A hope in disguise!!

My mom is a home maker and yesterday out of blue I asked her one weird question “what have you achieved in your life till now”. I was completely surprised when she told me about her achievements despite being a home maker. But when I asked the same question to myself I did not have any answer as I don’t think I have achieved anything till now. To me achievement is like doing something which makes you and others proud of you. I don’t remember when I did something like that. So I started writing to help me elucidating my feelings or thoughts.
I have never liked changes as they always demand me to get out of my comfort zone which I feel, just got developed from the last change. Once, my dad told me that a person himself makes his life either simple or complex. It is up to you how you want to make it. I think today I am able to relate myself to this. Since the last 2 years I had always wanted to do MBA but today when I am doing it, still, somewhere I can feel a discontent deep within. No doubt it has given me a hope of having a bright future but as per my economics understanding the opportunity cost is really high. I used to spend this time with my bestest of best friends, used to earn a decent salary and used to visit my hometown every 2 months, used to drive my car and so many other things. But today everything has been prefixed by a dirt of “used to”. Now the only thing which has occupied my mind is how to add value to my resume with whatever I do and think. Again in the new hope of getting a good job. I don’t know how many times this new hope will take away my precious moments which could have been otherwise made beautiful. Sometimes, I really get scared of thinking that if this race will ever come to a halt or not? Will I be able to do all those things which I used to do or will I have to keep running like this or in fact faster than this??
These dreadful thoughts keep running across my mind now and then. Sadly the inability to answer these questions makes my life altogether more uncertain.
It’s not that I am not happy but yea perhaps my life is not that joyful as it was "used to" be.

OOH-la-la ! ! !

Usually it is assumed that long distance relations usually don’t work. Don’t know if it’s true in personal life but professionally it is becoming a reality. So let’s run through this AD-MAD write up. Building brands through advertisements on television or on internet can work for short duration but to sustain it for a longer period it has to get close to its target audience. Gone are those days when people used to watch their favourite brands jingling on the television. Now it’s the time to mingle with those people to turn them into lifetime customers. In a layman language OOH is an awe factor but marketers have taken out the crux of its meaning and blended it beautifully with their brand building strategies. No doubt, everyday new marketing strategies are coming up which hardly let any kind of dissociation between the customer and the product. And now we have OOH with us.

OOH is a Out of Home marketing style which mean following and engaging the customers even if they are out of their homes.

Let me explain it with the most recent Aircel innovation which has created an unbeatable buzz in the media world. In Mumbai, when the Met department speculated heavy rains, Aircel decided to be on the solution provider side and so they decided to put up an inflated raft at Milan Subway in Mumbai, which sees a lot of flooding every year. The message simply said, "In case of emergency, cut rope".



And surprisingly, people actually cut the rope when Mumbai was flooded. This has not only raised the standards of innovation in brand building but has gained a lot of good will too from the common man. Customers of today want to feel and talk to the brand rather than being a silent spectator. Such innovation adding another dimension to engage the customers and builds a direct bonding with them.However marketing has always been interesting to do but the depth is yet to be realized. It can be done in the most wackiest and fascinating way so as to leave people with an OOH n AWE experience :-o :-o

Is ‘A’>’P’???

Below stated is the becoming the most “amazing” fact of my life:

I am an I.T engineer with 2 years of work- experience with India’s 2nd largest company Infosys and currently pursuing my MBA. But still everyday, like a kid, I am instructed and indeed forced to attend all the lectures.

I used to think that in a “B-School “, B stands for Business but now over the last two months I have gained an insight into its actual meaning that logically “B” stands for Bearing everything, and here lies the essence of my future college life. And the 3rd degree starts right from the morning itself with our compulsory attendance. I think professors believe that the number of students present is directly proportional to their interest in that particular subject. Doesn’t matter if students are mentally present but yes physical presence is vital for their registers. I believe, in the race to count these A’s and P’s they forget the basic fundamental of teaching which is imparting education but not merely delivering lectures.

Making students sit in the class defeats the basic purpose of that class indeed when few are interested and rest are merely waiting for their attendance roll call. The biggest irony of the situation is that in these classes we are imparted knowledge to become managers which means becoming independent and managing your life well. But the freedom of doing that is taken away with right here only. I don’t understand why it is so necessary to take interest in each and every subject when there are so many to pick and choose. The compulsory attendance rather takes away that time also which could have been utilized in some other area of interest. But this ordeal becomes worse when there are some extra classes too to attend.

However, I think, likewise our Indian constitution our college institution should also give us the right to freedom and education(real one).

One Click Away......

And you are almost there in the virtual world where every product is just making one appeal to its customers: “Pick me up”. Yes and to make this happen, marketers are scratching their heads and finding latest trends to reach out to customers in the most reliable and fastest way. The world is becoming flat, earlier what was not feasible is possible today. All thanks to the advancement in internet penetration which is increasing with leaps and bounds. As reported by Forrester Research, India will be the third largest internet user base by 2013 - with China and the US taking the first two spots, respectively. So the need to redefine the relationship between customers and marketers has become important and thus e-marketing comes into the picture.

Simply put, e-marketing or electronic marketing refers to the application of marketing principles and techniques via electronic media and more specifically the Internet. Today the world of e-marketing seems to have created an excitement among the customers and marketers. Marketing is no longer restricted to the selling of the product but innovating ways to achieve full customer satisfaction. Various leading social networking websites like Facebook, Orkut, MySpace, LinkedIn spark off associations of coolness, youth and perhaps constant socialization. These sites helps companies in creating their own communities, a place where customers can share their experiences and get their queries answered thus developing a personal connect with them. This is just a tip of the iceberg as e-marketing also helps marketers in exploring the profile of the users who register themselves on these websites, tracking their attitudes towards certain brand and category.

Today any product related news can spread out exponentially to millions of internet users in a very short span of time. Below some statistical figures help in establishing it:

• 86% of online consumers read online business reviews ahead of making any purchasing decisions according to a study by Kudzu.com in December 20

• Facebook alone has 500 million members who have spent 700 billion minutes there.

Also it has been estimated that an average 80% - 90% of all website user traffic begins on search engine sites. In such a scenario, web presence especially on websites like Yahoo, Google and MSN is becoming indispensable for industries. The companies can post their advertisements or links to their own websites for creating brand awareness amongst customers.

Needless to say, e-marketing is truly the most effective and cost efficient way to target and engage your customers – the ones you already have and those you want in the future.

Redefining 'GEEK'

I am writing this blog not to give a new oxford meaning to 'geek' but to share my take on this word geek. 2 days back I got a mail from one of my seniors telling all juniors about a paper presentation and somehow I found it interesting, so decided to meet this senior , the so called 'geek' of our college.

After the chain of replies through mails, this geek invited me for organic tea with his friend. All thanks to my engineering background that before even meeting him I formed a very silly image of his in my mind. Some of the attributes defined by my super imagination power were: he must be having a boring face with neatly combed oiled hair and would be carrying a big bag with all sort of books. But to my surprise he was completely the opposite, as when he saw me waiting for him he gave a big smile to me. He was altogether a random person with a pretty chilled-out behavior. As the duration of conversation kept increasing so was my interest to know about his ideas and plans. Surprisingly, he suggested me to do things in the most non-conventional manner, precisely in the wackiest style and not to accept what is offered to you but to make your own choices. He told me not to believe in class room teaching only but to go out of the bookish world and implement those things otherwise that teaching is a sheer wastage of time.

Has anyone heard of any geek saying things like that??

There could be two reasons behind this nomenclature, one could be that I don’t know the meaning of geek or like many of us, eating, sleeping, drinking and non-stop nonsense talks don’t excite him.

And I am sure after reading this most of you can easily make out …… J J