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Monday, January 5, 2009

Professionals Party of India - PPI - First Thoughts

The Professionals Party of India is the 232nd political party of India. The party has been conceived and formed by a group of professionals based in Pune. The party is registered with the Election Commission of India and is striving to fight elections on the basis of the, till now largely untapped, potential of the middle class of India. The official website of the Professionals Party of India or the PPI is at http://www.ppi.net.in/

The concept behind the party is a long cherished one amongst the Indian educated class, who know for sure that things could be better. It is a move in the right direction and if it succeeds it could turn the fortune of the country towards the better overnight. The party has indeed made the right statements on their blog and in their manifestoes. However, implementation of the ideas and the concepts is something which is a different ballgame altogether. I have not interacted with any of the members and my only touch with the Party is through their website, which can be a lot more professional, considering it belongs to the Professionals Party of India.

First, the party’s vision and the mission statement, as reflected through their website, though profound are too bare to be understood even by the middle class, their target group. “Improve the Quality of Life of every Indian.” In terms of what? How does one define quality of life? What are the aspirations of the average middle class Indian? No one has the time or the inclination to go through their election manifestoes. Especially since the party is still in infancy.

The blog of the party at http://professionalspartyofindia.blog.co.in/ has all of three posts between 11 April and 10 Dec 2008. So many issues have cropped up their head during this period and the party could have utilized these occasions to highlight their stand on the issues and their proposals as to how to tackle the issues. The Party does need to work rapidly on the blog and have it updated regularly. The blog also can be an excellent source of revenue for the fledgling Party.

The Youth Forum link on the website is not active, which is a strict no-no for any website. The newsletter link shows a http 404 error which, again, is a bad news.

The website has a ‘contact us’ link which offers registration of visitors with the website to facilitate serving of news updates and newsletters. Another contact link is offered on the core group page, ppipune@gmail.com, which visitors to the website can use for further information. It would serve them best to at least have a domain based email address to lend authenticity to the address. The contact us page should have the contact address where visitors can actually contact their PR cell for questions and queries. The website has employed a tool for registered users to introduce or refer friends and relatives who can in turn be contacted by the website. The feature is available on the citizens connect link and restricts referrals to five. The link needs to be more visible and why would anyone want to restrict propagation to five referrals per registered user. The entire process can be automated where an email is sent directly to the referrals.

I did not try hard enough, but from whatever little I did, I could not find the Party presence on facebook or myspace. The registered users should be encouraged to write on the web about the good things that are happening in the party including their own work. If the party is planning to contest elections this year they hardly have any time and should take up publicity on a war footing. The friends of the PPI boast of Remo Fernandes; I could not find a link to PPI or any word on PPI on the official website of Remo Fernandes http://www.remomusic.com/ Ditto with Mrs. Lila Poonawalla at her website http://www.lilapoonawalla.com/ PPI does not need such friends who only render lip service.

Even though I fully agree, that at this point of time, the Indians need the Professionals Party of India much more than the Party needs us, they still need to attract people. At this moment, the web is their strongest instrument and ally and they need to use it to their advantage.

In the end I would suggest that a party with such a name and intentions should not let professionalism fall by the wayside. Just doing good work is not enough, projection is equally important. Everything and anything they do should reflect professionalism else they will just become another one of the numerous parties of the country.

1 comment:

Sundeep said...

Hi There

This is Sundeep from PPI. I think you have made quite a few good suggestions about our website. We are in the process of rehauling the website and soon we shall have a much better version of it. We are now present on Facebook, linked in and twitter as well. We have a mumbai chapter and will be putting up details about it soon.

Please do get in touch with us again on the mentioned email id on the website and help us make the website even more professional

Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Thanks
Sundeep

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