All about labels and tags!

Did you use internet around 10-12 years back? Did you use the search engines present that time? www.yahoo.com and www.altavista.com were among the most popular and most used search engines that time. Both were very young that time (even I was ;-)).

If you were one of the early users of the search engines, you must have complained about the accuracy of the search results. The accuracy of search and the hit rates used to be very poor (with only possible exceptions of special keywords ;-)). Slowly and steadily the search algorithm started improving and the accuracy started getting better and better.

And then, Google changed the meaning of search altogether. They brought the search algorithms more close to real world. And the concept of page ranking, tags and labels was borne. Search accuracy started increasing and hit ratio improved like miracle. And www.google.com became talk of the town and searching got replaced by googling.

Did you see the point? Search concept closer to real world!!!!!

Yeh, knowingly unknowingly we all follow these techniques in our daily life. We tend to label/tag and hence rank everyone around us. Depending on these parameters our behavior, outlook towards each individual changes.

These labels get so much of importance that we sometimes refuse to look at the same person from other possible angles. In many cases, they don’t deserve too. But, this belief system definitely stops us from accepting other possible aspects of a persona’s personality. This is not limited to individuals, but we tend to label even families, colonies, states and even nations!

Till few days back, we all had labeled Bangladesh and Ireland among the weak teams participating in this Cricket World Cup. But they managed to outset the two powerful (?) teams from the competition. How good our ranking was in this case? May be not totally wrong, but it surely did stopped us from accepting a possibility.

All these thoughts came to my mind after reading/watching some news coverage about the future players of Indian Cricket Team. Everyone talked about Irfan Pathan and his position and possible role.

He came to Indian team as bowler. But slowly he started showing talent in batting as well. And soon was labeled as the new all-rounder of Indian Cricket Team. But unfortunately, he could not hold it for too long. And for some time now, his bowling has lost that edge, that promise that it showed during just some time back. But even when his bowling was not working for him, he continued with Bat.

But the labeling system came into his way. People started questioning his bowling ability, but no one was ready to accept him as a regular Batsman and part time Bowler. Instead they were ready to accept Viru as a batsman, even when he was struggling for almost two years in a row. They were ready to believe that he will some day click with his bat once again. But they were not ready to take Pathan as pure batsman in the team, even when his record as a batsman was continuously improving. And Pathan also became the victim of this label system and could not get a place in the playing eleven.

I think, we should definitely rethink about these fundamentals. We have to understand that we can not accept these things as core fundamentals of our society. That way, we know how to increase page ranking and get listed among the first few searched links on www.google.com. (Hmmmm, yeh, that will be the next topic. No, no. Not about the ways of increasing page ranking, but the psychology ;-))

Just take a look at ppl around you in your own office. You will find many BIG FAT WHITE ELEPHANTS and poor black ants (not sure if “black ants” is a good opposite to “white elephants”, but I liked it). You will realize that these BIG FAT WHITE ELEPHANTS have big labels, big tags associated with them. On the other hand, these poor black ants lack just these things, but they do have caliber. And still, you will see a vast difference in the way these entities are treated.

Take another example of the effect of reservations in our system. You will see the same story. If you do not have proper special label, you may end up compromising few things to some one else with the appropriate label/tag. And you will watch their ranking going up without much of a real substance, but its only labels and tags working for them.

There are other examples, where few ppl without real labels and tags are among the richest and most successful persons in this world!

We have to understand and learn to use heuristic methods before accepting some rules, some labels, some tags!!! At least that will save some talent from going to waste (and west too). Just think about it!!!!!

PS: I tried to resist a lot, but I could not stop myself from mentioning Cricket. Finally its’ World Cup Time!!!