrow!

Day 8:

Right! Now you know who you are! Now be who you are! Take any topic that you have talked about in the past 7 days and tweak it to suit your radio personality!

For example, if the topic is say, the tigers in India, and if your radio personality is ‘the live Discovery channel’, you might talk about the number of tigers in India, their locations, how they are decreasing in number steeply, and so on!

If you are the gossip uncle, you might talk about how a particular actor has an original tiger skin rug in his living room and go on about it!

If you are the flirty girl, you might talk about which hero is closest to the tiger for you

And so on….

Try doing this with at least 10 topics. Ask yourself if you liked hearing yourself!

As long as you feel you need to improve just a little more, you are on the right track!

Day 9:

Pick out 10 random songs from your MP3 list! Today, you are going to do your first 1 hour show!

Before that! There are some types of link that you need to know about!

The Intro link, as the name suggests is the first link of the show, it should be a teaser for all the things that you intend to do in the show

The Crunch and Roll. You must have heard these songs which have a long lead music before the lyrics of the song starts right? Your crunch and roll is nothing but a link that will fit right in that lead music. It starts a second after the lead music starts and finishes a second before the lyrics of the song begin!

The tease, which basically just teases you to the next bit of the show.

The Handshake Link is the last link in your show, which concludes your show and leads in the next show!

The caller interaction link as the name suggests is the RJ talking to a caller

Make sure you try all these things at least once in your show today! Open the windows media player or any other music player of your choice. Use the stop and play buttons and the volume controls (Decrease the volume of the song when you are talking over it, and gradually increase the volume after you are done talking. I didn’t want to get into technical stuff yet, but still, I just want you to have a good show!) Put the phone on the loudspeaker while doing your caller link!

Record the entire thing on your system (use sound forge, or any sound software of your choice, or take a friend’s help, or better still, use a tape recorder!) and hear yourself! Do at least 3 shows in the course of the day! Select the best show of the lot, and keep it cued! Call your friends and ask them to come over the next day! Go to bed now! We’ll catch up again tomorrow!

Day 10:

Hear yourself with your friends! From the first link you ever recorded, to the show you did! If you feel there has been some kind of improvement, and if your friends genuinely second that, BRAVO!!!! You are doing well! (A pat on my back as well!)

If you feel you are not making any headway, maybe you need a real trainer! Let us hope you get the best!

And hey! Whatever you do, Don’t stop believing in yourself! You are almost an RJ material now! You just need to meet the right people and impress them to start going on air! No radio station wants to miss a really good talent! So all the best and keep in touch!