Monday, March 23, 2009

Tablet PC- Difficulty in crossing the Chasm

Just last week I came across a person who happened to be carrying a Tablet PC... It brought back memories from 2003, when I was with Digit magazine, that the hype of a Tablet PC had just started. every media covered the product as if there was no end to it and the product was probably the best thing that happened to computing after Apple gave the world the MAC or IBM, the PC... and then suddenly it was totally out of the picture with the product not being seen at all or practically no manufacturer today producing it... some blamed it on the high cost, some blamed it on applications not being up to the mark...

The case however reminded me of the book "Crossing the chasm" by Geoffrey Moore, who beautifully put across how technology products need to be marketed in a different way to ensure that the product goes beyond the early adopters and gets accepted in the early majority...

Like most technology adoption life cycle, the early adopters do lap up a product that has been just introduced in the market. but unlike the others, there is a large gap between the EA and the EM that needs to be fathomed with great effort. the early indication shown by the EA only indicates that the product has a potential, but the true test lies in the ease in which the product cane be easily accepted by the EM and hence make it a success... the problem would probably lie at Microsoft's end to not promote the product enough to find its acceptance with the Majority...

Batman - Dark Night - the sure way to fire


I was watching Batman - Dark Night.... The opening scene is interesting where Joker takes his bunch of goons to rob the mob bank and in a well co-ordinated effort, every time the previous person completes his task, the next person in his link has to eliminate him and then start his work... at the end only Joker survives... I recently saw a similar strategy where a company wants to consolidate its operations and reduce their number of regions by half while also reducing the number of people by half too... it first starts with the inital regions to fire a few and relocate a few guys, while the person identified for the new region eliminates people from the consolidated region and fires a few more after consolidation... finally the HO fires whatever remaining target needs to be acheived, in a true Joker style execution...

Hats off to a picture perfect execution...

Monday, March 16, 2009

Unethical advertising methods...



Here is an advertising campaign from an casino firm - Indiana Casino that featured an Obama sound-alike voice over to promote their services... the ad was taken off air on the insistence of white house officials....

Recycling to make larger profits

Chilean, Modulab Studio uses PVC from old advertising banners to design and create unique messenger bags from entirely recycled materials. Based loosely on the same core concept as Freitag's bags (which make use of dump truck vinyl tarps), the Modulab's are unique, recuperating a great deal of the plastic used in outdoor advertising in their manufacture.
Designer Pamela Castro, responsible for the firm, says "at Chile it's kind of complicated to work with recycling, as consumers reduce value to the design work and think that a product built with re-utilized materials should have minimum prices", that's why these kind of work in judgmental places is so valuable. The studio also works with accessories from hardware elements, such as nuts and washers.

As for Freitag bags as mentioned above...

Swissies Markus, Daniel Freitag designed these in '93. Trucks in Europe don't have solid walls. Instead they stretch tarps across the openings. These bags are made from those tarps after they are no longer useful. Also made with recycled bike tubes (for the piping) and recycled seatbelts. Every bag is unique. Very durable, easily repairable. Waterproof. Some are expandable. You can even build your own bag online! You choose what your bag will look like by placing a pattern over a unique tarp (virtually). Their facility in Tunisia employs handicapped people.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

The Genius is temporary and circumstantial

A month back I had written about an article about how Genius is within you and at an opportune time, the genius comes out and startles everybody with its brilliance.... To add to that thought process, I further think that that phase is also temporary and circumstantial... and for you to bring in the genius in you a large factor is the environment in which you thrive... Your colleagues, subordinates, your bosses and most importantly environment and infrastructure that supports you the play a large role in bringing a genius in you....
Some clear examples of this theory I would say are doyens of yesteryear's who are now struggling to make their presence felt... What Samir Nair was for Star is not as effective for Imagine, Peter Mukherjee is a similar case in INX, Jagdeep kapoor's brilliance in Parle does not seem to have been reflected after that yet being called a brand guru... I would also say that brilliance in performance should not be confused with brilliance in innovation... a genius thinks innovatively and out of the box, resultly disproportionate growth... there are people who are brilliant never-the-less, and have been consistent in their performance to deliver goods of what they are expected of...

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Absolute and relative standards

A regular debate that I have had with a few people in the recent past is... one must be honest always and should refrain from any acts that will encourage people to grow more evil. Because if you let evil grow once, it will always grow into a much bigger demon, if not curtailed early.

Two situations:
1) You are caught by a cop for jumping the signal (intentionally or unintentionally).... the cop demands a bribe instead of paying the fine. You accept to pay the fine but not the bribe. He confiscates the license tells you to come to his the police station the next day and collect the license along with the receipt. (He has not carried his receipt book)... well he too is at fault for not being fully equipped while on duty... but you have to actually go the the PS twice before he hands back the license and the receipt for the money you paid...

2) You have pitched for a contract in a company tender. You have the option of either doing your best, with your best quote or actually trying to find out how you stand vis-a-vis other quotes and ensure you get the contract... you choose the former option, now you are waiting for the results...

In both the case the arguments are that we should be truthful at all points stands, and most people in normal circumstances would agree that they would stick to the honest option...

Now take the same situation in which you have to rush a person to the hospital in your car and you have break the signal, will the above logic hold true... or if your winning the contract would decide the fate of the company and the 100 employees who are about to loose their jobs if we don't get the contract...

I know who friend who believes firmly in the same... incidentally he is also the person who claims his entire phone bill from the company, while the company policy clearly states that personal calls need to be removed from the bill before claiming the bill. His logic is that I was promised to be paid the entire bill... but later when the company realized that a lot more people are claiming bills over and above what they should have, they set limits to which a person could claim, based on his seniority.

I believe that there are no absolute standards that can be set. While some people believe that to be true, like the entire universe, everything is relative and one needs to take a decision from the point of vies of where he stands...

In the process each person will have to base his decision on the threshold that he sets for himself...

Media versus environment

I had a recent debate with a friend (a very dear friend I must say) on how Television is going beyond its current moral responsibilities and corrupting our young generation's mind.... My friend vehemently believed that television should be curtailed for children and should be stopped from viewing it. He believed that children are at a stage when they accept ideas, whether good or bad, more easily than grown ups... I totally agreed with him on that...
But my perspective to the issue was totally different...
1) I believed, television created content that always reflected what their viewers need. Anything that falls short of expectations, is a business failure...
2) Also the content is a function of society belief, where the broadcaster creates content that is pushing the acceptance level of content in terms of vulgarity and nudity to the maximum permissible limit than what exists in the average household, the censor board too do their own due diligence.
3) I believe that today there are a lot more mediums that can influence anybody, even children.. So how can we single out one medium and say that it is responsible for the corruption... even if we manage to muffle one medium's voice other mediums will spurt out to meet the demand...
4) Today Friends, peers and family are the most influential part of your lifestyle and behavior. what is accepted in the society is more a reflection of what is happening in front of you, rather than what is happening on silver screen or any other medium... If certain bad words are permitted in one friend circle, it is not permitted in another...

I would rest my case in you taking anus of your child and ensure you inculcate right cultural and behavioral standards... let the child understand these finer points of life and take his own decision to create his own standards... he will have the power to choose his friends who he can handle through his life, his education, his deeds and mis-deeds... and if we have done that we have given our child teh best education...

Saturday, March 7, 2009

The Art of Managing Incompetencies

Let me tell you a story of a company I once knew...

The company had a business head who was very ambitious and was able to influence his team that managed to get get results he desired. On one of the new projects that he planned, he had an ambitious target of 100 and for that he hired a sales head who he thought fits the bill... but unlike most sales guys this person was a very pessimistic sales guy and did not believe in the figure, but yet he decided to move ahead because he did not have a strong enough reason to to know how not to achieve it... So they both put up a huge system to achieve that huge target of 100. But eventually before the project got launched, the Business head resigned and a new business head came in...

The new business head was a very aggressive sales person and took it upon himself to achieve the challenge of achieving the high targets... he made every effort and pushed the sales head to make it happen... the Sale head who did not believe in the figure on the other hand did not believe in the figure anyways... and had to go through a tough time to the extent that he was almost about to quit... when his stars smiled one day and the new Business head also quit.... he got a new lease of life...

The next business head was a conservative... he believed he would achieve lower targets and then the sales head already believed in the same, and yes what happened next was very expected... Since the new targets were much lower, they had to make the system much leaner, All existing people who were hired had to be reduced by half as the target too was reduced by half... A lot of people lost their job and who had the last laugh was the pessimist sales head... But the people who last their jobs were not the non performers but the people who were in good books of the sales head.

That year the company did not achieve its target again and so it happened the next year too. The Sales head was finally asked to quit because of non performance. It took the company an entire 4 years to realize who was the non performer.

The following year a new Sales head and a new business head joined the company, and they decided to take the stiff target of 100... and for that you know what they needed a much larger system and lots of people...

Steps to make additional money in a corporate environment - Lesson No 1

If you are a part of senior management in your company, always fix meeting outside your company premises, involve an unsuspecting subordinate who has a car and ask him to join the meeting... then ask him to take his car as you have to give your car out for servicing or take care of your wife. You very well know he can not make any claims for the taxi or fuel as he is not eligible for it... Please make sure you do not pay for any expenses and ensure the subordinate takes care of all expenses. Once the meeting is done come back to office and claim the money as if you have done the whole meeting all alone... do not give any credit to the subordinate...

This is standard operating procedure. please do not involve your conscience at any point of time in these steps. It will be detrimental for your own savings...

Friday, March 6, 2009

Layoffs

Today I learnt that tomorrow there are going to be layoffs... the regions are going to be reduced to 6 regions and proportionately teams are going to be resized to much smaller teams... this is third company that i have been will go through the bloodbath... About a year back the company had some people promising them great future, bright salaries and a good job roles... while the latter 2 points are debatable... the first point is what the company would move away from...
There were rumors that there would be no layoffs... some realignment though, but no layoffs... but tomorrow all those would change... probably the company needs to realign its ambitious targets set a year back to a more realistic one now... but that would also mean more realistic costs and therefore more layoffs...
One thing I have realized, when the heads roll it is always from the bottom... but one more thing that comes out is layoffs don't happen on the basis of performance, rather it happens on the basis of LIFO and perception....
The sales head would have probably thought of getting more marketing dollars over more more FOS to increase sales... The HR head would have now revised his recruitment target to a comfortable one and think more in lines of his personal goals than the corporate ones.
But unfortunately the people who loose there jobs don't have those choices to reduce their EMIs or push back the child that was just born or break the marriage that has just happened... they would probably push back the dream they once had while joining the company of having a secure future or a dream home or a spouse....

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Corporate environment keeps you young

Recently a lady joined my team. Being from a similar industry I had to do some first hand research about her credentials... I was happy with what I heard... with about 12-13 years of experience she was a very objective, level-headed and result oriented person...
The first few weeks were good... I was looking forward to the interaction and it turned out well, until some of her subordinates started feeling insecure about us developing a healthy rapo... my rapo with her predecessor was not so great... I could clearly feel a sense of insecurity within him...
The next two weeks, I started seeing a complete turnaround in the way we interacted... I could sense something amiss... the Hi's started disappearing... and the uncalled aggression started emerging, the one that is so important to protect your domain....
Some times I wonder is corporate life good... I think it very much is... here is a person who sounds so mature in her approach in her previous agency, now turns the other way, based on a subordinate's view who have just started experiencing the true nature of corporate life... in a way corporate life is good, it keeps you young,... in other words, it does not allow you to grow...

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

The corporate chess game

I have often equated corporate environment to chess... the reason is simple... like in chess a corporate always has a mix of Rook, Bishop, Knight, and various Pawns... but yes there are very few or only one King or Queen... Imagine the situation if the company has many kings, Many queens, and a mix of Rook, Bishop, Knight, and various Pawns.... I think I have identified one such company that matches to this scenario...
Well... this company has an emperor and a Shahensha and quite a few Kings, and queens... and since there is now place for an emperor and shahensha on the chess board, they actually stay out and ,ale things happen... the power points (the kings and the queens) in the company strive for more goody points from the emperor and the shahensha and in the process distribute powers to various Rook, Bishop and Knights apart from there existing powers... the result, they start acting like the queen and can actually move all over the place claiming they know the king and in the process the emperor....
The Kings process also has a few drawbacks... it unknowingly demotes some of the Rook, Bishop, Knight into a pawn position, particularly the ones who have just joined the game... this discourages them and actually creates a lot of instability in the system, causing distrust and lack of synergies within the corporate machinery...
While the emperor still feels the machinery is working fine, the bottom line is the company could have worked in a much better way, if the roles had been crisply defined and accountability be firmly demarcated...

Hey guys I met Hem and Haw

Remember the book "Who moved my cheese" and the two characters "Hem" and "Haw".... I think I know them... I see them in office everyday. Everyday Haw comes to office and always feels good for he is controlling so much of marcom budgets (he actually enters the purchase requisitions into the system) and then there is Hem who believes that he controls the entire coverage that happens for the company (He coordinates for news stories and gives it to the PR agency)... Every day they come along and tell people stories about how they moved one file from point A and point B and how they did not let it happen, once in a while... The Irony of them been there is, they have to work together, but they don't trust each other... T are They are worried that the other person will take their cheese away... so every day they come together each morning , they follow each other in each others meeting and at the end of the day they meet their boss to tell tall stories on how they protected their cheese and made attempts to grow it....

I think every company has their own hems and haws and these are the characters who actually are not needed but have to be a part of the furniture of that company... they survive on other person's glory and yet feel important to have done that.... what they don't realize is that they are eating into their cheese everyday without realizing it and one day when the cheese gets stale or over, they will start blaming other people on how the cheese got depleted, because of others mistakes....

long live the king!!!!

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Pennywise Pound Foolish

It sometimes amazes you how a corporate team works and are they trying to please people internally or do their job... I recently came across an incident where a media campaign had to burst in print along with some support on radio... the budget was limited... the choice was either to choose highly effective but costly medium hence lowering you number of inserts in print as well as radio or to put in lesser effective mediums and get more inserts thereby proving to management that you have bargained for a better deal... as expected the team chose the later option... and as expected the result of the campaign was horrible, did not increase the sales by a single point... later in the day I heard the team crib about how well the plan was made but the market is so bad that there is no demand for this product....

Sad I must say.....

It pays to be a woman in the corporate world

Was reading an article on how women need to be treated equal as men... about women not been treated well and exploited in an corporate environment and what amounts to sexual harassment and what does not.... I looked into my past 15 years and some other 15 other friends equally large experience to see how were women exploited...
I had an opposing view to the debate that is currently going on....
I would say keeping war of the sexes aside, what counts is how street smart and opportunistic the person is... men have been traditionally in the forefront earlier, but women are not far behind in this game... certain business such as media, PR, advertising have been know to favour having women sales and servicing people... the reason is simple, men find it difficult to say NO to women then men... having been in media for about 9 years, have seen these cases quite often... women executives have been more effective than men...

On the corporate side too I see a massive difference in the way women who have the above traits have fared much better than their male counterparts... But yes this is true till the extent that the boss is a male....

I rest the case with this...