Happy New Year and my love-hate relationship with internet!!!

Jan 17, 2023

Hello everyone,

Happy New Year, 2023! I have kickstarted the new year with great enthusiasm and motivation.

Personally, I couldn’t have asked for a better start to 2023! After a great time with friends and family in Bangladesh during December, this year started with a promotion at the job, a road trip to Queensland, and a few other things here and there!

But, most importantly, I have so far found my discipline. I am always good at planning, but execution has always been challenging! However, I am hopeful to continue the journey.

Seminar on "How to start your higher study abroad journey in 2023"

When everything went smoothly, I decided to act on one of my new year's resolutions - “helping as many people as possible”. So, I announced that I would be taking a free seminar on "How to start your higher study abroad journey in 2023" on Saturday, 21 January 7 pm to 9 pm BD time.

Within 5 minutes of posting this on my Facebook page, more than 300 people completed the Google Form. And that’s where everything started breaking down…

First, Google considered the form to be “spam” because of such high engagement. So, I lost all the data, and the link was not working.
Having no other alternative, I used this newsletter to let people sign up for the seminar. The plan was to save email addresses and send further email communications.
So far, I have received more than 1600 subscriptions for the seminar. I exported them in a CSV file and created a group in Google contacts. But, again, Google is not allowing me to send emails to such a large group!
So, I am writing this Newsletter, hoping that those of you who are interested in the seminar, will be notified about the situation.

More love-hate relationship with the internet!

You are completely wrong if you think my struggle with the internet is done here!

I planned to send Zoom invites to everyone, but Zoom only allows me to add 300 people. That means others will be left out of the conversation.

So, I have decided to take the seminar as a live session on my YouTube channel. More details about that will be shared through this Newsletter soon. I hope I can sort this out and everything will run smoothly.

This is not the first time I have had an issue with new technology. Last year in September I was collecting the fee for my “Research Skill Academy” through bKash and on the first day, the account got frozen because we crossed the daily transaction limit!

While complaining so far about the internet, it has also been an absolute blessing for me! I can now communicate with thousands of Bangladeshi students and professionals while living abroad.

That’s why it is a prime example of a love-hate relationship!

What do you think - is the internet a blessing or a curse for us?

Best wishes,

Shawon