e-Learning SSY

e-Learning SSY

Today, I had detailed discussions with Dilipji Deshmukh. He feels that new technologies need to be adopted not only in the area of marketing but in all aspects of SSY. The way SSY courses are offered also need to be reviewed with respect to new technologies. For example, the SSY course is strictly given to people who can attend the course in person at designated time and place. We need to have an option of e-learning as well, for millions of those people who can not attend our very few course offerings worldwide.

Dilipji believes that with modern technologies of audio/video recording and broadcast, the lectures can be delivered very effectively and in many cases some of the best lectures available in the form of recordings of Guruji Rishi Prabhakar himself. When the students are watching/listening to these recorded lectures, remote live support can be offered with tools like Skype. The work assignments that generally follow at the end of each lecture can also be more effectively evaluated using online learning platforms. 

The first objection for such a thought is that "SSY can not be learned unless you experience it. The close interaction with Guru is mandatory." These objections can not be ruled out easily.

Dilipji feels a blended approach is worth exploring. About 6 or 7 lessons before initiation should be possible to deliver by e-learning. Any student from any part of the world can complete these 7 steps at their own convenient time. The student progress can be monitored by remote Guru by Skype. The student can submit the assignments online at the end of each step. Unless the student has successfully completed the previous step, he/she will not get access to next lesson. On completion of all 7 steps, the student can come in person to one of the SSY ashrams/gurukuls for initiation and the following lessons and a retreat.

We may need to reevaluate which lessons should be offered before an after initiation..That is a matter of detail.

But one thing is definite. e-learning is extremely scale-able. SSY will reach in every nook and corner of the world. There is already a shortage of good quality SSY teachers, the available teachers will be able to double their productivity, since half the course will get taught by e-learning.

Marketing Yoga

Marketing Yoga Lifestyle

Today we had interesting discussion at Kimaya hotel in Kothrud with Sandeepji Naik, Harshadji Shah and Preetima Mulik. We talked about marketing projects to promote SSY lifestyle. Here is what we discussed in brief:

Based ancient Hindu wisdom, SSY now has some extremely valuable knowledge for sharing with the world. Guruji dedicated his life to pass on this knowledge and skills to large community of disciples but now the knowledge is not spreading fast enough. One of the areas where we have opportunity to improve is building the marketing expertise and adopting the 21st century internet based marketing technologies to achieve rapid growth. There is one possibility worth exploring to build this expertise.

At College of Engineering, Pune (COEP), a course is being introduced for the final engineering students, to teach these marketing technologies called "Growth Engineering" (AKA Growth Hacking, Marketing Automation, Direct Marketing, Internet marketing etc. etc.) Prof Ashok Ranade and Prof Ashok Saraf lead the teaching efforts. Prof Saraf has been SSY champion for last 2 decades.

For the Growth Engineering course, students are required to complete one marketing project and the proposal is to offer the task of marketing SSY services as marketing projects to the students. Students will benefit by getting a experience of real life practical project and SSY in return will benefit of experimenting the new marketing technologies. 

For execution of the projects, teams consisting of about 4 to 6 students, will be formed. One or two representatives from SSY will join the team. While students will do most of the technical work like web programming, SSY reps need to provide complete information about the service product to the and participate in all team exchanges. All students meet once a week for about 1 to 2 hours in a classroom for a presentation from the faculty. Each project team will then meet separately to execute their project steps at their own convenience.

The course is being offered by COEP and all the related costs are being taken care of by the COEP like; Faculty remuneration, Hall, Computer lab and Software subscriptions, books, printing etc. etc. SSY will not be charged any fees for participating in this course. However, there are some direct costs associated with execution of SSY marketing projects which will have to be born by SSY. These costs that SSY need to budget for are Website hosting and programming, Search Engine charges, travel and incidentals for the team members etc. 

What SSY marketing projects  can be considered? We need specific well defined service products, like; various different courses (ISP, BSP, TTC, etc) or Ashram retreats etc. Based on suggestion from Radhama, Jagdeeshji and others following 2 projects are discussed y the group.

(1) ISP or Children's SSY: 

(2) Peace Homes (Accommodations in Ashram as well as homes and nature)

Because of the limited time of the course the projects have to be of specific clearly defined service product and it can not be of general nature like overall marketing strategy of SSY/RSVK organization. However, after executing these 2 compact projects, the participants will gain good understanding for developing a strategy for the entire RSVK organization.

The course starts in first week of January 2016. Exact schedule will be known before end of this month. Tentatively the weekly classroom sessions will be on a workday (Monday through Thursday, preferably sometime between 3 and 6 pm.