<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/46228967.cms" /> At a time when sense of humour in India is a debatable, questionable and arguable topic, comic legend <keyword id="5630" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Jerry-Seinfeld">Jerry Seinfeld</keyword> decides to visit India. He will be performing in, Mumbai on March 14 and 15 at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium in Worli. This is a double treat for his <keyword id="207039" type="POSITION" weightage="20" keywordseo="legendary-comedian">legendary comedian</keyword>’s fans since this is the first time ever he would be performing in India, and the whole of Asia, so to say. 
 
The tickets are priced merely at Rs 7,500 per head. And no, we aren’t kidding, okay! 
 People who grew up watching Jerry <keyword id="5631" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Seinfeld">Seinfeld</keyword> have been watching re-runs since the longest time now. Because, the world famous comedian stopped his series nearly 17 years ago. So, in just about a year, a kid who would be born when he stopped airing his episodes, will get to vote if elections are held anytime next year. It has really been THAT long since he regaled people. His legion, however, hasn’t forgotten him yet. 
 
The Emmy and Golden Globe winning comedian was super good at playing a semi-fictional version of self in one of the most popular sitcoms ever in the history of television. In Mumbai, he will be offering a double treat to his fans, by staging two shows! 
 But really, Seinfeld would have been in India much earlier if the original storyline which was based on <keyword id="84280" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Harold-Pinter">Harold Pinter</keyword>’s play of the same name ‘The Betrayal’. There were scenes which were to be shot in India, but were deleted for some reason. 
 
Now, all this is not really important when we think of the time when Seinfeld has decided to perform in India. Who will the joke be on? The recent AIB Roast has proved even humour can be double sided, and there’s not much left to laugh in the country. Actors don’t agree with the tone and tenor, and then there are stand up comedians who would insist their script is sacred over people’s ability to laugh or to get offended, whichever happens first. 
 
The Brooklyn-born co-creator of Seinfeld series insists India has always fascinated him. The culture amazes him. And he says he is very excited to be here, and ‘make fun in person’. Till this point, all is well with the plot. But then, things begin to get a little knotty here for two reasons. One, like we already mentioned, the issue of ‘sense of humour’ of people in general especially post the AIB Roast phase. Now, added complication comes through in another form. Post-Barack Obama visit, India has not been too very excited to roll out a red carpet to people who come here on invitation/or on their own and then go back to make some really ‘hurtful’ observations about the country. If monolithic observations are all that you can make, India is the best country to avoid since it isn’t an easy nut to crack on one visit. So, you see, the plot is getting all complicated with a diplomatic issue taking the centre stage. Nah, we were simply kidding, of course! 
 
But, really at a time when humour has turned into a premium, one anticipation would be about how the people would respond since Seinfeld is bound to crack some clever one liners involving politicians and their ways. Hopefully, his script writer has done enough homework on India’s cultural challenges and hasn’t written anything that would sound insensitive or invoke angry reactions from people. 
 
Because, given the city of Mumbai, which has high resilience towards life the city is also known for violent reactions to something that doesn’t go down too well with the given temperament of the people and the city. And then, there is also a hope that city will laugh with Seinfeld too! 
In a way, it would also be a relief that apart from diplomatic visits and disappointments, Seinfeld is in India to regale people. May be, just maybe, he will learn to appreciate a thing or two about Indian way of life without getting too shallow about it. Because when you look at the west, a joke is good way of bonding; but a ridicule can snap bridges forever.

Seinfeld in India: Well-timed or ill-timed?

I've been trying to learn the piano for roughly half a decade. I managed to get a handle on the basics years ago, but I could never get myself to the point where I was practicing consistently. So I've been stuck at the same subpar skill level.And it's not the only habit I've struggled to maintain. Two years ago, I joined a fitness club, hoping to get myself to play tennis every other day, but I've hardly visited it since. And my plan to meditate each morning met a similar fate earlier in the pandemic. Most of us are familiar with the tedious cycle. You sit down and convince yourself you're going to start a new habit — running every morning, writing a daily journal, or reading before bed. For the first couple of days, you're motivated and consistent, sticking to it religiously. But then something comes up, you have to work late, or you go out of town, and the new habit fizzles out before it's ingrained in your life.New habits are hard to build. Jan Lindemans, a senior behavioral researcher at Duke University, told me that a habit needed to have four things to last: cue, response, reward, and repetition. Take something like brushing your teeth in the morning. The cue — waking up — triggers a response to brush, which leaves you with fresh, minty breath as the reward. Then you repeat that every day to incorporate it into your routine. A <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2009/aug/how-long-does-it-take-form-habit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2009 study from researchers</a> at University College London found that it took an average of 66 days for a habit to stick. After talking to Lindemans, I realized that my attempts to play the piano had included none of these steps. I didn't have a cue that prompted me to practice or a reward that made me regularly keep coming back for more. So a couple of weeks ago, I decided to turn to tech.A new fleet of habit-tracking apps has sprung up to help people like me set up a structured approach to building habits. The apps are designed to track my progress and motivate me in a variety of ways. So far, the apps have worked wonders. Over the past few weeks of rededicating myself to the piano and tennis, I've missed only two days. While I'm pleased with the results, the bells and whistles of these apps left me with a nagging feeling: Was I actually forming a habit or just becoming addicted to the app itself? How much credit could I really give myself? Are there downsides to relying too much on technology? <h2>Habit apps hit the scene</h2>Apps that track your habits have spiked in popularity over the past few years, according to Abe Yousef, a senior analyst at the mobile-analytics firm Sensor Tower. While some apps, such as Fabulous, which has about 24 million downloads, seek to support you in establishing elaborate daily routines, <a href="https://www.stickk.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">others</a> offer radical methods, including forcing you to commit a certain amount of cash to be donated to charity whenever you fail to follow through on your commitments.To me, though, many of these popular services felt bloated with options, and managing them was a job on its own. So I turned to a more minimalistic app called <a href="http://everyday.app" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Everyday</a>. The app works in a simple way: Each day, at the same time, it sends me a reminder to do the habit I'm trying to form (in this case, practice the piano). Once I complete the task, I mark it on a calendar in the app and a colorful streak grows. That visual reward triggers a dopamine response, which pushes me to repeat the habit and grow the streak the next day.<div type="image" title="A screenshot of the everyday app showing a 31-day streak for playing the piano" height="843" width="1124" msid="99405564" hostid="261"></div>This habit loop made the behaviors I wanted to turn into habits more automatic. No longer was I playing the piano or scheduling a tennis match with a friend on a whim. Instead, Everyday helped me build a consistent routine.Marco Stojanovic, a psychology researcher at the Bielefeld University in Germany, told me that this kind of automatic routine "slowly shifts behavior from deliberation to habit." The regular reminders can "help build that initial automaticity and act like an extension of our past intent," he said. The evidence behind habit-building apps isn't just anecdotal, either. When Stojanovic conducted <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00167/full" target="_blank" rel="noopener">research</a> to test their efficacy, he asked a group of university students to track their study habits on an app. After six weeks, he found that the apps reduced motivational barriers in students and that they were less likely to be distracted. Similarly, a 2015 University College London <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2702123.2702230" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> concluded that habit-tracking tools such as reminders could keep people engaged and encourage them to repeat behaviors.The difference maker, for me, was the streak. Each time I logged a successful session on Everyday and the habit's streak grew, it felt like a microwin. I didn't want to miss a day and break the chain. The idea of streak building is an old one: <a href="https://lifehacker.com/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret-281626" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jerry Seinfeld</a> famously told an interviewer he put a big, red X on a wall calendar on days he wrote. And activity-specific apps like Duolingo and Nike Running have been using streaks for years to encourage users to keep up their language-learning or running habits — things that people often struggle to be consistent with. Streaks reward repetition, Lindemans explained, but the reason they're so motivating is not the sense of accomplishment they imbue. On the contrary, it's because of what's at stake if a streak breaks — it can make us feel like we're throwing away everything we have achieved."You don't do your 10,000 steps because you care about going from a 37-day streak to a 38-day streak," Lindemans said. "You do it because you don't want to fall back to zero."Joan Boixadós, the Barcelona developer behind Everyday, told me that growing streaks was the motivation behind most of his app's users. He said people who used Everyday beyond the first week had, on average, a daily completion rate of 72%. And Duolingo has said that its app users who have a streak of 7 days or more are 2.4 times more likely to return to the app the next day.<div type="image" title="A board of growing streaks" height="1332" width="2540" msid="99405568" hostid="261"></div>At the same time, experts I spoke with warned that streaks had a significant weakness: Once someone breaks the streak, the sense of discouragement makes it challenging to restart. A survey Duolingo conducted in India found that 60% of people may give up on developing a habit if they break their streak. After all, if Sisyphus knew the boulder would roll back down the hill, would he really want to give it a try the next day? Many apps that use streaks try to counteract this by including an option to skip a day. Everyday had that option, so I could miss the occasional day without compromising my hard-earned streaks. But the danger is still there: Miss a few days, and you might never try again.<h2>Gamifying health habits</h2>After two weeks of using Everyday, I was conscious of how streaks were driving me, and I worried whether their effect would wane as soon as I got used to them. After all, I was being motivated by the app instead of by my desire to meet my goals. So I decided to try another approach. For more than a week, I switched to <a href="https://habitica.com/static/home" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Habitica</a>, a habit-tracking app that gamifies your quest to build habits.Instead of rewarding your consistency with streaks, Habitica pays you a virtual currency each time you complete your task. This currency can be used to play an in-app role-playing game where you team up with other players to battle monsters. When you accomplish your real-world habits, you can save up and spend your in-game rewards to equip your character with better weapons, upgrade its appearance, buy a pet, and battle monsters. If that's not your cup of tea — it wasn't for me — the app also lets you create your own rewards. You can set up the app so that once you hit a certain benchmark (such as 10 straight days of hitting your goals), you can reward yourself with a day off work or a trip to your favorite restaurant. For me, after I practiced the piano for five days straight, I let myself order takeout.Signing up for Habitica felt revelatory since it not only let me regulate habits instead of relying entirely on the app but also helped keep my guilty pleasures in check. Because Habitica's personal rewards are self-enforced, and the app doesn't prevent you from, say, ordering takeout if you don't stick to your habits, it's not for everyone. But since I had already formed a routine by using Everyday, I was in a better position to self-regulate.Benjamin Gardner, a behavioral-change researcher at the University of Surrey's Habit Application and Theory group, agrees gamification can be quite useful in forming habits since it allows the person to stay motivated to accomplish their goals over time. It can prove especially handy in the crucial period before a habit fully forms, when the person has to remain constantly motivated, Gardner added. With gamification and habit-tracking apps, however, there's an invariable risk of becoming overly dependent on them and carrying on solely for the external rewards — not because we enjoy the activity. Ultimately, a habit has to be self-sustaining for it to stick around, meaning it has automatic cues like waking up and an internal reward like a sense of satisfaction upon completing the task. If we don't find that internal motivation, we're just building a pattern of behavior to receive that external reward, not a habit."If that habit is dependent on that particular app, there's the risk that that behavior will be discontinued when the app is no longer used," Gardner told me. In both Everyday's and Habitica's cases, I did notice, at times, how interwoven the rewards were with my actions, and I feared that leaving the apps would send me spiraling back to my old tendencies. But given how much we rely on our phones anyway, it's not necessarily a downside to rely on apps for building healthy habits. Gretchen Rubin, the author of "Better Than Before," a book that explores the science of making and breaking habits, told me she didn't think "an app or other tool is anything that needs to be outgrown."For people Rubin categorizes as "obligers," for example, keeping commitments without external accountability is close to impossible, and they continue to need accountability even when they're internally motivated. Even for people who are more internally motivated, she said, "complex habits may always benefit from a framework of support, and there's nothing wrong with that." Besides, I've not been able to figure out what the automatic, contextual cue for practicing an instrument is other than a reminder at a specific time. The effort needed to willfully build new habits is immense, and throughout this experience, I found apps could help significantly reduce the motivation barrier. The apps helped me focus on the action itself instead of on setting up my own structure for carrying them out. The past few weeks have been surprisingly productive, and as someone who's always had a complicated relationship with habits, I'm hopeful it will stay that way until, as Stojanovic puts it, my habits are independent and can fly on their own.<hr /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/shubham-agarwal" rel="">Shubham Agarwal</a> is a freelance technology journalist from Ahmedabad, India whose work has appeared in Wired, The Verge, Fast Company, and more.

I got addicted to an app that helped me turn my most ambitious goals into daily routines

Leading video streaming platform <keyword id="128682" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Netflix">Netflix</keyword> has launched a TikTok-rival called <keyword id="10865671" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="fast-laughs">Fast Laughs</keyword> that gives mobile users an instant, full-screen feed of funny clips from its huge comedy catalog. Fast Laughs, currently only available for iOS device owners in select countries, looks and feels like <keyword id="6762469" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="TikTok">TikTok</keyword> or <keyword id="8322765" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="instagram-reels">Instagram Reels</keyword>. "Different short clips -- taken from shows like Big Mouth or stand-up specials from comedians like Jerry Seinfeld and Ali Wong -- play directly within the Netflix app. If one of the shows, films, or specials sparks interest, people can add said title to their saved list to watch later," Netflix said in a statement late on Wednesday. Fast Laughs offers a full-screen feed from films (like Murder Mystery), series (Big Mouth), sitcoms (The Crew) and stand-up from comedians like Kevin Hart and Ali Wong. "You access the feed through your bottom navigation menu by clicking on the Fast Laughs tab. Clips will start playing - when one ends another begins, to keep the laughs coming," Netflix said. Fast Laughs also lets smartphone users add series, films and stand-up specials to their list, or start viewing them immediately. You can also share the clips individually on <keyword id="790242" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="WhatsApp">WhatsApp</keyword>, Instagram, Snapchat and <keyword id="6354616" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Twitter">Twitter</keyword> so your friends can get in on the fun too. The company said that it will soon start testing Fast Laughs for Android users. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/razorpay-set-to-buyback-esops-worth-10-million-investors-sequoia-and-gic-will-be-the-buyers/articleshow/81324622.cms">Razorpay set to buyback ESOPs worth $10 million – investors Sequoia and GIC will be the buyers</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/enterprise/news/mozilla-is-not-happy-with-indias-new-it-rules-claiming-there-arent-enough-checks-and-balances-in-place/articleshow/81308608.cms">Mozilla is not happy with India's new IT rules claiming there aren't enough checks and balances in place</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/indian-companies-stand-to-lose-7-14-lakh-crore-to-climate-change-but-they-could-end-up-making-2-9-lakh-crore-too/articleshow/81306789.cms">Indian companies stand to lose ₹7.14 lakh crore to climate change — but they could end up making ₹2.9 lakh crore too</a>

Netflix launches 'Fast Laughs' for mobile users to take on Instagram Reels and TikTok

<ul><li><keyword id="148198" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="zee-cafe">Zee Cafe</keyword> has recently completed 20 years.</li><li>We caught up with <keyword id="8227950" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Kartik-Mahadev">Kartik Mahadev</keyword>, Business Head, Premium Channels, ZEE to talk about the channel’s journey in India, some key milestones and how it has succeeded in staying relevant at a time when a lot of <keyword id="659577" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="TV-viewership">TV viewership</keyword> is slowly gravitating towards OTT platforms. </li></ul> Much before OTT platforms brought content from across the globe to our drawing rooms, English GECs like Zee Café played a pivotal role in introducing us to some of the best global content. Over the years, the channel has kept viewers glued to their screens with shows like Seinfeld, Friends, The Sopranos, Mad About You, among many others. Recently, the channel completed 20 years and we caught up with Kartik Mahadev, Business Head, Premium Channels, ZEE to talk about the channel’s journey in India, some key milestones and how it has succeeded in staying relevant at a time when a lot of TV viewership is slowly gravitating towards OTT platforms. Edited excerpts: Q) Tell us a bit about Zee Cafe's 20-Year journey. What have some of the major highlights been? Two decades ago, while the Indian audience was still warming up to international content, Zee bolstered a new era of English programming on television with the launch of what was then called Zee English, later rebranded as Zee Café. Since inception, it has been our sole endeavor to bring the best of English entertainment to the Indian viewer, with iconic shows like Seinfeld, Friends, The Sopranos, Mad About You and Emmy winners - ER and The West Wing. Circa, early 2000s, consumption of English entertainment was still at a nascent stage in India where those who speak, understand and appreciate international content on television formed just a sliver of the pie. Today, this is has grown into a ‘Glocal’ community. Zee Café has played a pivotal role in shaping this genre through compelling content and shaping the aspirations of this community of international content viewers. Zee Café has driven several successful innovations for a delightful viewer experience. Be it through the marquee offering ‘Along With The US’ launched in early 2000s where the latest international shows like The Big Bang Theory, Grey’s Anatomy and Supergirl were aired along with its US release or the introduction of ‘binge-watching’ as a format with ‘House of Cards S3’ and subsequent properties like ‘BBC First’ and ‘Breakfast To Bed Binge’ – Café has always catered to the evolving consumer needs. As consumption appetite for English entertainment evolved, we introduced compelling dramas as part of properties like Hollywood On Café that promised the scale and grandeur of Hollywood on television. The BBC First Dramas on Café added a complex and visceral mix of content with a TV First approach. We also provided variety of content with locally-nuanced content with celebrity chat shows like ‘Look Who’s Talking with Niranjan’ in the past and shows like ‘Not Just Supper Stars’ and ‘Starry Nights’ featuring A-list Bollywood celebrities more recently. Today, our stable subscriber base is an indication of the channel’s strength amongst a loyal set of consumers who choose the channel for its strong legacy of content. Our promising 20-year journey has been one backed by the support of many individuals and studio partners in shaping the English entertainment landscape, with whom we celebrate this milestone. Their contribution has enabled us to truly entertain our audience by creating togetherness moments and sparks conversations around content. Q) A lot of <keyword id="1368992" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="English-GEC">English GEC</keyword> audience has been steadily shifting to OTT platforms over the years. What are you doing to ensure stickiness to your channel? There is no doubt that the digital video platforms are here to stay. However, today we live in an AND world, not an OR world. English entertainment (Movies + GEC) on Television caters to 170 million+ viewers (BARC @ All India 2+ U+R, Week 01'20- Week 29' 20). The lockdown has showed us that the viewers choose to watch television for the curated content experience it provides, to not just individuals but the entire family. Studies reveal that consumption of overlapped content between TV and OTT grew on television from 59% pre-NTO to 82% contribution post-NTO for sitcom, drama, reality genres. It naturally follows that navigation between screens is seamless and consumption on TV and digital is complementary in nature. The surge in TV viewership post lockdown tells us that television is the trusted medium of entertainment. Television provides youth-focused brands and premium brands the opportunity to associate with a premium subscriber base that is defined basis their content choice. This sort of content and platform synergy for brands to associate with, is not available on OTT platforms where English content is behind paywall. While content consumption on OTT is growing, it is the Hindi and regional original content that are the primary drivers of this growth. Television is and will continue to be the destination for brands to build long-term content association with a premium subscriber base through exclusive content on a channel like Zee Café. The locally nuanced shows such as Starry Nights Gen Y, also provides an opportunity to drive branded content integrations in an organic manner. When it comes to OTT, content discovery is and will continue to pose a challenge to viewers looking to unwind with quality content. This is where television channels that understand their consumer and curate well, delight the viewer. Post lockdown, the channel has added 256 hours of content including latest dramas such as ‘Nancy Drew’ and ‘Evil’, iconic sitcoms such as ‘Seinfeld’ and ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ along with the original airings of the celebrity chat show Starry Nights GEN Y. While marquee international shows bring the best of the world to our viewers, locally produced content allows us to add a new dimension from the Indian point of view. In the future, we have a robust line-up of light-hearted and locally nuanced content that help build relevance from an Indian context. Q) While TV viewership saw a boost during the lockdown, how was it for Zee Cafe? The lockdown has showed us that the viewers chose to watch television for the curated content experience it provides, to not just individuals but the entire family. We observed a trend in audience preferences towards familiar, light-hearted content amidst the uncertainty and gloom. We were early to spot the trend and introduced tactical changes in our programming. ‘Nostalgia’ as a genre clearly emerged as a big theme across television with several successful examples in Hindi GEC. Spotting the trend early, we introduced the iconic sitcom of the 90s– Seinfeld along with the 60s sitcom ‘I Dream Of Jeannie’ which resonated with the viewers. Conversational shows and iconic sitcoms along with easy to watch movies have performed well with an increase in time spent on Zee Café. We saw a growth in non-prime time viewing as well and hence to keep viewers entertained through-out the day, we introduced back-to-back episodes of MasterChef Australia S8, Everybody Hates Chris and The Big Bang Theory S12 on Zee Café along with newer dramas like Nancy Drew and Evil. Q) How are you trying to bring advertisers back to the channel? These have been uncertain times across several consumer businesses. During the lockdown period, only essentials were being sold which had an impact on advertiser income. Through the lockdown, TV remained a trusted medium for entertainment and information for the family, witnessing significant growth in viewership. With the relaxations in lockdown, economic activity is resuming, and we need to drive effective customer solutions for future growth. We are in a strong position as far as subscription revenue is concerned with a stable subscriber base and growth in contribution of HD subscribers. This is an indication of its strength amongst a homogeneous set of consumers who chose Zee Café for its strong legacy of content. Television will continue to be the ideal platform for advertisers looking to reach out to their consumers. Youth-focused premium brands can pick and choose fresh content that they can associate with to reach a premium subscriber base given a sharply segmented audience that English entertainment on television attracts while similar content on digital is behind paywall. Recently, for the premiere of Jumanji: The Next Level on &amp;flix, Zee Café and &amp;PrivéHD, and a simulcast in Hindi on Zee Cinema, we saw several reputable brands onboard such as Kia Motors, Ariel, Amazon, Airtel 4G, Xiaomi, Protinex and ITC along with Bingo Potato chips, Hyundai Creta, Behrouz Biryani, Bharat Matrimony onboard for the Hindi simulcast. The premiere garnered an overwhelming response with an incredible 34 million reach making it one of the biggest premieres in the last 12 months. Q) What have some of your growth drivers been? What has helped Zee Cafe stay relevant and win against the test of time? With out-of-home entertainment options being limited in the new normal, television will continue to be the trusted entertainment destination for individuals and families. Interestingly, India is the second-largest English speaking country in the world (BBC India Report - 2012).Thus, in the long run, regional markets will continue to fuel new user growth for English entertainment. There is a whole set of audience moving from regional to English content as they become more comfortable with English as a professional, conversational language. We have designed unique offerings such as locally nuanced content on Zee Café that has helped drive resonance and enabled adoption of English content amongst an aspirational, English comfortable audience. Q) What are your strategies towards bringing more viewers to your channel, enhancing their experience and also how are you looking at driving higher engagement? Our content philosophy was built around ‘All Eyes On New’, with an endeavor to deliver fresh content or a fresh perspective to iconic content. With curation as our core focus, we’ve constantly introduced new programming formats and new properties that best suit the needs of our ever-evolving viewers. With content blocks such as ‘BBC First’ which brought complex British dramas for the first time to India or ‘Along With The US’ where our viewers watched fresh content series along with its international telecast; we truly set the benchmark for being the innovators in the English entertainment category. With most of the shows on Zee Café such as Titan Games, American Idol, Battlebots, Seal Team, FBI, A Million Little Things, Charmed, The Chefs’ Line being available on television first, we’ve lived up to the consumer promise of ‘All eyes on New’. Catering to the evolving needs of the consumer, we introduced locally nuanced content such as Starry Nights GEN Y and Not Just Supper Stars that broadened the consumption repertoire on the channel.

Zee Café has played a pivotal role in shaping the ‘glocal’ genre through compelling content: Kartik Mahadev, ZEEL

<ul><li><keyword id="1591611" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="remote-work">Remote work</keyword> has changed the dynamics of the office friendship and Zoom calls are sometimes just not enough to catch up.</li><li>The biggest of companies – Google, Uber – have announced <keyword id="123591" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Work-from-home">work from home</keyword> until next year, while startups in India like Zomato and OYO are considering a hybrid workplace model.</li><li>A recent CISCO report shows that 64% of the surveyed professionals experienced challenges with the loss of informal kitchen or watercooler exchanges.</li></ul>In the pre-Covid era, when Shayandril Sen, an advertising professional, needed a quick brainstorming session, the team would huddle up in a conference room and a great idea would be out in less than an hour. Now, it has been replaced by a series of Zoom calls with the most-repeated question being, “can you hear me?” Nearly months into the COVID-19 pandemic, giants like Google and Uber have already declared work from home (WFH) until next year. Startups in India like Zomato and OYO are already considering a hybrid workplace model, which includes a permanent work from home solution for a major chunk of the employees Now, many workplace ‘besties’ are worried if their friendship will survive if the situation lasted any longer or, for that matter, forever. American standup comedian Jerry Seinfeld in his show complained about the number of times colleagues had to greet each other in the office but, one wonders, if he would change his mind post this pandemic. “Informal interaction is not as high because teams are remote. They don’t just happen to walk by each other to spark conversation,” said a recent CISCO report that showed that 64% of over 100 IT professionals surveyed miss these casual exchanges. More importantly, this new arrangement threatens many precious workplace relationships that are, often, key to getting things done. Office FOMO Lawyers, young doctors, journalists, and many more such professionals tend to make friends mostly within their community or offices. “As lawyers, since we spend most of our day in our office, our colleagues do become an integral part of our lives. While work from home is a necessity in the present times, office banter is definitely something that's missed. Amidst immense work pressure, at least you have a group of colleagues with whom one can take a short 'chai-sutta' break or a walk to just release the stress,” said Adishree Mishra, a lawyer at a top law firm. Meanwhile, in cases where employees changed jobs during the pandemic, their first interaction was over a video call, completely devoid of the personal touch that is crucial to building trust and camaraderie. “A lot of us who still have a job find ourselves working with a completely new team, which on a lot of occasions is extremely frustrating,” said a working professional who didn’t want to be named. Office pals are important in more ways than one Gone are those days, when cheeky responses and eye-rolls were shared across the cubicle to hide the spite for the boss. Now, people miss the quick gossip next to the water cooler and the catch up over coffee breaks that helped take their minds off work, even if it was for just a bit. It’s not just the chilling and gossipping, the CISCO survey showed that sales employees miss the ‘togetherness’ on the floor. It’s even more important for ideas.“As with any creative professional, in the advertising industry, we vibe off each other while brainstorming,” Sen told Business Insider. And, the time saved by not commuting to the office is not always efficiently used. “Digital brainstorms have literally become as the saying goes, ‘This meeting could have been an email’. We are suddenly holding way too many meetings and spending way too much time on things which were earlier one line briefs to the team,” according to Sen. The ‘new’ fun Friday – online pictionary and Bollywood guessing games Companies are aware of the new challenges posed by WFH. That has led to casual Fridays have been replaced by weekly team events. “We have a Fun Friday connect on the last Friday of every month, where we have engaging games/activities to keep everyone engaged. Just recently, we played Pictionary and Bollywood quiz and we had a fun challenge to see who could put up the most wacky/crazy Bollywood poster as their virtual background,” said Lorita, an IT professional working in an audit and consulting firm. Interestingly, the most eager to join these sessions are those employees who used to shrug off such HR-led initiatives, like team-bonding activities, competitions etc. before the pandemic. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/this-coimbatore-based-water-pump-company-has-become-a-case-study-in-one-of-the-worlds-top-mba-schools-insead/articleshow/77368054.cms">This Coimbatore-based water pump company has become a case study in one of the world's top MBA schools – INSEAD</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/from-oyo-to-upgrad-to-zomato-employees-get-full-salaries-as-startups-begin-reversing-pay-cuts/articleshow/77388428.cms">From OYO to Upgrad to Zomato, employees get full salaries as startups begin reversing pay cuts</a>

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