An email from a passionate applicant, over the weekend, drew my attention to the issue of ‘votes’. I quote verbatim: “Though the contest is very well thought of, I would like to ask you if this contest could be in any way more favourable to people who are related to IT companies or call centres, where they can have a regular generation of mails from their friends working in similar or same companies? Can an average Indian like me who has a small business of his own and a good social circle be at par with such people? Clearly the votes being generated by non-relatives and non-friends profile visitors is very minimal and hence the count solely depends upon how many people one can convince to vote for them. I think you may agree, though the concept is excellent, people who are close to IT industry will definitely stand at a much higher advantage than others. This may also explain the fact that many contestants with high number of votes are from Bangalore. Team GDC clarifies that the COUNT of votes is not an absolute determinant, to make it to the shortlist of TOP 100 applications. It is certainly one of the factors, but not the ONLY one. A friend of mine, visiting over the weekend, checked out the great driving challenge on my laptop. He is a passionate traveler and has clocked several hundred thousand miles in his Fiat and Maruti Esteem. Being a neo-luddite, he does not care about a blog, social network or photo-stream to share his experiences; just has amazing stories to share over endless cups of coffee. My dear readers, does my friend really stand a chance? I am sure there are many more people like my friend, this challenge will fail to touch, and that is the reality. So, if more votes come from Bangalore or if breath-taking photo streams emanate from a Nikon D3, and inspiring stories are penned by a gifted writer – so be it . Let us all enjoy the shared experiences, and let the Jury do their job. Your comments are welcome! hey i must admit that the same thoughts went thro’ our mind(for exactly the same reasons) over the weekend when we started applying.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
on 07/06 at 10:02 AM
I was afraid of the same thing. Athough our families are suppotrting us in every way possible, we cannot hope to extract vote in hundreds. That said, atleast this post gives us hope that our passion to travel and write about this unusual adventure stands a chance.
Posted by atua on 07/06 at 10:57 AM
In fact, I did not realize there was this voting angle at all till I got to that page :( While I’m active on soc nets, and online a lot, feel disinclined to *spam* my contacts to enable something for ourselves. (Couldn’t delete the application either) Its the travel bit we love, and the voting etc makes it less about that and the association is more like some of the less tasteful road-shows we’ve seen on TV. Good to read its totally not about that - and intend to stay at zero votes right through the process :D Rgds,
Posted by Sameer Shisodia on 07/06 at 05:05 PM
Dear Friends
Posted by Ravinder on 07/06 at 05:14 PM
Three cheers for the jury! We do agree 100% that this should be played fair. We are very excited to be a part of this challenge and look forward to adding positive value to the entire effort. Though we are also a couple from IT industry and do have a very good circle who are helping us in every manner they can, we still were very concerned how we can get over 800 people to vote for us like some other contestants have done (Not sure ethically or tactically). We know how hard it was to call, email and IM so many people and request them to ask their friends to vote for us. We spent almost 6 hours over the phone last weekend, endless emails to friends and communities we are part of. We certainly very sincerely appreciate all my friends, colleagues and everyone who has voted for me. To our heart felt happiness, our very very busy clients, directors, VPs, friends from US on senior management have taken time to vote for us. We do have beautiful memories with friends and colleagues to cherish and will continue to enjoy life whether we win or lose. After all we got to know 700 !! couples with whom we can interact while we are out on our next road trip !! Good luck everyone.
Posted by Ram & Rakhi on 07/06 at 05:15 PM
Owning a digital SLR with expensive lenses, tripod, accessories, travel gear, a car that was driven 85000 kms in 4 years (with a IT job 9pm-9pm) make us unethical contestants just because someone else cannot afford the gear and they complained about it? Not at all! Just enjoy your gear! and the challenge! I spent USD 5000 in USA last year while I was there on a project. I can afford it. The fireworks shots in my album are from 4th july macy’s fireworks in new york, the fish shots are humpack whales on boston coastline. I have a story attached to every shot I have on my flickr account. We trust the TGDC team for playing fair and that is the reason we have contested this challenge. We will appreciate if the comments in the blog are not biased or influenced by personal experiences by email or in person. I would be most happy to show or prove to any representative of TGDC, all my gear I have got, photos originals uploaded by me on flickr, and of course a free photo shoot for TGDC team ;o) We want to live this opportunity of a great drive while the whole world watches us, blog from the road (we have not done it yet), and have 700 friends who are like minded!! Of course nobody competes to lose :o) Three cheers to the TGDC team for playing fair.
Posted by Ram & Rakhi on 07/06 at 05:39 PM
Hey, I completely agree and dis-agree with this thought (and if I am doing well in votes section then it’s merely a co-incidence). I am part of management team of an offshore company. Belive you me, it is not easy for anyone to reach out and ask for mass votes. The IT policies are strict to ensure that you cannot access any other website except for what is required for work. So people thinking that if you work for call center or IT software company then you can get more votes is not entirely correct. Having said that I dont discount the folks who have single names in votes and logical pattern to easily identify fake votes, go on their app and you can easily make that out. But again as mentioned earlier, this is not the only criteria for selection. Here is what I did: Overall, I would say instead of cribbing and cursing, enjoy yourself, this is important. Reach out to all those folks you haven’t called in years and feel the joy (and ofcourse ask for votes too). Connect back and cherish your relations and friendship which you have been ignoring. I feel even before the contest gets over, this has already made me win some happiness which we ignore almost everyday. I loved the tagline which read “Say goodbye to never ending work hours…” I want to wish everyone who is part of this contest a very best of luck. Just do your bit and enjoy. By the way…lot of votes not necessarily mean wrong means. Cheers! -Rishi
Posted by Rishi on 07/06 at 05:46 PM
Good to know that the selection is not only based on voting. But, there is nothing wrong in most of the votes flowing from banglore. If people have good friends circle and ability to campaign there application among friends and relatives, there are always chances of getting more votes. Everything depends purely on our hardwork and how well we are connected to our friends and relatives. PLAY FAIR,PLAY FAIR, and just PLAY FAIR… my only request to every1. All the best to every1 and 3 cheers to TGDC!!! Deepak
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
on 07/06 at 06:40 PM
Waiting eagerly to participate in this.Just a few miles away we can reach at our destination in that sporty car..Love a lot such kind of nature expedition which generally available to c in soaps and raveling guides.Thanxs to the group that they are allowing to creep out from the damn inside hole type of world ,to see what exactly a nature is? Can anybody make clear what all the criteria going to follow in this competition? Thanks & Regards, Aditya and Preeti
Posted by Preeti&Aditya; on 07/06 at 10:11 PM
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