There seems to be some correlation between Underdogs and British/Scott people with the last name Boyle. First, it was the turn of Danny Boyle to direct a film about an underdog and stun the world with his rags-to-riches story. The film, Slumdog Millionaire, went on to become a huge commercial success and was awarded 8 Oscar awards. Now, it is the turn of another Boyle, Susan to stun the world.

Consider this – At the time of writing this article, Susan Boyle-related videos have generated more than 100 million views in Youtube. As you are reading this, there must be thousands of viewers watching Susan Boyle’s videos. The video that I watched had 40 million views, 162,000 ratings (all 5 stars- can anything beat that?), 613 video responses, close to 200,000 text comments. Moments later when I went back to check these statistics, I was completely surprised. These numbers had gone up significantly. There cannot be a better example of an outrageously successful viral video.

So Who is Susan Boyle? What makes her a sensational figure? You will get the answers to these questions when you watch the video. It is so self-explanatory. I suggest that you watch the video before reading further.

Watch the video here

Susan is a 47 year old poor unemployed woman who took part in the UK reality show – “Britain’s Got Talent”. She had a not so pleasing personality and was quite awkward when she was put in front of camera. When she entered the stage, people looked at her mockingly and wanted her to get off the stage as soon as possible.In short, she was written off even before she performed on the stage. But when she started singing, the audience was stunned by her sweet voice. Within seconds, she became a sensation. The audience wildly cheered for her and gave here a standing ovation. The judges were equally stunned and awarded her the maximum possible points. With that, another rags-to-riches story was born. Another underdog, in this case Susan Boyle, fought against all odds and won.

The common thread between the successes of Danny and Susan Boyles’ underdog stories is that people are so tired of bad news and any feel- good story that is soothing is warmly embraced. There are stories in the internet about how audience felt exhilarated after watching “Slumdog Millionaire”(SDM) and about people watching Susan Boyle’s videos repeatedly and weeping with joy every time they saw it. There are also critics who slam both SDM and Susan Boyle’s videos as over-hyped and opine that both are mediocre at best. And these critics have a valid point.

However, the bottom-line is, in both the cases, the audience were not “thinking” and analysing critically. Instead, they were “feeling” and giving vent to their emotions. Looks like the heart continues to be more powerful than the head. Isn’t it?

PS: Here is an article about the Susan Boyle phenomenon that I found quite interesting

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The Oscar fever has caught on and for the first time, I am blogging live watching the Oscars, from the comforts of my home. Nothing can beat this experience. Seeing it live, munching my favourite triscuit, watching my two kids screaming louder than the Oscar host and blogging as Slumdog Millionaire is about to win Oscars – At this point, I don’t know how many, though!

The expectations are high among Indians that music maestro AR Rahman, who has bagged three nominations for “Slumdog Millionaire”, will bring home the coveted trophy. What a moment that will be!

Other two Indian films vying for the glory are “Smile Pinki” and “The Final Inch”.

The time is 8.30 PM EST.

Ok, the Oscar Awards has begun and so is this live blogging.

The time is 8:33 PM

Singer, Dancer, Actor Hugh Jackman enters the show with startling display of his talent. He starts of with the song on Slumdog Millionaire, moves onto Benjamin Button – what a startling display, picks up Anne Hathaway for an impromptu dance. Jackman performs about the other movies – The Reader, The Wrestler and Nixon. What a Live Performance that was!

The time is 8:40 PM

Hugh Jackman introduces all the nominees including Mickey Rourke, the couple – Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie, the guy who played Nixon, Demi Moore.

The time is 8:45 PM

5 yesteryear Oscar actress winners including Whoopi Goldberg introduces Penelope Cruz, Marisa Tomei, Demi Moore et al.

Penelope Cruz wins Oscar for the best actress. She goes to the stage and thinks she would faint…but doesn’t. She gave an emotional speech saying it is art which unites the universe. You are too good and beautiful. Penelope – Congratulations !

The time is 8:54 PM

Some type pad clicks. Few sentences and sounds of a typewriter. I don’t know what is happening.

Enter Steve Martin and Tina Fei. They starts joking around, as usual and soon picks up the mike for announcing the best screenplay. Now I understand why there were those type sounds.

The best screenplay award goes to Dustin Lance Black for Milk. Dustin, on the stage, emotionally talks of “Hope” for Gays and Lesbians across America.

Next comes the award for the best adopted screenplay…and the award goes to Simon Beaufoy, the writer for Slumdog Millionaire.

Oscar # 1 for Slumdog Millionaire. Wondering why Vikas Swarup for Original Screenplay. But yes, he thanked Vikas Swarup and the other two musketeers and his love for India.

I am so excited now. My friend, Madhavan, who wrote Will Slumdog Millionaire Win the Oscar Awards, pings me on Gmail. We exchange congratulations for the first in the kitty and many to go.

The time is 9:03.

Enters Kungfu Panda and his star friends…I am talking of Jack Black and Jennifer Aniston. He is hilarious.

The best animated feature film goes to Wall-E. Oscar is taken by Andrew Stanton. He thanks everyone..nothing extraordinary of a speech. The show goes on

The best animated short film goes to La Maison En Petites. Kunio Kato collects the award and “Sanks” everyone!…Sankooo..meaning Thank You.

Time for a break!

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Satyam! A name that needs no introduction and a name that is in the news for all the wrong reasons!!!

While what has happened is a horrific, isolated and hopefully a standalone incident, the real repercussions are felt by the people who work there. As someone who started his career in Satyam many years ago, my heart goes out to all of them.

Satyam’s business was all about people. To their credit, they did a terrific job in terms of attracting a lot of top talent – Satyam’s talent database is a treasure trove with folks with the dream IIT & IIM combination, Engineers from the brightest and best institutes around the country who chose to make a career in IT. They have them all.

Leadership (while being associated with the chairman who fell) across functions is pretty solid too. Some of the best people managers that I have met in the business were in my early days there. Learnings from there have been invaluable for me personally and I think I was extremely privileged to get campus picked and work with some fabulous peers and leaders.

Not for the skeptic, they have a few people who are a waste of office space and furniture too! Let me not deny that. These are folks who were “loyal” to the “Raju” and moved from being Executive Assistants and Front Office Executives to Project Managers – They were a disaster. They were where they were for the loyalty factor.

I am not surprised one bit to see the Raju community still backing the actions of their ex-chairman and Bhimavaram going ga ga to buy shares of Satyam which is heading to become another General Motors- Worthless!

There’s also a website in his name where people STILL sing praises…now this is simple sycophancy!

It’s unfortunate that the actions of one man and his greed have led a bunch of really talented people to doldrums. I sincerely hope and pray that these talented people get picked up somewhere / somehow.

Good clients have led the way making offers to some of the stars that work on their assignments. While the talent market is stale, there is always a space for niche and I am pretty hopeful that some of these really good folks there get picked up in due course of time.

Signing off, did we see something similar to this and Lehman – GREED!! Isn’t it an age old saying that greed kills… How true!

There are some things that are a legacy and these never change!

Image Credit: Swami Stream

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