Information vs. Inspiration

I was at the adtech New Delhi conference couple of days back. An impressive constellation of speakers. Much to learn and network!

However, one familiar drone/ murmur amongst the audience was "not enough insights man!", the information shared is available in public domain - "not enough new information/data dude"!

I have a slightly different take on this. I believe the marketing fraternity in India is at par in terms of information access and knowledge accumulation. As a nation/ marketing fraternity we have a huge appetite for data. But once we get that data, our record in acting on that data is not quite impressive.

What we most need NOW is :

(a)To act on that information to create new products & services, to create a meaningful engagement with people, to create better service experience and so on...
(b) And not just wait endlessly for a constant stream of new insights but start using the ones that we already have!!

(c) Not be paralysed by analysis but take action steps & be prepared to take some risk
(d) We need to 'get inspired' by ideas, case studies, cross -category happenings. And we have enough of those on our collective hard disks!

(e) The TRUTH and many of the answers are out there. We just need 'big ears' and an honest intent on doing something about it.
(f) Nothing much will ever be gained if social media/ digital marketing isn't imbibed into the DNA of our company.

This small video of Ford Motor company is a great short inspirational clip of how even lagging Detroit used SM/ digital marketing to it's advantage. From a loss-making icon Ford really turned itself around. But for that it took some inspired steps - from the CEO to the shop floor engineer to the fans and the blogger community!

Digital Ecosystem for your Brand? Now what's that!!!

Just came back from a 3 hour breakfast at Roots Cafe - great poha, chilla jasmine tea and early morning drizzle...And the sight of two cute kids wallowing in the small rain water puddle...Wish I was 4 again:-)

Penning down few thots in the head on digital eco-system...While consulting clients through my Social Media consultancy - Once Upon A Time, I very often try to explain the need for a digital/online/social media eco-system...

Of course they don't always understand the need for it, grown up as they are on a 'one-size-fits-all' mass media diet.

Here are few of the guidelines - some learnt by personal experience curating the content for Cinnamon Stays, my UnHotel brand and some from Guy Kawasaki's book Enchantment...

1. Is your brand/platform/POV worthy of an eco-system? Is your product, service, ideology boring/ bland - then try to fix it first!You cannot build an enduring community/ eco-system around stuff that people hardly care.

You can buy lots of online, SM ads and people may even like those so that you have a tidy fan base but that's all a mirage.

In the new world, spend the most time on having a worthy cause. Anna Hazare has one. He doesn't really need a SM plan, calendar!!

2. Create Meaning. Give consumers, readers something meaningful to do.

What does that mean - Take the very popular Vodafone ZooZoo campaign. Let's visit it's fb page. While they seem to have done a reasonably good job of a solid fan base and daily interactions! They have just about tapped the tip of the iceberg...

More can be done in terms of getting ideas from consumers who love zoozoos(crowd-sourcing). Ideas to improve customer service for eg.

We are heading towards Social media fatigue and the way to keep your fans and consumers engaged are not cute viral videos and contests only but a more meaningful exchange on a daily basis.

3. Welcome criticism. This one makes most clients go paranoid. How can we allow negative comments? Lets delete the dissatisfied consumers rant. Lets ignore him(he is anyways a statistical rounding off error!!) Or even lets punish him for publicly criticizing my brand!

Recently I spent close to 20 days getting a complaint resolved by a major telecom brand. I used SM to first complain and rant and later protest and berate the brand. Yet the over-all response from the brand was hopelessly unwelcoming!!!

I guess my lifetime worth for that brand is very high. No amount of mass media 'song-and-dance' interruptions will now ever change my stance. They just blew a big chance to engage and enchant a vocal consumer...The life-time damage of an ignored customer is very high in the new connected world.

So while many brands are very busy measuring the total count of positive and negative feedback on online platforms, they mustn't just be complacent by knowing the statistic on a nice power-point slide.

The strategy to deal with online criticism should be exactly the opposite.

Lets engage the dissatisfied lot(of course we can't do much about the non-genuine ones). Let's figure out smart ways to 'welcome criticism'. This requires a culture change at the company, not just sophisticated measurement tools!! That's what brand management 2.0 will largely be about - a culture of welcoming criticism(via Guy Kawasaki). What are you doing about it?

Jugaad Studio - the culture, craft and creativity mash-up!

This project has been very close to my heart for more than 2 years now...After being in 'skunkworks' for a long time, Jugaad Studio - an ideas, design and merchandising company begins life on facebook TODAY 6:00pm.

Jugaad Studio is an ideas, design and merchandising start-up! There are two of us to begin with. My friend Yogi - the artist and designer and myself - the conceptor and curator of ideas - some cute, some quaint, some crazy!

There are so many good design studios around us. We will try to focus on the popular culture space - Bollywood, cricket, music, etc. And serve up delicious dollops of mashed up concepts - on tees, as posters, on mugs and the moon:-)

We will share & sell our ideas and finished products on the fb link above. Stay tuned!

I Want One Million Fans. I Want Them Now!

If you are in new media/digital media/ social media, one of the briefs which you may get from some clients is - I want 1 mn fans! Having a large fan following in itself is not a crime:-) But few crucial questions that tend to be blatantly ignored are...

1. To Follow What. The bigger question to answer before the 1 million number is 'what cause to follow'? Is the product or the over-abused passion points - cricket, Bollywood, music worth following especially on say the facebook page of the brand.

You can use media monies to buy fans. But they won't be worth much if you haven't answered the central question of 'to follow what?' And this requires a deep think and strategic alignment with your long term marketing plans. Else it's a tactical gimmick.

Gloat over the short term gain. But that's where the game will end.

2. A Facebook Fan is Not Really A Fan:-) Facebook is a funny country. It works on lazy likeonomics. To unlike is too much of work. To be a fan is effortless. So fans accumulated like a bargain hunt don't really count for much if they are not truly engaged. It's obvious but often over-looked - when nurturing your fan base, go for quality and not quantity alone!

3. The New Definition of ROI. Just because Social Media has the word 'media' built into it doesn't make it akin to a mass media platform. It's fundamentally different. Because it's 2-way, people-to-people interaction and has a complex web like multi-way talk & feedback system unlike the fixed channels of mass media! The 'investment' must be in 'interactions'. A fundamental difference from our mass media upbringing.

What we should really be obsessed with is the 'level-of-interaction'. Once we have got our brand in the middle of the most interactive conversations, then an ROI on the efforts makes sense. But before that all talk of ROI is a lot less meaningful...

As businessmen, entrepreneurs and brand owners, let's obsess about making our brands social and not just do social.

For questions, queries, business please connect with me on mannsinha@gmail.com
I run a brand 2.0 consultancy called Once Upon A Time and use social media to promote my hospitality brand -Cinnamon Stays with small success! The lessons learnt are personal and over the last 5 years!!

Social Media is a lot like farming. It requires time, patience, perspective, nurturing and passion! The cold hunting instincts are less effective here:-)

PS. The picture above is that of the San Francisco Scooter Girls - a girl riding community. It was founded on the belief that women have their own place in riding culture that's very different from the traditional biker scene.

The SF Scooter Girls website features photos of each member showing off her highly personalized ride. Disco bikes. Flower-covered bikes.

And although these women can choose to ride any manufacturer's scooter, their passion for Vespa, even though they have no affiliation with the company, creates a strong brand statement on its own. Scooty - few learnings from here?!

Join In the Biggest Social Campaign of Our Time!

Some facebook updates from friends, few tweets and I am getting absorbed into what could potentially be the biggest social campaigns of our time!

This isn't a social (media) based campaign but facebook, twitter, youtube are for sure putting this anti-corruption campaign on steroids. This is also a taste of the shape of disruptive change to come - a converging of social media, mass media(parts of it) and grassroots movement - the likes of which we witnessed recently from Egypt to Libya!

And why brands can rarely hope to achieve this kind of response is that it's really difficult to have a real, convincing unadulterated cause at the centre of a brand campaign - one that resonates. That people strongly feel about. That people can empathise with. Not the year end 'care for blind people', 'save the tiger' scam ads!

Hope many more marketing guys realise that social media works more for 'social reasons' and not solely as the media platform that they would like it to work as!

I also hope some of the biggest creative names in the country would lend their talent and support to this 'social campaign' and join in! It would be a pity if they waste all their immense talent on brrr, the beach in Goa and beer:-)

The Art of the Start

That's the name of the Guy Kawasaki Book. Love the name - Art of the Start. Wish I would have thought of it first:-)

Anyways, what I want to share today are some simple lessons that I learnt running my(our - with my wife) start-up - Cinnamon Stays! Originally written as an fb comment almost a year back.

So here are some tips that you may find useful....

5+1 lessons that I would like to share (commonsense in hind-sight)

1. There is no right time to start a business. One can never be too early. In my case it wasn't too late either. The important thing is to take the plunge...That's half the work done.(Honestly)

2. Our degrees and fancy designations and the corporate egos we accumulate over the years are the biggest deterrents.

Think like the neighbourhood grocery store guy. Do not analyse too much! You can't get all the answers by analysis alone....

3. The brand can wait. It's maybe strange coming from someone having spent 15 years in agencies, around brands. What I re-learnt in past 4 months...
The brand is the clean loo...
The brand is the on-time pick-up...
The brand is the putting a 80 kilo 'barf ki silli' in the tank to jugaad fix the boiling hot water tank:-)
The brand is conversing with the guests and lending them the book you just finished reading. Your brand actually is quite different from what you read in a book...

The logo and the stationery can wait....

4. Belief is important. Belief that you will succeed no matter what - even when friends snigger behind your back, when family questions your intelligence, when you are down on the last reserves of some hard earned money

5. Ask for help. For contacts. For leads . For networking. There are cynics out there and then there are successful people who want you to succeed.

5+1. Social Media is not a fad. It works! It has worked for me!! We have spent negligible money on mass media(didn't have much anyways:-) But managing social media is an art more than science especially for start-ups. You can only learn by taking the plunge in SM....

Facebook, twitter, stumbleupon, LinkedIn, flickr, Trip Advisor have all contributed to building Cinnamon as a fledgling hospitality brand.

Today Cinnamon is rated No. 1 on Trip Advisor. We get business through Facebook, twitter and Trip Advisor...Did I have all the answers for Social Media marketing when I started? Certainly not! But I have learnt vital lessons along the way!

So for any entrepreneur, wanna-be-entrepreneur, individual, small brand owner I offer the Cinnamon lounge as a meeting place...930 to 530 weekdays and extended hours weekends:-)Happy to help with my SM expertise!

I can help jump-start your social media strategy through my second start-up - Once Upon a Time - a story telling and brand 2.0 consultancy. Happy to share - the art of the start!

Welcome Oberoi Gurgaon!

Was chatting with my friend Girish from Webitude. The Oberoi Gurgaon fb page came up in the chat for some reason which I forget. Triggered off some thoughts...

While the Oberoi page is far better than many branded fb pages, 5 suggestions which I feel can make their fb storyline better.

1. There is little 'Oberoi' story on the page. Facebook is most effective when the conversation thread is like an episodic, gradually unfolding brand story. The page currently has a stream of PR statements:-)

2. I find the grandeur and warmth of the 'Oberoi' brand missing! Period.
Part design of the page, part the selection of the picture/(s). Would the brand have been this callous if they were designing an expensive brochure which few read these days!

3. Related point, I find no 'Oberoi' personality on the fb page. It's important for any brand. Critical if you happen to be a hospitality brand.

4. You now have a participative community not an audience. Treat them with respect. And that means making an effort to answer each and every query like a friend. Fans on fb are not mere numbers to be hoarded in your bank account:-)

5. Go local. Where's Gurgaon on your page? The best social media engagements are those that are personal, micro, local. It's simple but a point that many brands miss...

Nevertheless, am a great fan of the 'Oberoi' brand. Welcome to Gurgaon and I plan to visit threesixtyone - your all day restaurant!!!

Nestea - Embed some 'social' into this campaign!

Like the new Nestea TVC... first squirrels(kitkat), and now Kangaroos(nestea)...what cutesy animal for Maggi now:-)

I guess the missing(till now) link here is the 'conversation between generations' that the campaign can evoke using digital media. With my limited knowledge about the brand, I still feel that real long-term success for Nestea will demand a behaviour change from consumers that mass media(read TV) alone can't deliver...

For the marketing team the key question will be - Think how you can embed 'social' into the heart of your new campaign....That will lead to an engaging, episodic storyline for the brand!

Once Upon A Time the World was Different

Once Upon A Time I was just a happy planner doling out power-point slides by the dozen:-)

And then 'one day', actually over many days and a few months, the first idea - Cinnamon Stays(which had nothing to do with ads, or planning) took shape. Read the Cinnamon story here. Our small hospitality brand built through social media is rated No.1 on Trip Advisor now!

Emboldened:-) three weeks back I started my second company - Once Upon A Time - a story telling and brand 2.0 consultancy.

Once Upon A Time is a consultancy built for a branding/ marketing world that is changing faster than we can comprehend or make sense of. A world in which perhaps the old rules of messaging and branding are not working as well as before. A world where we may have new tools and metrics, but lack the required shift in mindset...Check out OUAT on fb!

OUAT will be a journey of shared learning and unlearning. And I plan to help brands(more small than big) discover their stories, their voice, their personality -one post, one conversation, one tweet at a time...

Through OUAT I plan to consult on stuff that I understand - strategy, social media, consumer insights in a digital & networked world and collaborate with individuals and companies on related stuff...

So, today I was happy about Swapan's (Seth) new company -ThisContent- a content and conversation management one. Similar to OUAT, sans (overtly) the story bit. Though I assume the story part would be implicit in it.

Happy that somebody of Swapan's experience launches a content and conversation company. Because many marketing managers/ brand heads still continue to be in these states -

1. What the f*** is social media state
2. Paralysis by ROI state
3. Get-me-fans, track-my-brand-name-mentions state and so on...

The deeper shifts to a conversation, dialogue, trust and recommendation-led consumer world is lost on many...But the future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed:-)

Contact me on mannsinha@gmail.com or call/ sms 9650400466 for (a)social media led projects, (b) social media consultancy assignments, (c)'immersion into social media' workshops, (d) 'branding on facebook' sessions and most importantly (e)a step-wise 'how to make your campaign/marketing/ brand social' guide!

What's Ching's Secret?

There was an ET article on brands doing well in social media. True to mass media understanding of social media, it was a bit sketchy, a bit rudderless & reflected the general lack of understanding of the social landscape.

My friend & fellow digital road warrior - Shubho has done some analysis on his blog here...That in turn inspired me to have a dekko at Ching's Secret, Barista Lavazza and Just Dial Facebook pages...

Here's my analysis and ranking of these 3 brands on a 5 point scale where 5 - excellent and 1 - very poor.

1. Intent
Ching's Secret - The top management buys into social media. Lives and breathes it. The only brand to talk about the ET article on its fb page the same day!!
Rating - 5

Barista Lavazza - Looks like the social strategy is still at the marketing department level. Top management says - Lets see what happens, then we will scale up guys!
Rating - 3

Just Dial Social media for these guys is just another mass media channel. Judging by the quality of the strategy, it's still quite low on intent.High usage of the medium, low social intent of the brand.
Rating - 1

2. Content
Ching's Secret- Recipes is a great long running idea. Cooking is a bestseller conversation topic, immenselty shareable. Doesn't really matter if the recipes appear cut-n-paste. Content repurposing is part of the social media strategy.
Rating - 5

Barista Lavazza- The content is still small print ads dressed up insufficiently as conversation!
Rating - 3

Just Dial- Very boring and repetitive, It's a shame because with a product as engaging and diverse as Just Dial they could have really capitalised on content. Bollywood and sports however keep the people involved on the page...
Rating - 3

3. Engagement & CQ(Conversation Quotient)
Ching's Secret - Pretty high engagement and CQ. Is genuinenly a social brand and not a pretender. Not trying hard at all. The frequency of content upload matches the social vibrancy of both the brand & fb!
Rating - 5

Barista Lavazza - Quite average. Again promos pretending to be brand conversations & driving social currency.
Rating - 2

Just Dial- Below par. The comments by 'fans' are solely for/ because of Bollywood. Zero engagement with the brand Just Dial.
Rating - 1

4. Community
Ching's Secret - Lots of traction and not merely transactional.
Rating - 4

Barista Lavazza - Casual connect.
Rating - 3

Just Dial - Akin to people at a railway platform. High traffic. zero connect.
Rating - 1

5. Voice & Personality
Ching's Secret- Has a unique voice , has a sense of humour. Very human , very Ching , very consistent!
Rating - 5

Barista Lavazza- Quite artificial, very mass media tonality. Quite 1 way...
Rating - 3

Just Dial - The voice & personality of a bulletin board with pictures:-)
Rating - 1

While putting this post up, I commented on the Ching's Secret fb page a little before mid-night and pat came their reply...That's some impressive commitment to social media and consumers as people. These guys truly walk the talk!

Cheers and Happy Diwali

JohnAbraham.com

Just stumbled upon what appears to be the promotional website of the UTV film (Jhootha Hi Sahi)- JohnAbraham.com...

I quite like the simplicity and the peek into a celeb's life content. In one video John talks about his Tulsi chai(he drinks some 40 cups every day!!)

There is a very simple idea of 'pairing with John' where you can upload your picture and be paired with John:-)

I guess where many brands struggle to understand the conversational nature and playful content of social media, this JA site gets it right...Am bookmarking it for reference...

The Sign of Our Times

Source: Blaugh.com
Source : Hubspot.com
Source : weblogcartoons.com

Logan Loves India But Does India Love Logan or the Ad:-)

The new TVCs of Mahindra Logan are so bad that it makes the car look good in contrast! Honestly, for a solid ugly car that was doing good mostly in the taxi circle this new found love for India is laughable...Need Hajmola Sir!!

From Social Media to Social Conciousness

It's a nice long weekend and Neo and I are at Cinnamon. Him drawing on some clay pots! And me trying to unwind and forage for ideas and inspiration.

One of the things that has niggled my mind for some time is how to better use social media for social causes, community service, bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots, create a better work environment, create more meaningful work for everyone, make more meaningful connections and not just the quantity of connections...

So, in the morniing when I stumbled upon this profound and brilliant article by Umair Haque on the HBR site, thought of sharing it...

He talks about the "message" of the Internet's social revolution as being more meaningful work, economics, politics, society, and organization. Social media promises radically more meaning: to make stuff matter, once again, in human terms, not just financial ones.

Yet, Haque points out most "social media" strategies have one or more of three goals: to "push product," "build buzz," or "engage consumers." None of these lives up to the Internet's promise of meaning.

They're just slightly cleverer ways to sell more of the same old junk. But the great challenge of the 21st century is making stuff radically better in the first place — stuff that creates what he calls thicker value.

Umair talks about the 7 social strategies that are turning yesterday's zombieconomy upside down - Character, Creativity, Control, Culture, Clarity, Cohesion, Choreography - They're what he looks for when evaluating investments, innovations, and ideas across the social mediascape.

A must read, immerse and act!

Merchant Clark, Cecil Hotel and a 30 year dream...

It's been a hell of a long time away from the blog. I feel guilty, anxious...and the fingers feel a bit rusty!! So where was I and what kept me so busy for almost 4 months!

Here's the story. A story of a small dream that first took root in the eyes of a 6 year old/ maybe 5. That's me. A dream that sort of has had a gestation period of 30 long years!!

Merchant Clark. When I was of Neo's age(that's about 6 yrs) I had learnt a new word Merchant which I thought was a cool word(cool and merchant sounds weird I know:-) and there was this 5 star hotel in Patna called Maurya Clark. So my little innocent dream was to open a hotel for travellers called Merchant Clark which would be the finest hotel in the country.
I don't think I ever shared this story with anyone. Locked in my head for 3 decades...

And that's where the dream/ desire stayed for the next 30 years. School. College. Engineering. Servicing. Creative Planning. Consultancy. The journey through life. But the dream like the stickiest of post-its never left me. I had ideas but no money. Ideas but no time. Some money but no team. Team but no consensus. And the dream gathered moss...Thick green, slippery moss...

Dare to dream. And then I read this fascinating biography of Rai Bahadur M. S Oberoi by Bachi Karkaria some years back. Of how Sr. Oberoi dared to dream. As the hotel bell-boy had the audacity and ambition to pawn his wife's jewellery to buy the Cecil hotel from the gora owner.

And the dormant thoughts of starting a hotel/ service brand again floated in my mind...I remember finishing the last pages of the book in the wee hours of morning. Warm tears on my cheek. Of life passing by. Feeling inspired. But that was the max that happened again. Work. Life. Sceptics. Naysayers. More work. Energy sappers. More Life. I-know-why-it-won't-work well-wishers...Tum to planner ho. Business-pehle-kiya-hai gyan!!

And then when I shifted to Gurgaon mid last year, between lazy beer sessions and some back of the napkin calculations, the truncated idea of a service apartment/ brand(prequel to the grand hotel) started taking shape...

It took a dedicated/ passionate team of four, four months and a couple of lacs to turn the 30 year old idea into a small reality! Our service villa - it's an apartment in a villa called Cinnamon Corporate Stays(it's got 5 interesting rooms - Green, Grand, Unwind, Doodle and Puraani Jeans and a bit of story everywhere.) Far from perfect but it's happened...

Cinnamon for us/me is a story of belief. Belief that stuff happens when you push it hard enough. Stuff can happen when you really wanna make it happen. That stuff happens not in a grand planned way but in the most random way when you least expect it to happen...

It took me/us a lot of time to convert the idea into reality. To convince a small team to move ahead when budgets and time were huge constraints. It's still some months to break even. But it's there. Our first brand/ service. Not to a client's brief but to ours. And it has been sweat, passionate obsession and bloody tiring. Especially with a full time day job! But immense lot of help, support from my team.

Along the way, I picked up a couple of lessons in brand building. This time around not between the pages of a book, but between visits to Lajpat Nagar and worrying about the leaking tap and the 'garam chai'. But more about that later...

Today I just wanted to share that it's important to hold on to your dreams. However, weird, wild and wishful. And sometimes it may take up to 30 years for a dream to shape up...But don't let any one's laughs or cynicism get you off-track.

If you really want something bad enough, the universe conspires to help you...Paulo Coelho saheb was right in his book Alchemist...At least even if I fail. I will have a story to tell my grandchild around the fireplace...LOL

You could check us out here. But in case you are travelling to Delhi/ Gurgaon and want to stay in a cosy little place mail us at cinnamonstays@gmail.com

We would be happy to host you...Cheers

Hip Hop Grannies and Generational Mash-up

One of the entities under The Futures Company is Yankelovich - a leading consumer research company that has helped marketers understand consumer values and behavior since 1958. It has also done pioneering work in 'generational marketing'!

It's pretty cool that I am now working on projects with the Yankelovich dudes and getting a hang of 'generational marketing'.

Now one of the concepts on which we are currently working has to do with generational mash-ups. The grey zone where generational values, attitudes and behaviours seem to be cohabiting.

The 'Hip Hop Grannies' from China are a good example...

Generational Mash-ups. Maybe marketers for Lifestyle brands, travel, well-being should study this space of 'generational mash-ups' to unlock new spaces!

Cool Grey/ Silver.There also is a market for cool stuff for the elderly. From spectacles and watches, to hi-end fashion, the wallet-rich elderly are good targets not just for expensive but 'expensive and cool' stuff. It's just that we seldom look at them in a mashed up way! My 65 year old father has started wearing 'shorts', is now comfortable wearing the colour 'red'(no longer just greys and khaki for him) and I think sometimes uses the word 'cool' when he speaks to Neo!!

Baba Ramdev & AOLCloser home Baba Ramdev, Shri Shri Ravi Shanker and others are already transforming the lives of the elderly. And while they aren't exactly hip-hopping, there is a sea change in their attitudes and aspirations which mainstream brands may not be tapping into.

The kapal-bhaati and anulom-vilom have energised the minds of the elderly. They might be willing to experiment more than we imagine. Mascots - Zohra Sehgal. Amitabh!

Power of TV. While one of the most powerful media of our times - TV has been chained to saas-bahu and now the reality trash, there could be a welcome space for subjects around generational mash-ups...

Every time somebody or something crosses a neat boundary or silo, interesting/ provocative things happen/ can happen...

Kreatve Inside

At my company, am a part of a 'creative committee'...Currently, we are doing an all office audit of what are some of the creative stuff we have done in the recent past... Since the entire exercise was about being and acting creative...tried making a video out of it. It hasn't come out that well though. Limitations of the video making site!

But found playing with video and images liberating. Thanks animoto.com! It also helps sell the ideas better. Planning to tool around a bit this month. Maybe start with a video for Neo's birthday, a short film(maybe) on a story I wrote a couple of years back, a creds for the Millennials study that I am working on and also some new business video conversation-starters... But first maybe a video post on 'social media fatigue':-)

Anti-boredom Dawai!

Friend of mine sent this...Cute and funny!

Sending it to my mother!!

Finally the Outliers!

Finally I bought my own copy of the Gladwell book - Outliers! I just waited endlessly for the paperback and a discount(both together). Blink had made me cautious! Just managed to read some 3 chapters in a moving car!

As with the Tipping Point,interesting observations replete with loads of stories, often repetitive to perhaps make the book fat enough for 200 pages:-)

I loved the point(in hindsight quite obvious) that he makes about the highly successful guy in any category investing in about 10,000 hours of practice compared to the not-so-successful(but equally talented) guy putting in half the number of hours...

Picked up a few quotes from the net which Gladwell Saheb has made:

1. The closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role preparation seems to play!

2. When I wrote Tipping Point, my expectation was it would be read by my mom and that was it ... I had no notion I was creating a kind of public document. Now I realize I have a bit of a podium, so it seems silly to put the podium to waste.

3. At the end of the day, I'm just a journalist. I spend my time talking to people who tell me things, and then I write them down. I'm necessarily parasitic in a way. I have done well as a parasite. But I'm still a parasite.

4. People are experience rich and theory poor. My role has been to give people ways of organizing experience."

And a lot of the experts are theory rich and experience poor:-)

5. No one who can rise before dawn 360 days a year fails to make his family rich.

Well am 1 month into it(rising around dawn). Feeling rich a little...am I?

6. Hitchcock began making his best movies in his late 50s. Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, and many others did their best work very late in life. Sometimes success isn’t recognized until late in life. That’s not uncommon.

Javed Akhtar, Gulzar Saheb too!!

7. Google is the answer to the problem we didn’t have. It doesn’t tell you what’s interesting or what’s important. There’s still more in the library than there is on Google!!

So true...okay will leave it at that!

Tweet What You Eat and Other Thots

Was having an end of day quick chat an with ex-planner-colleague on twitter. She is a great user of the service, I an on-and-off user/critic/admirer:-)

And then in the morning discovered this small factoid about 'How Twitter may help you shed some extra kilos!'
Slim people worldwide are now posting their healthy food diet on 'Tweet what you eat'! Suddenly some ideas pop up in the mind on how we could use twitter(maybe they already are being used)

A ramble at the end of the day!

1. The Great India Discount Tweet. Tell where the biggest discounts are. With where it's convenient to park:-)

2. The 10pm what-movie-am-I-watching-tweet. One always keeps looking for people to do some post-movie-chat!

3. The weekend 'where-am-I-lunching-today' tweet or what's-great-on-the-menu tweet

4. The know-your-gadget-better tweet for the tech-challenged. Learning about the new gizmo one tweet at a time!

The trick I guess is to be more useful in a less and less obtrusive way