I am not sure what should I write in my 100th blog post, though I thought I can write a bit about myself and about my blogging habit. How I started blogging, why do I blog now, what I blog and for whom I blog for and what role does today's Blogging technology play in Marketing and personal Branding.
Well what I notice in Marketing over a period of time is that Technology has started playing a larger role, sometimes to the extent of driving the new strategies. Also, this has led to creation of a new breed of Human Capital with a completely new skill set which is needed. 10 years back to drive the marketing it required business objectives and goals, business mindset, creativity, new ideas and passion to do marketing. However, today it has got augmented and now it needs to be a good balance of Technical Know-how too. But one thing which has not changed is Passion to succeed in whatever you do. And passion is one thing which has driven me to achieve all the success which I have till now, though in words of Robert Frost :"I have miles to go before I sleep."
So what I noticed as a change in myself over a period of time is that, now I not just understand the technical part of technology, but also the Business and Human part of it and this I something which I leverage to my advantage. With social and professional networking adding advantage to the knowledge growth I just feel more privileged that I am born in this age. I sometimes now enjoy myself being called an Online Media Evangelist, as this is what I strongly believe in and stand for in today's Web 2.0 times. I can say I am passionate about it. When I started blogging way back in 2005, it was more like a juvenile amateur writing about college days or why he likes a Pizza or some philosophy and some inspired content etc. However, in mid 2007, I started focusing on Technology & Marketing.
In 2006 I didn't blog, as I was so occupied with my work. I was learning on how to implement marketing and branding strategies leveraging various media. I executed some 200 events in 05(sept) -07(june) varying from Seminars, Conferences, Workshops, Interaction and Brainstorm sessions, Expos, Tradeshows and did over 1000 different electronic mailers and some 50 direct mailers targeting 26 different industry segments varying from Automation, Automotive, Aerospace to Travel and Tourism, Healthcare, IT, Wireless, HR and more... Also I interacted with media for online and offline PR and even press conferences etc. I created whole lot of sales productivity enhancement tools, testimonials, demos, CDs etc etc and tried so many more things.
One thing which I remember while doing all this is my mentor in National Instruments telling me to focus on results and to see the broader picture than just on media execution. The importance of learning from past and each activity by analysing it on basis of what was the objective, strategy, tactics and what was finally achieved.
I was in a race to learn as much as I can and just because I was passionate about marketing and I wanted to be the best in what I am doing. I did my set of mistakes and learned every time and came off much stronger and better every time.
My professional journey of marketing officially started off at National Instruments though the seeds were born in my school and college life and small activities in Wipro Technologies. I let the plants grow and mushroom into strong banyan trees as I grew older. I read this book called "The End of Marketing as we know it" by Sergio Zyman the ex-CMO of Coca Cola, which shattered a lot of myths about marketing and the most abused term "Strategy" and I got introduced to real, fact based, measurable world of marketing, where it was all about sales and how new marketing strategies can drive sales for a small organization to the large giants.
Then one day while I was reading online I just felt that I should share my opinion on this topic and I started writing and revisited my blog. I saw many other blogs and started learning how to optimize blogs and on how to make it user friendly, add productivity features etc. Then I got introduced to something called Web Analytics and I installed the freely available (not so accurate) google analytics and started noticing that there are people who are reading my blog. So I thought why not start keeping in touch with my friends, known and unknown people who may get benefited from my writing. Soon I saw with increasing content on my blog I started getting more and more visitors on my blog and people started sharing their opinions.
Though I have a long way to go, I can surely see that I am able to keep myself focused on my thought process, my ideas and opinions and obviously keeps me aware that its a public place where people are seeing my thoughts naked as it is.
In today's time it's become a tool for personal branding for individuals as well as corporate branding for organizations. I don't know if it is an Exaggeration that I am making or not, but in some years from now, HR departments of companies, girl friends and boyfriends, dads and moms, CEOs and managers might just get judged in the world by there blogs. You might see a campaign like Titan Fast Track watches with tag line: "How many you have" for blogs saying "How many you write?" running on prime time TV. :)
Happy blogging and commenting!
-Sachin Uppal http://sachinuppal.blogspot.com
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