As after many months, I get on again to write about amazing personalities of Chennai that make up the vibrant colors of the city. Today I am introducing a man, whose mantra is ‘We blog, therefore We are’ - a tagline that still greets you whenever you reach one of the most popular and powerful community of Indian Bloggers - IndiBlogger.
Renie Ravin is the most popular change agent in the Indian blogging sphere and founder of IndiBlogger - A powerful platform that created history of sorts, when they invited the world class social media marketers, Authors and Rock star in their World class blogging meet "Blog Now, Live Forever" - BNLF. It is not every day that you get to see the reclusive Bruce Dickinson - Lead Singer of Iron Maiden, who still carries Ancient run down Nokia phone, held together by cello tape.
I met Renie for the first time in 2010 amongst a social media discussion group and few minutes into the conversation with him, I was convinced to start my own public blog (till that time, I was doing only personal blogging, known to only few of my close friends) and join his blogging community - IndiBlogger. From embracing his mantra of “We blog, therefore we are” to his major tour de-force “Blog Now, Live Forever”, I have been through it all. Honed my blogging skills with the peers and mentors at IndiBlogger, attended all of the Chennai meets to even going all over India to attend few more in far flung cities like Delhi, Mumbai.
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| Bruce Dickinson - The Rockstar at IndiBlogger Meet #BNLF |
I met Renie for the first time in 2010 amongst a social media discussion group and few minutes into the conversation with him, I was convinced to start my own public blog (till that time, I was doing only personal blogging, known to only few of my close friends) and join his blogging community - IndiBlogger. From embracing his mantra of “We blog, therefore we are” to his major tour de-force “Blog Now, Live Forever”, I have been through it all. Honed my blogging skills with the peers and mentors at IndiBlogger, attended all of the Chennai meets to even going all over India to attend few more in far flung cities like Delhi, Mumbai.
I grew with the community. And IndiBlogger gave me the perfect gift - the ultimate honor in the form of award - the number 1 spiritual blogger of India, judged by 20 prominent personalities of India. The beauty of IndiBlogger is that it ensures that you are in a different world of your own, always learning, growing and being the individual that you are, where ever, whenever you interact with and within the community or join in their events or interact with other members offline. This has come from the amazing team of IndiBlogger and ‘the down to earth’ persons like Renie Raven. Probably that is the color of Chennai too… down to earth.
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| The IndiBlogger Team |
Few weeks ago, I caught up with Renie at one of the finest restaurants of Chennai - Zara, which is also one of the places, where IndiBlogger meet once in a while. Over the years, we have had interacted on various fronts, even created Indi Blogger for Social Action (IBSA) meets where Renie and his team joined to provide their support, but this meeting was to get to know Renie, up close and personal, so read on.
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| A wonderful lunch at Zara - Chennai with the man behind IndiBlogger |
The story behind success of IndiBlogger is quite simple: Four friends, working in various cities, got together to provide a platform for like minded people and as the cliché goes, rest is history. They rocked the Indian blogging world through their sheer passion, dedication and love for blogging. Free timeline to work (you get to work from home at IndiBlogger), create what you are passionate about and say what you would like to, as long as you don’t break the trust of Individual bloggers. Indiblogger is so focussed towards the individual bloggers that when I decided to host an event in Chennai 'Indiblogger for Social Action' the whole Indiblogger gang was there including Renie Ravin.
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| Renie running the show at the blogging event I hosted in Chennai |
Renie probably had the idea from the very beginning what he is going to do in future, as he created Madras Christian College (MCC) unofficial website in 2000, which has got the whole college, staff and alumnae logging on for various information. As a web architect, Renie did work in various companies, before joining his childhood friend from Nagercoil - the flamboyant face of Indi Blogger, one of the best Masters of ceremony, I have ever seen - Anoop, who roped in Karthik shortly afterwards. Anwin and Navin worked along with the IndiBlogger team as part timer. While Vineet caught up a bus from Hyderabad, landed in Pune and joined IndiBlogger over a bottle of scotch…
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| Anoop - The flamboyant face of IndiBlogger |
Blogging is a lonely activity, you think about something that you would like to share with the world, you write and edit, write again and at the click of a button its out there in the world and then you go back to whatever you were doing earlier.
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| Attending Christoph's workshop on social media at BNLF - Mumbai |
Renie created a platform for all those thinkers, writers and loners to meet online and incredible offline meets, which is now the most awaited event for almost all the bloggers of India across the country - An IndiBlogger Meet. The first company to commercialize blogger meets. Blogger meets were happening by small groups who met at coffee shops and malls. IndiBlogger roped in brands to fund events. If you do a Google search for “Blogger meets 2008”, The only branded blogger meets you would find is from IndiBlogger, and then over the years dozens of them which rocked the blogging community. Then the Mumbai BNLF meet happened which was the game changer of blogging community, created a platform for the bloggers to interact with world leaders of Social Media, the world’s best bloggers, India’s top woman Author and the most elusive rock star.
For Indian Bloggers, IndiBlogger has been amazing journey from ‘We blog, therefore We are’ to ‘Blog Now, Live Forever’. BNLF was two days of fun, learning and interacting with top influencer, which was totally funded by IndiBlogger.
Why did they do it for free? Well as Renie says, “We wanted to take the Indian blogging to the next level across the world.” and I must say the IndiBlogger succeeded in doing exactly that with BNLF. 600 Plus bloggers in one place, full of enthusiasm and interest to know what they can do next. Renowned Social Media expert, Christoph Trappe's great half day workshop on social media put quite a few bloggers on the right path, including me.
And the amazing speakers like Purba Ray, Preeti Shenoy, Jeff Bullas, Christoph Trappe and many more provided interesting stories and experiences to the event. Click on their name's to read about them and their thoughts in curtain raiser, before the event.
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| With Christoph Trappe - great mentor and a good friend |
And the amazing speakers like Purba Ray, Preeti Shenoy, Jeff Bullas, Christoph Trappe and many more provided interesting stories and experiences to the event. Click on their name's to read about them and their thoughts in curtain raiser, before the event.
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| With India's Top Women Author Preeti Shenoy at BNLF |
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| Pumped up with Jeff Bullas and Indiblogger gang at BNLF Meeting |
Renie has amazing plans for Indian Blogging community. He says that he is going to do BNLF series across India and the world. He also promised to do some event in Chennai soon. There are lot of things are happening at IndiBlogger, a new website is in the pipeline, the global outreach program and as he says, “Connecting with right people” with the IndiBlogger platform.
He is also planning to start an amazing opportunity for the business reporting and Public Relationship exercise IndiOne.
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| Renie at one of the IndBlogging events at Hyatt Chennai |
At the end of our fruitful lunch, he left me with a powerful thought for everyone, “The blogging is within you, unleash it” and of course, as they say, “no animals will be harmed by that action…”
Hope I have given you a brief glimpse about Renie Ravin, one of the earthly colors of Chennai - the one who is changing the path of social media, one blog at a time.
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Shashi
ॐ नमः शिवाय
