Update 1 - Is Google angry with Facebook?

Facebook Applications crash on Google Chrome. Is this just a Google Chrome Beta nuance or a dirty tactic of google? Well many Facebook applications are apparently not working on Google chrome and facebook users who would wish to try and use chorome are getting annoyed. 

This has left me wondering if Google Chrome left these issues unhandled in the BETA launch deliberately? Some time back Facebook with it's popularity and a strong product as well as a high performing team attracted  many people from Google. Even though no one could do anything about it but does that mean google played dirty this time?

After the BETA launch yesterday over 100,000 users have downloaded the Google chrome and people have started testing various website compatibilty on Google Chrome. However, many websites are facing issues with Applet loading, pages being skewed, security settings not customizable etc.

Well few simple examples: 

Auto cleanup of the browsing data feature when the window is closed is not there.

Popup enable feature is not there.

Favourtites folder is not there. 

Yes may be Dynamic Bookmarks is the next level of browsing but can we customize our browser or do we have to go by Google's Verdict?

Well, Google Chrome is here to WOW the users and I am sure they are listening....

WOW Google Chrome - Why don't Google Make Operating System?

WOW Google Chrome - Wonderful | Ossum | Wooing

When Google gets down to making Internet Experience better there is nothing which compares to their expertise in making MOST user friendly applications. One of the biggest steps after capturing the majority search engine space, yesterday Google launched it's WOW browser - Google Chrome. The way their marketing team built an entire Google Chrome storybook of How the entire Google Chrome browser came into existence is Ossum. The FRESH Technological approach adopted in Google Chrome has brought out some Wonderful features.

Google's official blog reported on 1st September about the launch of the Google Chrome story book and other details about the browser and now Google Chrome is available for download.

Right now in it's BETA stage, tweaking features is mostly restricted. Very few tweaks are available to users till now. Also, auto clear-up of private data once you exit from browser is not available. There is an interesting feature of Incognito Browsing which ensures that webpages that you open and files you downloaded won't be logged in your browsing and download histories; all new cookies are deleted after you close the incognito window.

Search while you type URLs - Google brought it's search prowess to google chrome by providing you the feature of showing popular site results and other historical data from your search tracks while you type a url.

Application Shortcuts, Dynamic Tabs, Favourite web pages in quick launch, Crash Control and Safe Browsing are some additional features added and surely they will WOO the new and existing users of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Safari.

Technically one of the biggest advancements is Handling each Tab as an individual process/thread which helps you in case one of the process is non responsive. Sandboxing and Crash control really ensures smooth working of the browser application. 

One thing which I monitored was that the CPU usage and Physical memory usage was a little higher than firefox / IE while running multiple tabs in Chorme as the number of Application is ONE but the number of processes were equal to the number of tabs so more load on the processor and memory.

Let's see if the full version of Google Chrome really WOWs the audience or not....And well this also makes me Wondering, WHY Don't GOOGLE make an Operating System?

Sales and Marketing Process Outsourcing – Sales Pitch

Sales and Marketing Process Outsourcing (SMPO)

Top Reasons, why companies outside India and companies in India should outsource their Marketing, Communication, Lead generation and Demand Automation programs to India.

In today’s fast-changing, technology driven, digital media marketing landscape, the management of marketing function in organizations has become global. Now most of the marketing is done through new online, on-demand tools which can be used from anywhere across the world. Software as a Service model is steadily growing into organizations worldwide enhancing the online execution capacity of organizations. Also, these collaboration tools allow today’s marketers to sit in any part of world and deliver the same metrics which there counterparts in US or UK would be doing.

So why pay more? – May be language and cultural tone can pose barriers for companies outside India, however, this is a myth, as many of the organizations outside India have a good 20% staff which is Indian. Indians deliver far more superior quality of work than their US counterparts.

Companies outside India - Business Case for Marketing Outsourcing

Pay less and get more - An average email marketer in US or UK costs around USD 40 - 60K / Euro 25K - 40K annually. However in India you can get the same for 15-20K Euros. This person would be not just an email marketer but more than that. You would notice a higher level or business acumen and strong fundamentals in business.

Risk Mitigation – Considering you have low cost resources available, you can have more resources at the same time with lower cost and you will deliver much better results. Also, in case of attrition, you can still work efficiently as you had built redundancy.

Strong Talent Pool – A very strong talent pool is available in India. Not just that Indians are quick learners but also they ramp up their skills very fast. And due to a large population and stress given on education its always easy to get the right person who fits the bill.

Companies in India

From my experience in India. Most of the marketing departments anyways outsource there marketing activities partially to the agencies. However, due to lack of agencies which can provide integrated marketing which can cover Traditional and Digital marketing both, its very hard to retain one vendor.

Also, many small and medium enterprises hire people at low cost and the end product is shabby. In today's time if one individual was to know everything in the marketing domain with deep understanding of various media, buying behaviour and negotiations, agencies wouldn't have existed at all. However, this is not true. Hence, you need an agency which can deliver exactly what you need.

With a brilliant planning, media buying, creativity you also need a strong execution backbone and one think tank which looks ahead and keeps a track of market, competitors and more.

Mostly agencies do that and if they are not doing it yet, they should dedicate their resources in doing that.

With a setup like this, I see that the agencies can provide a detailed end to end branding and marketing setup to organizations. Also, the agencies need to come up with low cost marketing techniques to help the SME segment.

Today online media provides Low Cost Marketing solutions and that is what the Agencies need to look at. Coming up with market segmentation and offerings for low budget and high budget customers.

At last, I would say its always beneficial to outsource a majority of execution to an agency and spend more time in analysis and planning in house. A complete SMPO or Sales and Marketing Process Outsourcing company can come handy in India.

Online Media - Solution to Crude Oil Price Rise and Real Estate Market in India?

You must be hearing that the crude oil prices worldwide have been rising and it has led to inflation in a lot of economies. Can “Internet” and “Online Media” become a small stepping stone solution to abate the rising Crude Oil and Real Estate prices?

The continuous rise in Crude oil prices worldwide is posing inflationary effects in emerging as well as developed economies. We all understand that Crude oil is a resource which will diminish one day. So the environmentalist, the energy honchos, corporate and governments worldwide are trying to find out solutions to reduce crude oil usage and trying to develop parallel sources of energy like: Bio-Fuel, Nuclear Energy, Water, Wind etc. I am hereby explaining the affect on Real Estate industry in India and how they can recuperate from the same.

What’s the Present Real Estate Industry’s situation in India?
The recent bloodbath in the real estate sector has started taking a toll. Almost all large developers are now facing a severe cash crunch and finding it difficult to complete their ongoing projects. In fact, the situation is so bad that most of them have reported a 50-70% cash shortfall. Industry sources say that the liquidity crunch has forced many developers to pick up cash from the unorganized market at interest rates as high as 35% to 50% annually. The lending rate of banks is between 18% and 20%. The grade A developers which are facing crash crunch include DLF, MGF Emaar, Shobha Developers, Unitech, Omaxe, Parsvnath Developers, Hiranandani Group, Ansal API, BPTP Developers and TDI Group. As a result of the crash crunch many developers have started going slow or even stopped construction of projects which are either in their initial stages of development or which would not affect their bottom line in the near future.

Why it happened?
There are multiple factors (explained in my previous entry) which have led to this situation which can be like:
-Rising Crude Oil Prices
-Inflated Cement and Steel prices
-Recession in US
-Increasing inflation
-Over-hyped prices of properties (for higher gross margins)
-Overspending on Marketing by these developers (tradeshows, marketing collaterals, TV ads, billboards, hoardings etc).

All these reasons put together led to the increasing real estate prices and here we are with cash crunch amongst real estate developers.

What’s the Solution?
Obviously, if people start buying more houses, the real estate developers get more cash. If people start using lesser oil, the consumption will go down and subside the demand and help in reduction of prices. However, with the inflation mounting the cash in hand is reducing for the common man and impacting the purchase cycles of the buyers and sellers. I can’t suggest what can be “ONE” solution to this country wide problem. However, here is one solution which I can think of, and can be helpful from a perspective of a “techno-marketing” professional.

Presently in India the consumption of fuel follows a pattern like this:

· Transport (Petrol, Diesel, CNG, Aviation Fuel) : 51%
· Industry (Petrol, Diesel, Fuel Oil, Naphtha, Natural Gas): 14%
· Commercial & Others : 13%
· Domestic (LPG & Kerosene): 18%
· Agriculture (Diesel): 4%

These numbers clearly show that Automotive Industry is definitely a majority fuel consumer. So if we can help reduce a small amount of automotive fuel consumption, we are surely headed to ease the pressure.

Solution: Leverage the Online Media.

Benefits of using Online Media in solving various issues:
Lower energy requirements.
-Work from home.
-Instead of people traveling for so many meetings all across the city, you can have web conferences and reduce your travel time and cost of traveling. You are saving time, money, oil and gas. Eg: www.webex.com
-You will be more productive while you are meeting people online and you would be able to do more in lesser time.
-Set-up Web cams in your construction sites to show the present construction status.
-Give maps of everything online to help people see the location of your site and many more similar things.
-Less print promotions, lesser expenditures and more ROI
-Lesser marketing expenditures.
-You can do online exhibitions and tradefairs eg: www.unisfair.com
-Spend less on marketing by doing away with billboard, TV and other sort of ridiculous expenses.

Spend money in promoting your websites and driving people to go Online and save money. Lesser use of energy sources which will get depleted one day. More usage of technology which can drive businesses and reduce dependency on oil based energy.

Though I am proposing something which is far fetched, however, things like these take a definite time span to get implemented and early adopters reap the benefits of Brand leadership and differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Also, this is just one small solution which can go a long way in helping to reduce energy requirements and may help the inflationary pressures, public discretion can never be discounted for!

World's worst sales letter? - Direct Marketing

Geoffery James author of over 7 books has recently blogged on BNet, sharing one of the Worst Sales Letter he has seen. Here is the letter which he got:

The bracketed numbers refer to comments below:
"Dear Mr. and Mrs. James
During the past few months, I have completed an intensive training program for real estate professionals through the Century 21 learning system. [1] With this recent training and my experience as a full service agent, I feel quite confident in my ability to help buyers and sellers with their real estate needs. [2]
Century 21 is one of the best real estate firms in the area due to the many educational programs promoting current market strategies[3], as well as many years of experience within the real estate community.[4] In addition, we provide:
- Outstanding service to all clients.[5]
- Market data that is always changing.[6]
- Weekly updates for clients listing there homes.[7]
- A wide variety of buying and selling tools.[8]
It is great working with a company that has so much to offer their clients.[9] If you or someone you know is considering buying or selling [10] property feel free to give out my name or business card [11] and I will do everything I can to meet their real estate needs.[12]
Sincerely,"
His comments:
[1] OK, you’re fresh out of school. So why would I want to work with you?
[2] That’s nice. Unfortunately, you’ve said absolutely nothing to make me feel confident in you.
[3] Why do I get the impression that some marketing guy wrote this as boilerplate?
[4] Experience doing what? Sending out awkward direct mail pieces? And compared to whom?
[5] Outstanding in what way? Outstandingly bad? And by how much? And where’s the proof?
[6] Huh? Does this mean that the data is getting more accurate or less accurate or what?
[7] And that’s important because…? And what’s with the typo?
[8] Sounds like a hardware store. Why would I care? What do the tools do?
[9] Glad you like it. Why should I care? What’s with the grammatical error?
[10] Trying to address two different markets weakens the entire pitch.
[11] At this point it starts sounding positively desperate.
[12] Why would I risk my friendships for somebody I don’t know?
What’s really wretched is that the letter was sent first class mail to individual families, on heavy stock paper. This means that each piece cost somebody — hopefully not the obviously hapless agent — at least half a buck per letter. I’d be surprised if the guy gets so much as a nibble. Pitiful. Truly pitiful.

Innovative Apple iPhone - Half Baked PR and Marketing Genius

I do not doubt the innovation genius behind Apple’s success. However, iphone was launched half baked and the PR and Marketing departments at Apple did the trick.

Apple’s strong brand has been able to drive the initial sales in US and they were able to sell millions. However, tech geeks that follow the mobile markets did not approve of the technical prowess of iPhone. There are 10 times better phones available in market than iPhone (eg LG Viewty) and Apple treated the customers shoddily by introducing the iPhone half baked with low memory options initially and no 3G.

For obvious reasons people in countries like Europe haven’t accepted the “growing” iPhone and UK’s Sunday Times reported potential losses to the stock owners as people are not buying it.

Probably, Steve Jobs did a brilliant job in US while launching it and the PR and marketing teams created a huge hype around the launch of iPhone. The blogs were buzzing, videos were roaming across youtube, newspapers online and offline were talking, Steve himself gave a brilliant on stage launch pitch. Even investors, analysts, technical specialists everyone was kept in the good books.

And then, suddenly the pretty looking, sturdy, touch based gadget which can take pictures, organize and play music and make phone calls too, was launched. Oh within 2 months of launch the prices were slashed along with a special apology from Steve. And then another version with higher memory option was launched and now there is news on anvil that the 3G version would be launched as the analysts were unhappy with 3G missing.

iPhone’s success in US is a clear success story of what PR and Marketing can achieve for you even when your product might not be the best in the industry!

HSBC Bank - Marketing promotion reaches New “Greener” Heights – Shameful Marketing promotion

HSBC Bank - Marketing Strategy reaches New “Greener” Heights – Shameful Marketing promotion.

Yesterday night while on my evening walk I noticed the "New Green Ways" of marketing adopted by some Employees of HSBC bank. As if the annoying calls for personal loans were not enough, the Sales Executive at HSBC bank decided to NAIL posters on the trunks of trees to sell Personal Loans.

As John Muir said, “God has cared for these trees, saved them from draught, diseases, avalanches, a thousand of tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.”

I wonder what they are thinking when they came up with this brilliant Marketing Plan. Will posting a personal loan ad on a tree trunk get people to call you? It is ridiculous. Isnt there a law againt this somewhere in the country?

I was just wondering, if you post something on a billboard, you pay the billboard owner rent. Considering HSBC posters are on trees which are public property should'nt HSBC be paying the public. Will HSBC give out company shares to every bangalorean? Will they atleast pay-back society in some way instead if ruining the environment. Is there anything at all the Bank is doing for the society in which it operates?

Enough of complaining. On one hand while there are no-brainer promotion tactics like this, there are some people who really care for the city and planet’s green face. They have started planting trees for free across the city. They have left a name www.treesforfree.org humbly and they have a blog which is full of action and it speaks for them.

What I am doing here is to take their action to masses and spread their to the people:

“We plant trees for free to heal the earth. As of now, we do this in Bangalore only. So if you know any place where a tree can take root and flourish, let us know. We'll do the rest. You're welcome to join us, I as a volunteer or a "tree planting member"(one who gives 100 rupees to plant a tree, every month). We also plant trees as a living tribute to your birthday, anniversary, or any other day that you want us to. If you like what we do, and then feel free to spread the good word about our work. Speak to your friends, family, and your company's CSR department. Do whatever it takes to spread some greenery and heal the earth.”

I have contacted the people behind this to put my personal efforts to help promote and contribute in this initiative.

For once, let’s stop complaining and DO this. And for the people at the private banks, please put some thought into your Marketing exercises.

What’s in a name? Pretty much everything…

Topaz…what do you think of when you first hear topaz? The shaving blade your father used in the days before Sensor Excels and Mach – Mach3s??

How about a restaurant serving Indian food?? Naah- not really.

10 months ago, near where I live in 7th Block, Koramangla, Bangalore, a new restaurant serving Indian food opened. This (opening of restaurants) is a fairly common occurrence in Bangalore, especially Koramangla with a new place, serving a different cuisine, with a unique name opening almost every week. What is not a common occurrence is for the restaurant to be called “TOPAZ”, which is a name which almost never conjures up images of food and a new eating joint in the heart of Bangalore to not be choc-a-block with diners over the weekend, which sadly topaz never was.

I have walked past that restaurant almost everyday and always wondered what was it that made someone name their restaurant TOPAZ, and 10 months, and am yet to come up with an answer. Not able to just be content with simply wondering, I decided to walk in and sample the fare – something which no Indian restaurant should get wrong, Daal Makhani & butter Naan. Unfortunately, I had to come back disappointed with the just average food and above average prices.

Also, a firm believer of the wonders of marketing and branding, I decided to speak to the management about the possibility of a name change and even suggested a few Indian options, but the management present were clueless on why the owners named it Topaz in the first place!

Now 10 months later, Topaz has quietly shut shop and am sure not too many people notice the difference in Koramangla’s geography or miss it.

I am left wondering- could a mere name change, something as simple as “bawarchi khana”, “mirch masala” have saved the restaurant?

AMEX Kingfisher First Credit Card | How American Express is a truly Global Bank and caters to local needs.

AMEX Kingfisher First Credit Card How American Express is a truly Global Bank and caters to local needs.

Marketing + Technology = Speedy Search Engine Market Share

Case Study: On how American Express (AMEX) immediately responded to social media and how Web2.0 or Marketing 2.0 helped them gain a larger search engine pie in the local Indian market.

On Jan 27 2008 I blogged on how the TITANS came together and how AMEX credit cards co-branded with Kingfisher Airlines and Airtel VAS services. A month later I blogged about why AMEX-Kingfisher first cards should re-look at the SEO strategy. The global banking organization immediately responded to the need of the hour and came up with a swanky new optimized page. This page took a brilliant tagging approach and they chose the correct keywords this time to optimize the website and strongly came up within 3 days time. Not only this the existing corporate website web page which has branch webpage has been revamped with apt use of title tags, meta tags, variable names, form names etc.

The search engines respect the content and if the off-page and on-page content is optimized well the search engines will respect you and bring your website up on the rankings. How, I would want to term it as:

Marketing + Technology = Speedy Search Engine Market Share

In today’s world when the sales have a major component of online sales, it’s important to optimize your websites and have a clear SEO / SEM strategy and technology. Another thing in the Marketing 2.0 world is to look at the Social Media responsiveness. Obviously some companies are giving enough attention to this strategy and becoming customer centric.

Dissection of strategy:

Title Tags: “THE AMERICAN EXPRESS® KINGFISHER FIRST CREDIT CARD-HOME”. The clear use of keywords like: American express, Kingfisher First, Credit Card

Again the text used: “Get two or more Kingfisher Airlines tickets every year.” Or “Avail complimentary Airtel Virtual Calling card and Airtel Live! VAS card, plus other exciting special offers”
They have very well optimized keyword density.

One thing which is still missing is: Image name optimization. Right now the images used have names like: image top 1, image top 2, fastestwaytofly, body copy black etc. So essentially the names of the images are not optimized with keywords and summary is still missing in the HTML tags. Though it’s minor thing, but can be further helpful.

Happy optimizing and credit card selling!

Oh by the way, I am a customer of AMEX kingfisher card and I can comment on the service. I traveled from Bangalore to Delhi return and I got free tickets of Kingfisher Airlines which I booked through AMEX travel desk and as always the service was brilliant. So I enjoyed flying the good times with Kingfisher. Not only that I liked the payment methodology of AMEX as I can just log into my Citibank account and go to bills section and directly make an online payment. So isn’t it truly global services packaged for convenience in a localized format?

Ode to Prof Ranjan Das - IIM C | The Strategy Academy

Ode to Prof Ranjan Das The Strategy Academy

I just finished my last blog entry and saw this Google Adsense ad of The Strategy Academy on my blog. And the first thing I remembered was Prof. Ranjan Das.

Anybody who would have studied at IIM Calcutta couldn’t have missed one personality on campus: Prof. Ranjan Das.

The One man who is passionate about education and strategy, and who with his charismatic leadership has helped so many leaders worldwide to excel in there careers. He has finally fulfilled his dream of entrepreneurship and started his own college, The Strategy Academy at this age.

I remember the time when he last spoke to me addressing the class and mentioning about his new venture of the Strategy Academy where he wanted to show the world a new path of why Strategy is important and how it is relevant in today’s business. He categorically said, you need to identify and challenge the status quo and finally move ahead to the desired state.

This is a perfect example of how leaders stand by there words and how Prof. Das has converted his vision into reality.

Hats off to you sir!

Top 5 Viral-Video Ads of 2007

Top 5 Viral-Video Ads of 2007 - A true Viral Marketing strategy well executed
Cadbury’s gorilla drummer ad, with more than 5 million views for the original video on YouTube, was the top viral-video ad, followed by Smirnoff’s Green Tea Partay, with 3.4m views, according to agency GoViral, reports the Financial Times.
The top 5 viral-video ads:
Cadbury - Gorilla Drummer, launched online in August; agency: Fallon.
Smirnoff - Green Tea Partay, launched online in August; agency: JWT, New York.
Ray-Ban - Catch Sunglasses, launched online in May; agency, Cutwater.
Blendtec - Will it Blend? launched online in July.
Lynx/Axe – Bom chicka wah wah, launched online in May; agency BBH, Copenhagen.

Mass Customization – How Software as a Service (SaaS) enables customer centric behavior

Mass Customization – How Software as a Service (SaaS) enables customer centric behavior
One Sunday afternoon while I was reading a book on manufacturing, I read this interesting term called Mass Customization and I was wondering what exactly it meant. Though I couldn’t understand it fully at that time in terms of how practically feasible it is going to be, when I later started learning more about marketing, I realized the power of mass customization.

Facebook: A perfect example of mass customization. Here I choose what I want and customize my software (applications / front-page) according to my needs.
Salesforce.com: Another brilliant example of web based database crunching and CRM system.
Google Docs: Another example of a web based product delivery as a service.

So why Mass Customization is important?
Well the people in sales would agree with me on the point that, whenever you visit a prospect and present your product / service to them, one question which you always want to avoid but seems unavoidable: Can we customize this?
“Now, after spending so much money on research and development my company came-up with a product and still this customer wants to customize this”, would be an obvious thought in anyone’s mind. However, you do know that the customer is asking for customized feature/s as their organizational needs are different. This is mostly true for every organization.

So what to do?
Well you can do 2 things: Keep making that installable software which sits and runs on someone’s systems, fixing bugs in it and charge customers for every new feature or customization they want.
Or
Choose a model which is delivered through web or is On-Demand. Provide software as a service.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Though in certain cases it might not be possible to do mass customization, however, in the cases where you can deliver Software as a Service with customization options, this is what you can expect:
The Good: Long term loyalty, more flexibility and easy scalability, continuous management revenue, better service, better products, low cost products, open platforms, mass customizable by worldwide contributors, continuous partnership revenues.
The Bad: High initial investment like high porting costs, integration cost etc, initial implementation barriers, however, in long term the product delivery costs come down considerably and you outperform in the fierce competition of today’s world
The Ugly: I am yet to think what worst can happen, may be customers become more and more demanding and may just ask for something over the board…

Things to look for in the coming time: Mashups and Customizable Business Applications, like longjump

Why Suddenly this?
Well think of this: Your organization spends thousands and millions of dollars in managing the IT infrastructure, quality and security. And then repeat costs of up gradation, licensing and more…
So if you get a safe, secure, on-demand system which can save your time, effort and money, obviously you would want to do that. And in this web 2.0 world this exactly has been done and is now possible for you.
As the desktops are being converted to virtual desktops or web tops this was the most obvious change for you.
What’s next?
As always, the product lifecycle will take its own time, even after certain known failures this time in the software scenario and web 2.0 world this should work!

1st Linkedin F2F(face to Face) Kicks off

LinkedIn is a business-oriented networking site founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, mainly used for professional networking. As of December 2007, its site traffic was 3.2 million visitors per month, growing at an annual growth rate of about 485%. As of January 2008, it had more than 17 million registered users, spanning 150 industries.

LinkedIn's CEO is Dan Nye. As of February, 2008 founder and former CEO Reid Hoffman, previously an executive vice president of PayPal, remains President of Product and Chairman of the Board. LinkedIn is located in Mountain View, California, and funded by Greylock, Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and the European Founders Fund. LinkedIn reached profitability in March 2006.

LinkedIn members in India, the biggest market for LinkedIn in the APAC region, are all set to meet face to face in cities across the country.

Hundreds of users have already expressed interest in putting faces to names, and the first such event is expected to take place in New Delhi in February 2008.

Those interested in being informed may join the Yahoo group set up for the purpose as follows:
Group home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/linkedinf2f To join group, send a blank mail to linkedinf2f-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Send mails to group at: linkedinf2f@yahoogroups.com

The 1st linkedin F2F in New Delhi will be followed by more similar F2F meetings in cities like Bangalore, Mumbai and more...

People who are interested in expanding their networks, meeting more professionals from their industry with similar interests, discussing about issues and solutions, new ideas, etc can join in.

For bangalore F2F you can contact me here.

HR 2.0 Strategies - Niche Professional Networking - The Young Brigade of Knowledge Professionals

HR 2.0 Strategies - Niche Professional Networking - The Young Brigade of Knowledge Professionals

In my previous post on Enterprise 2.0, where I explained how Web 2.0 can be leveraged for Business Transformation in today’s world and wrote about HR 2.0 as the new emerging trend in organizations, here is another HR 2.0 Strategy for your organization.

Niche Professional Networking (NPN). This trend is catching-up and quickly this is taking over the traditional methods of knowledge enhancement, community building, internal communication and recruitment in organizations. Attached to this is another trend of Young Brigade of Knowledge workers – In there early 20s, they have emerged as the dynamic lot who understand business and action around it at a very young age.

Ok, So What is NPN?

It’s like a playground where the kids are allowed to do what they like doing best i.e. play. So you let the people enjoy by allowing them to play in their home ground, in other words, it’s a knowledge workers’ forte and you help the knowledge worker by providing a platform to exchange ideas, share knowledge and let them give comments on the topics of their interest.

Essentially, you allowed the individual to live their lifestyle in the way they want it. And the innate human need of communication gets satisfied. Just by watching the individual living his lifestyle in front of you while you invisibly watch them doing various activities, you can pin point the correct candidate for your needs.

What can NPN offer?

In NPN, the individuals connect with people of their choice, caliber, interest types and more…They not only share their knowledge, obviously they learn a lot, while commenting on a certain issue, their thought process gets more organized, their personal network expands and what more, they are all doing it voluntarily.

Just by sitting in front of their PCs they are able to gauge the worldwide best practices and keep themselves abreast with the latest trends in their field of work.

How is it different from Intranets?

A lot of organizations are doing it through Intranet networks like Wipro, IBM, Infosys, SAP etc. However, the issue is that people use these intranet for a unwind experience and the content takes a hit.

People from various departments with varied interest log on to Intranet and they talk about things as varied as movies, books and favorite actors. So this goes on to killing their productive time.
With knowledge networks or NPNs this time killing techniques are avoided and instead people learn more about their profession, knowledge expansion and networking is what they are able to get as compared to the Intranet.

NPN advantage – This niche professional networking will allow individuals around the world to network, learn, share, collaborate and above all grow as a individual and as a professional!

How can Social Networking be mixed with Professional Networking?

One of my favourite professional networking sites is www.linkedin.com .

I like the new features that LinkedIn keeps providing and the way they have been able to differentiate themselves from the rest. Here is one suggestion from my side on how Social Networking be mixed with Professional Networking in this Web 2.0 world?
Earlier I wrote about Enterprise 2.0 and this post can be one marketing strategy which can help these websites or Enterprise 2.0s.

I do not have the percentages with me, however, a good number of people write blogs and who would be part of LinkedIn professional network. Now if LinkedIn provides a functionality of pulling the individual's blogs into LinkedIn and there is one option given to people (some kind of a widget or linklist) where we can follow blogs of individuals we have subscribed to and whenever anyone writes a new entry, the status shows, new content.

What's in for Linked In?


1) With user generated content, LinkedIn's search volume will increase.
2) More search More Traffic More Ads More Revenue
3) Provides more loyalty and more individuals to be pulled in (more accounts)
4) More time spent by individuals on LinkedIn.
5) Enhances social interaction and still keeps the professional touch.

Disclaimer can be given that any offensive content on blogs or any content violating LinkedIN policies will be terminated.

What's in for users?
1) I get to promote my blog and ride on LinkedIn's popularity.
2) I get a feeling of statisfaction that my opinion is being Read / Heard to my worldwide network.
3) Gives me more resaons to go back to the website and spend more time in reading what others are writing. etc.

Eg: http://www.marcomprofessional.com/ has done a brilliant job in doing this and it has definitely boosted their website traffic, it can be a similar approach. Even Wordpress.com allows you to pull in your blog from other blogs.


Even other professional networking websites like http://www.xing.com/ , http://www.irishprofessionalnetwork.org/ , or may be new HR 2.0 based websites like http://www.toostep.com/ , http://www.notchup.com/ or similar kinds can do that.

It's an instant way of boosting your website and positioning as the perfect platform for professionals and executives to network and share knowledge worldwide.

Any thoughts on this?

Sachin Uppal's New Blog at Wordpress.com on Technology | Marketing | Communication

I started a new Blog at wordpress.com it’s a mirror copy of my present blog. You can visit the new blog here.

About me:
Sachin Uppal, can be called an apt sailor between technology and marketing mindset, I am helping organizations to grow revenues through marketing channels. Extremely passionate about Technology, Marketing and Communication. Want to be known as a Techno-Marketing Guru before departing from this world!

I already have a blog called Sachin Uppal with blogger.com. I write about Marketing, Communication, HR and small / big things in life. I have a keen interest in New Technology, IT, Telecom, Wireless, Healthcare, Travel and Tourism, Finance and Consulting (quite a lot, I know, but I like reading about these and enjoy the same). I changed the theme of my present blog: Marketing Communication Technology.

Now the question: Why Am I writing another blog?
Answer: Well, I was browsing through LinkedIn and saw a question asked by some gentleman, which blogging platform is good and why? And looking at the answers a majority pointed at Wordpress, because of its flexibility, open source etc. so I thought why not try this one out may be I might learn something new and as I said, I am a technology enthusiast, what more reason can I find to try out new piece of technology!

Drop in your comments and critcism here.

IT product and services marketing 2.0 - Transforming Business with Web 2.0

In continuation to my Entrprise 2.0 entry earlier, here is the IT product and services marketing 2.0.

So what's happening?

“Our CRM software is the best. Our CRM software is the Cheapest. Our CRM software is easiest to integrate and gives you peace of mind”.

“We are leaders in managed IT services with over 120 clients. We cater to end-to-end demands of our clients. We have thousands of man-hours of experience”.

“Our product can do X and Y and Z and even a.1.1, b.2.alpha and so on. Our product was rated best by gamma magazine in zeta year as the best”.

If your company is also doing something similar and telling the customers “One New Terminology Every year" because the head of so and so department in your company had to meet his or her KRAs and developed a new term to be promoted for the next year then trust me your company is headed “no where”. And I am not kidding you here, it’s a simple test: just search for some articles online for the past 4 years and you would see the industry big weights all going for the same “New Word”, whether its services companies like HCL, Wipro, Infosys, TCS, Satyam, Accenture or product companies like IBM, HP, Cisco, Microsoft.

So, every year you see a new term like: Business Excellence, Execution Excellence, Business Transformation, Customer Orientation, Agile Business, Customer Centric, Scalable and Uptime so on and so forth. Trust me your organization is suffering from the favorite term taught in B-Schools: “Cognitive Inertia”. Anyways am not going to get into the details of the same, this is better left untold. (Consultants might give a smirk at it :) )

So obviously, you see, your company was growing at X%age, given the economic conditions and the certain investments in projected and confirmed in certain areas, you expanded your business and investment portfolios, what’s the big deal? You would have anyways reached that %age increase in business. DO NOT, for reality’s sake, attribute it to the management decision making or vision or marketing or whatever. If there was a term called “luck” put into the dictionary, someone rightly thought about the word or may be he also got lucky!

Anyways, coming back to the topic, in Today’s world the customer is intelligent enough to judge you and your organization in minutes. So do not try to Fake. Sooner or later it’s going to hit back on you. Do not try to be something or someone that your company is not.

So how to you market your IT product or Service in today’s Web 2.0 world? IT Service or product marketing Strategies:-

-Focus on existing customer’s satisfaction
-Re-visit your customer’s list and see your CSAT ratings (are you serious, do they mean anything?)
-Actually if you are, really serious about more business, refocus on existing customers, and provide them with that extra hand that you have been shirking away because you want that hand for new business.
-Most businesses grow based on the previous successes.
-Did you know WOMM (word of mouth marketing) is much stronger than a $10000 TV commercial?

-Let someone speak for you.
-Get satisfied customers to talk instead of parroting that you are best.
-If you are, someone will say that and if no one is ready to say that, then re-consider your stance.
-Let someone appreciate your work.
-Do not show the best quality , best practices and other related “Brags”
-If your work is good someone will tell you that.

-Encourage your customers to interact amongst themselves.
-Do not shy away in providing common interaction platforms to your customers.
-Let them communicate amongst themselves.
-You might see some feedback construing out of it.
-Or you might just see the best practices getting shared.

-Open your ears, nose, throats all possible holes to get feedback! They are doing a favor to you!
-Well you are helping yourself if you let the customers speak.
-Keep all possible channels of communication open for customers.
-DO NOT EVER IGNORE customer’s feedback.
-It’s one favor which will not get repeated if ignored.
-Do not miss a chance to appreciate the feedback and re-assure the customers.
-Thank the customer, appreciate and do whatever to make your customers happy about the feedback that they gave.
-Re-assure that you will take an action.
-Inform about the same.
-Respond with possible solutions.

If I was a sales guy reading this, I might just laugh on this entry. However, I myself being from sales background and having worked in multiple geographies in the world, the WOMM tactics work everywhere. Companies like Wipro, IBM, Accenture and Infosys have lost clients just because someone wanted to focus on the quarterly targets.

Customer centric approach just works brilliantly. In this Web 2.0 world, here are some Services and Products marketing strategies or IT 2.0 for Enterprise 2.0: -

Web, Email, Databse, Virtual Commnities
-Just provide a simple online interaction community to your existing customers. Let them self populate the content with best practices.
-See if you can include a blog in the online community, some regularly updated whitepapers, case studies, research reports, surveys etc. Or may be some expert articles or interviews etc.
-Run small contests, give out some creative branded merchandise, any football or cricket match LIVE tickets would be exciting!
-Learn about the customer’s online behavior by web analytics. See what the interest areas are and generate relevant content.
-Optimize your websites (it’s the first and most important impression). SEO and SEM for your website should work.
-Participate in online discussions. Stop being a mute spectator…Speak Up!
-Run a newsletter with content rich of information for the target audience based on their online behavior. Create optimized landing pages to compliment the content.
-Email marketing campaigns provide he highest ROI. Look forward to creating such mediums.
-Above all these things need databases and CRM systems to integrate and provide actual ROI. -So stop being that cheap old family business miser. Hire the right people and get your IT 2.0 marketing department up and running.

Online and Offline PR
Gone are the days when you could run a press release once in a quarter and be happy about your media coverage. Today it’s about Online PR presence.
How many times do you go looking for that 1 year old newspaper where you might have read about that company and blah…well in most probable circumstances, might just google that so an so company. Alas, your PR manager has been in company for 8 years and she didn’t study Online PR so unfortunately you do not have any online media presence. Well this is a WAKE up call.

Look into your annual marketing plan for god’s sake and see what your team is upto? Take some interest and start becoming active online and promote this in your entire company (or at least your department).

Strategic PR and Events is something you should look at very keenly. Do not blindly keep participating in random tradeshows and seminars. Look at the details on who, what and why and how much and what better can be done.

Ad-Agencies-Give a re-look
Your Ad-Agency will definitely promote Direct Mailers with the utmost creativity. Shut them up and think how many times in a day do you open your email and how many times do you read creative letters that come to you? You are not running your business to pay the creative guy’s salary working in that jazzy AD-agency, you are paying the agency to provide you with the cheapest and best channel to reach the largest audience with highest ROI.

It’s not rocket science, it’s just that the world has changed and the customers are empowered today with multiple sources of knowledge where you can’t fool them. So it’s better to tell the truth and let the customers be the final decision makers. Enable them with the right to information through various channels and hear from them. This conversational communication can do wonders for your business transformation in the web 2.0 world and this is what can be called as the IT Services and Products marketing 2.0.

The TITANs come together (A little late) – AMEX, Kingfisher, Airtel

The TITANs come together (A little late) – AMEX, Kingfisher, Airtel

So what’s this thing about owning an American Express card? Whenever you flash your AMEX card, there are few heads which surely turn. I was one of the people who used to frantically gaze at the AMEX cards being swiped and I wonder why only the crème-de-la-crème have these cards, just to later realize that AMEX charges you annual fee (INR 5K) for owning a AMEX card when everyone else gives it to you free.

Why am I writing about Credit cards anyway when we get so many annoying calls for the same during the week? So the reason is because I recently got an AMEX card. Now why would I want to do that? Well, its not very difficult to explain. AMEX has maintained its class by not going the “Free, Free” way. They have a class and they stick to it. You are a privileged person if you possess an AMEX card. (or this is what they make you believe). And it ties with your lifestyle. Oh by the way we Indians want things free, so we would not take a credit card until you give us something. So Kingfisher and Airtel joined the bandwagon. On getting this AMEX-Kingfisher First Card you get 1 Kingfisher return ticket in any Indian sector free (off course you have to pay the taxes to govt), and you get the convenience of paying your Airtel bills automatically from this special card. Also, you get a free upgrade voucher for Kingfisher First flight. (Though this is not the first tie-up Kingfisher has tied up with other credit cards too {I think ICICI} for similar offerings.)

So, let me get the Maths correctly: If I buy a kingfisher return ticket, I generally pay INR 8K. 4K Tax + 4K fare. Now AMEX is saying we waive the fare for you; you only pay the Tax, and we give you upgrade vouchers to travel in Kingfisher First. Effectively if you like to travel by Kingfisher and you get this ticket without fare with an upgrade too, you are able to reimburse your 5K annual charge. Well seems like this deal was pushed more from Mallya's team than AMEX. But sounds a win-win situation both for AMEX and Kingfisher. (What’s Bharti Airtel riding on? – I guess their bill payment will get regularized, though, the target audience would anyway be paying on time. And the perfect target audience for their MobileVAS services promotion)

I would want to personally congratulate the AMEX marketing team (though they are late in doing this) for the well thought out and brilliantly executed marketing strategy. This marketing strategy can only be a brainchild of a veteran. Though I would want to find out who devised it, but having said that, let me explain what could have gone behind it.

There was a time when AMEX was under pressure to expand the credit cards subscriber base and simultaneously there was this rat race among all other banks to offer free credit cards. There would have been a meeting where people who thought for years in advance and suggested, that we do not target masses. Our target audience is set of people who are HNIs (high net-worth Individuals). So giving Free…blah blah wouldn’t affect them. What would perhaps affect them would be the premier club that they join and the advantages that they can take.

What they wanted a sales channel which was low cost, a feel of premium brands being associated with, and the feeling amongst customers, that they are joining a premium club with facilities which only a privileged lot gets. And they wanted to still charge people for the credit card.

Strategy Components:

A Paid Credit Card – Amongst dozens of Free credit cards, AMEX positioned itself as the first paid credit card that too in a country like India where people just run to grab anything free. It was able to maintain its premium position and offered its strategic alliances the value for their investments with AMEX.

Sales Channel and Funnel –
->They chose Email Marketing as the channel. Low cost, quick and direct response and effective tracking.
->The email campaigns across India generated leads which were passed on to a 25 odd team in Gurgaon call centre to qualify at level 1 of interest and net worth.
->The qualified leads were passed on to the sales reps / relationship executives on field for final closure.

Brand Association -
->They chose Kingfisher as a brand to get associated with, again a premium brand with high equity.
->And finally they tied up with Airtel (oh by the way, Airtel offered Mobile VAS card free of charge, perfectly thought out target audience).

Service –
->The brand distinction will continue with their high class service.
->They have tie ups with most of the major banks to make online payments for their credit card bills.

Sell More –
->Obviously you won’t stop here; if you take a life time membership for 25K you then get a whole lot of benefits. So let’s say this year you enjoyed the services, you are bound to see more customers lining up though references as well as more renewals. But this is yet to be seen based on how the service promised actually turns out to be in practice.

Probably the next step would be promoting the offerings more over internet, mobile and some more email marketing.

Popularity – How much is enough?

Popularity – How much is enough?

Whenever I think of how technology has impacted life of people I just feel amazed and the way things have changed so much in the past few years. In today’s world we can’t imagine a research done without help of google. We search almost everything sometimes even our own names on google. And wow, google shows you instance of your name or your footprints on web as search results to you. Sometime people debate on privacy and how people are exposed to the world now. I consider it as a free popularity that you get and you can market yourself as a Brand. But How Much Popularity is Enough?

Just look at the hype everyone creates around new launches like Apple did for iPod, like Hillary Clinton or Obama are doing for elections. How Videos these days talk about the real ground situation as well as present to you a very interactive way of communicating.

How blogging and personal blogs have changed the procedure for buying for a lot of people. We look out for users and opinions from other users and mold our decisions based on recommendations. The negative side of over publicity can be something like when a mediocre singer with some good music in songs like Britney spears gets free popularity. How a website selling Steroids which might be good for health in some cases gets spammed because of some spammers who are selling some harmful drugs.

What would any baseball or cricket team player expect as his popularity? 10000 people knowing him in his state or 1 Million people knowing him in the country…but where does he stop his popularity and says yes, know I am popular?

How much is enough when you want to be popular? And how do you manage your popularity? Good, Bad and the Ugly?

What's the Future Series - Web 2.0 Strategies for organizations

Even though I am late in writing this, still I wanted to write about this topic and wanted to share my point of view on how companies can leverage Web 2.0 to their advantage.

Part 1 - History and Definitions

Web 2.0 is an industry term that has received a great deal of attention. There has been a lot of debate around how to define it because it encapsulates a host of new (and some not so new) technologies.

The term was coined by O’Reilly Media to describe second-generation internet-based services. Wikipedia goes on to say that Web 2.0 is about using the web as a “platform” to provide an enhanced user experience via Rich Internet Applications (RIA), and extending the reach of your web content through syndication technologies such as Really Simple Syndication (RSS).

As appealing as these technologies may sound, simply adopting them doesn’t guarantee an improved visitor experience or more effective channels for reaching your customers.

In this entry I will try to capture the methodology on how you could use these technology advancements for revenue generation in your company. In my understanding:-

Definition Web 2.0:
“Web 2.0 is the advancement in Internet technology. It's like a group of financially viable, socially active, and technologically collaborative changes in behavior, attitudes, tools and applications that are allowing the Web to become the next platform for communication, collaboration, community, and cumulative learning. And off-course drive sales and generating revenues”

The following themes appear commonly in the various definitions of Web 2.0:

- Collaboration: the first theme is about people working together, collaborating, to create software, content, communities, art, music, literature, and a multitude of other things. Web 2.0 tools and applications support this type of interaction at their core.

- Conversation: There is a conversation happening and it’s not just happening in your corporate website forum. It is happening on blogs. It is a public conversation about politics, business, social issues, and anything else you can imagine, including your company.

- Community: We have had online communities now for at least fifteen years or more. But the tools for building online communities are now becoming more widespread and communities are forming around every imaginable (and unimaginable) subject, product, and industry. If you are looking for your “tribe”, they are probably out there somewhere.

- Connection: we are building messaging systems that now connect people to people, people to machines, and machines to machines. The names of these systems are not important but their function is.

- Content Creation: It turns out that if you give people the tools to create “stuff”, they do just that. In fact, they create so much stuff that it quite frankly upsets our assumptions about who in our society are the creators and who are the consumers.

- Cumulative Learning: think of cumulative learning as peer reviewed journals for every person on the planet with internet access. People can now build on the knowledge of others (through the miracles of search and wikis) faster than at any time in history.

- Collective Intelligence: In certain conditions, it turns out that groups of people are smarter than individuals. This is counter-intuitive and odd but apparently true.

- Change of scale: Web 2.0 companies can scale up fast. Because of the spread of broadband internet and the sheer number of people on the internet, we are seeing key measures (number of users, time to market, time to exit) that are quite extraordinary.

- Core values: Openness, transparency, and a respect for users are three core values that seem to permeate Web 2.0 definitions and discussions.

- Cheap and Fast: A key quality of Web 2.0 is that developers and entrepreneurs can build, deploy and profit from applications for less money and in less time than ever before.

Is it REA L or is it all just HYPE?

Let’s take a quick tour of the landscape to see what has been happening in the past few years and then you can decide for yourself if this set ofchanges warrants the attention that it’s getting.
We now have more than a BILLION people on the Internet, a few hundred million of whom are online at any given moment.

-->Bloggers are now doing fact-checks on the media…and winning. Some bloggers now have MORE TRAFFIC and HIGHER SEARCH ENGINE RATINGS than media companies that have been around for years.

-->People said they would never buy a car over the Internet. In 2005, eBay sold $11 billion worth of automobiles.

-->Wikipedia, a web-based encyclopedia, became the world’s largest reference work in four years, surpassing the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica.

-->A startup in Europe built a little application called Skype, which lets people call each other across the Internet for free. 27 months later, eBay snapped up this company for $4.1 billion. The application is now disrupting the 100 year old telecom industry.

-->A Vancouver-based gaming company invented a neat little photo-sharing program and sold the company to Yahoo less than two years later for approximately $35 million. They had about 10 people on that team. Flickr currently hosts over 70 million photos and has over 2.5 million users.

-->In October 2005, Microsoft issued a company-wide email telling the troops to embrace “the services wave” [Web 2.0]. Then, in May 2006, CEO Steve Ballmer stated that Microsoft is focusing over $6 billion of R&D towards ‘software as a service’ in 2006. Software as a service is one of the patterns of Web 2.0.

-->A small team of programmers started a website in 2003 that would help them build their social network. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. bought MySpace in August 2005 for $580 million, less than 2½ years after it was formed. He bought it because social websites like this are massive revenue generation engines.

-->Half a million people MAKE A LIVING on eBay.

-->Nineteen people run a small site called Craigslist which is now the seventh largest website in the world. This little operation is DECIMATING the North American classified advertising industry which can’t compete against FREE listings.

-->Content is exploding. Technorati, a service that tracks the number of blogs on the internet, listed effectively zero in March 2003 and reached 20 million blogs in October 2005. This means that the number of blogs doubled every five months for 36 months in a row.k Between October 2005 and the time this Manifesto was July 2006 when this Manifesto went to ‘print’, that number went from 20 million blogs to 49.8 million blogs.

I will be covering the details on how to leverage this for your organization in the next entry...