The Market Play

Few days back I was reading Mr. N. R. Narayana Murthy, it is really amazing to read his writings. Though every word of his writings give you a kind of dimension about his life, his work, his ethics but I was more curious to know about the pre economic reforms and post economic reforms journey of an Indian entrepreneur.

It was truly thrilling to know when a man had to apply for an application to import 150MB hard disk and wait for another six months to get application sanctioned. His writing gave me an idea how IT sector went viral after those economic reforms and how ventures got benefited from it like never before.Being an entrepreneur Mr. Murthy's every word was thanking that visionary thinking of India's former Prime Minister Mr. P.V. Narasimha Rao, which changed the structure of the country 360 degrees.

In a huge market like India, things go viral overnight. Sometimes even producer of the product can't believe that the product he made thriving the country. There are lots of instances where we can see how trivial things went viral and sore the sky and swept the market all together.

Those are the days I was even not born when India won its first ever cricket world cup in 1987, till then cricket became the undisputed religion of a secular country and with no doubt cricketers the God. It went viral then and there is no hope it will stop ever (at least in India). Those are the days back in my childhood, I can vaguely remind around 1997s when a weekly soap on television went viral. India's very first super hero Shaktiman. Kind of Superman fictional character, cashing ever high TRP for Indian government TV channel Doordarshan. I remember those days when our lives were completely guided by this character. Market in every sector also enjoyed it's share of pie. It was a time when garment manufactures were highly banking on the costumes of the Indian hero. For every kid the these costumes were the highly aspiring thing of his life and always remained at the top of his wishlist unlike Steve Jobs bitten apple now.

It was the time when a sweet chewing gum Boomer went viral. Many others eloquently followed this trend. This gum hardly had gone that viral after people knowing they were chewing sweet latex and it's harmful for their health if the company had not conceptualized free tattoos and stickers for kids. Those were the days when the meaning of  the word tattoo was that flexible body character, who can save your friends from any misshapen. Kids used to feel proud of having the bright and shining collection of those tattoos. Probably I feel those marbles were almost replaced by these tattoos and bets went more sophisticate. Really kids have been the unbeatable market strategy and panacea.

All these things are relatively viral till time but the only difference is the meanings has changed. Taste has changed so as those fictional characters. Lots of things went crazy in market whether it's small or large in this time period. Last year a real man, a singer, a composer, a so called viral marketing teacher Mr. Dhanush went viral on internet. The list is not exhaustive at all. It's said 'only thing which is constant in life is change', Indian market has been always an eyewitness of this. It was a time when mouse, cat, dogs used to rule the animation world but  now all these are replaced with human caricatures and are equally famous too. I have heard people commenting "why are there two nostrils in one nose ?" but being frugal is not always the right way to do business in India. People here need full value of their money, otherwise they will not embrace you very long.

cheers !

Information and Affection, The Dangerous Duo

The greatest differentiator of humans and our triumph as the alpha species on the planet has been our increasing ability to record and share our collective knowledge and information. We are living in a kind of universe where information is begin to be counted into the list of the fundamental requirements of a human being. Sometimes the situation seems me as we are dipped into a pool of information at our throat. When I saw the daily startups growing in the different corner of the world, I found one thing common to all, that's most of the startups tend to process this information and present as a beautiful gift to their customers rather than a raw. From wikipedia to wikileaks everybody is ready to do the job for you. You just need to know the exact URL and that's it, rest is on them.

I came to know facebook is using users' private information , wikileaks is continuously threatening world and lots more, but what scares me a lot about information is it's non static nature. Information has no boundaries at all so as the form. We sleep in a kind of world and wake up in an another kind of world. You never know how many new apps have been created mean while. For the code you were searching a night before, has been baked till morning. Apple launching a new i-product daily may seem to be cool but it's not that cool, atleast for persons like me who have to think twice to change their two year old cellphone just because the newer version is little slim :-) . Thanks to these information vending machines, who process all the raw material so nicely that we even can't say how far we have traveled in time. Was this the Time-travelling concept ?

Now when I say the rapid changing form of information, I would like to say the rapid change of information riding on the shoulders of those before to reach further. This is still interesting. No doubt generation is thriving information rapidly, but how much information has reinvented their own wheel, that's important and this scares me too because today we are doing better and faster but ultimately where we have reached it's difficult to say. It is said that globalization in India is one of the main reasons why there is irregularities in money distribution to different class of people. Some how I find the same situation with information across the globe and it scares me about the future.

There is an another thing which seems me as a better half of information, that is affection. I realized how even affection can be dangerous to us, while I was watching the movie Kung Fu Panda. Conditions are not much different in our surroundings The affection of parents towards their children, sometimes make them no more than a dump. It's been such a long time experiencing this so called 'affection', specially in India you will never feel recess about this. This really scares me when I relate this to information because information has a pace and affection as a speed breaker, either slow down your car or be ready for accidents. Affection can be related to anyone. The affection of a father towards his daughter, the affection of a girl towards her boyfriend or of boy towards his girlfriend, a nostalgic affection for youth, affection to money and even someone says an intensive affection towards your startup is equally dangerous.

At the end of this post I would like to say Information and Affection, these are the two most dangerous vital things we'll need to survive in future, only a better rhythmic and balanced ride can get us reach to the ultimate destination.

Cheers !!

What do you expect from 3G ?

3G ...
One of the big 'G' in technology world, the upcoming storm with lots of potentialities, expectation, simply a churn out of imagination. 3G is well known from a long time overseas but a new born in India. Number of telecom giants which are struggling from a long time going to carve a niche for themselves in upcoming days. BSNL due to a government telecom company was enjoying the pulp till now but now it's time to prove it among different players in an open playground.

Fortunately Tata Docomo is the first private player going to launch its services very shortly and it'd be a nice experience for me having a most popular technology in my hands. But as I talked about the expectation, these expectations differs person to person. I read many of articles talking about 3G technology and its features but my expectations are bit differ again. May be completely :)

First of all I expect and hope a nice launching of the technology with some really attractive offers and plans and I think it'll be.
Now what these plans and offers can be according to me -
  I don't want to have a yet another Rs. 125 at Rs. 125 plan, why don't we grow ? Why not you say, you purchase our services we'll serve you with our platinum services, again I never mean some sort of monetary help or any fake promise by platinum services. Why don't you promise to share your knowledge bites with willing persons ?

Video conferencing feature of 3G technology is the most attracting feature for telecoms. I say why you Rs. 25, Rs. 50 rebate on specific plans or even a good amount after snatching even a good amount. Why don't you offer them to save money and to meet their loving ones face to face with that money ?
Again for premium customers you have better chance to show your gratitude towards them.

  A fast internet service, instant and reliable connections only at a cost of some silly bucks ? I never admit it.
Why don't you try to collaborate some really worthy minds work for the beneficiary of yours ? Why a geek should be treated as a silly ass ? Why not treat them with their own workspace on internet with the same plan you offer them to put some really silly amount again in their pocket.

Most of the time an ordinary person spends his/her time surfing social networking sites, surfing free images, mostly without any purpose just to kill their time. Why don't you be a purple cow among the cows grazing hay on the ground. Why don't you try to make some really good initiatives in spite of making people blind with silly offers like "buy one get two free".
School children always refuse to use mobile phone specially internet enabled or if they are allowed, only with a great care of porn free surfing. Why don't you take a stance to replicate in another form of mind set which offer school children to use your product ?
  
It's always said that 3G has a really telecom potential, the capabilities to formate the world in a new glassware. So why do we still stuck with the old customary, why don't we have something new which force us buy a real worth.

I am not an expert, but what I think these are the real things we often miss even we have a solid business plan in our hand just because we never try to do something new at our own risk. We just tend to follow or remedies what other have done before.
These are some points I expect from upcoming 3G technology not merely a service like others. Lots of more ideas floating around but time and tenure both needs when you want to explain something. :)

So that's it for now. Wish a healthy launch of 3G technology in India on the festival of Diwali.
What you expect from 3G now, just think and just shout here.
Finally wish you all a very happy and prosperous Diwali.
Have fun !!

Cheers :)

Right to education or Dance ...

Hello Friends ...

The post is something about the leading future of our country for which ambitious outlook of Government of India passed a bill Called "RIGHT TO EDUCATION" but lots of reality shows proving it as to be Right to Dance. Take a look how ...

Right now television the most famous source of entertainment and information after internet in India. This television at present full of reality shows that seems to be interested in making children dance. Does this worth any how? We have hardly much longer time that we our education ministry passed the Right to Education (RTE) bill and our kids moving to these reality shows. This is certainly out of my approach why do the parents of these kids doing this harming their academics.

I do agree these are also the important parts of development of a child but not more than their intellectual knowledge. When I see these shows it seems me like cheating these kids. Think how a kid will feel when he/she has prepared with utmost dedication for this competition and not get selected just because someone else has performed with a little bit cuteness or performed some steps which made judges euphoric.

I simply mean to say, are these kids who I don't think even able to understand the meaning of this title which they might get one day from these shows , can understand why they get refused. I am just talking practically, I don't mean anything will they take any lesson from this or not but at this instant they will certainly going to demoralized.

I feel so bad about these show also because no one of these trying to understand the children mentality but just following a hardcore line. Reality shows like Dance India Dance l'il masters, Chak Dhoom Dhoom which having so experienced jury are just repeating the tradition , just because of TRP ? well God knows , but I think this is not the right way to find out the current talent of country.
There are lots of reality shows for kids as Bournvita Quiz Contest, Spell Bee which also tries to find out the talent but in decent manner not sitting in front and laughing on children expression vigorously.

I am not talking about the core talent which seriously deserves these kind of reality shows to expose their talent but we all know the number is really less in comparison to others who just dance so that they will get a chance to appear on silver screen. If talk about the village children who don't have enough money just to register theirself to these shows , what will be our argument supporting these shows?

Their are lots of such children who remains behind the curtain even if they have abilities. I simply means to say inspite of spending piles of bucks on advertising or opting highly experienced jury to raise their channel TRP can the channel owner not organise such a show which really worth. We the audience don't feel like waste of time.

Our group is doing such a nice work this time. Being a member of Linux User Group it's my responsibility to get my audience aware what our group doing. We at present working under OLPC project. Under this project our team members teaching village students operating laptops freely. Since this laptop is specially designed for children specially village children , student getting interest learning it. This is really nice for OLPC organisation , a non profit U.S. based organisation who is creating educational opportunity for poor children and really proud to be a part of its activities.

We have different types of children between us. Everyone has his/her own capabilities. It would be nice if we understand these capabilities in spite of making them understand our capabilities. I wish for a bright future of these kids. After all "Padhega India Tabhi To Badhega India". ;)

Cheers !!