Category — business

This post is a reply/comment to Gaurav Mishra’s post .

Before starting I must admit that Gaurav has done a great job in compiling and categorizing the list. I mean what are the odds that any individual or company/agency mentioned in that post knew about all others ?

All it takes now for any web company to become a social media company is just adding “social media marketing(smm)”  in their list of services offered or probably opening a Twitter account and following everyone mindlessly, but this is just the beginning. These are truely interesting times as we are not only observing but also shaping the growth curve for social media industry(If I can call that) in India. Our approach towards the core domain as well the business and social aspects of it will determine how things take shape.

By observing the figures(25-30 agenices in 2008 and 35-60 in 2009) it’s easy to slip into “The Pie Fallacy“, but as Gaurav rightly points “we haven’t even scraped the surface yet”. Social Media is yet to percolate into the way our organizations work.

While most Indian brands are still apprehensive/unsure about social media, those who’ve taken the plunge are still experimenting and trying to figure out what to make of it. Non Profits and Government are largely untouched by the social media wave. It is quite some time before Corporates start realizing what’s at stake if a social media disaster happens or individuals/govt etc learn how to handle social media with care.

What we face now is a classic “Whether or Which Dilemma“  and we need to pause for a minute and ask ourselves

“Are we trying to make the market bigger, or just grow our share?”

There are two ways to it.

1) Everyone just thinks about themselves and if their share is getting bigger or not(which’ll eventually lead to crab mentality)
2) Everyone tries to make the market bigger and in-effect making every/deserving one’s share bigger.

What’s interesting in the case of Social Media is that it’s about YOU or We and not ME.

The Scope of both individuality and cooperation in this space is immense. All that needs to be figured out is if,

You want to work towards a bigger ME or a bigger WE ?

because  “He who has a strong enough why can bear almost any how.”

Citigroup’s layoff of 52,000 makes history
TiVo To Layoff Workers
SAP Trimming Head Count, “Can’t Rule Out” Layoffs

Invariably I come across some news or other about companies laying off employees daily. The latest one being Citi’s historic layoff spree. Its not just the biggies like Citi and Sun that are laying off people, even small startups aren’t spared. Layoff is getting so commonplace and regular that people have started trackers just to keep a count of how many people are being laid off and where.The way things are going it won’t be surprising if each one of us has a person around whose been laid off or worse one of us bites the dust.

Though I am not a HR person and have not owned or managed a big firm with employees either but I still can’t accept the fact that laying people(performers or non performers) during bad times like these is the only way around. Sure showing pink slips to employees mainly from down the ladder is easy and in some weird sense shows that management is taking measures, I refuse to believe that layoff is the only option when it comes to balancing out things. I remember reading how HP avoided layoffs during the recession of the late 1970s by ordering an across-the-board 10 percent pay cut and requiring employees to take every other Friday off. People across the board taking a salary cut is just one of the possible options and am sure there will be lots of options that can either avoid layoffs or at least cut them to size. Take Toyota for example and how are they handling tough times without laying off people. It’s a brilliant strategy IMHO. Investing in people with long term goals should work well for them. Lastly as Mr Bagchi rightly suggests “Communicate transparently, involve everybody, explore other cost cuts, ask people to do alternate things, consult your customers and suppliers, and retrain people.”

What do you think?

Yes, the title of this post might sound a bit weird but I coudn’t think of anything to better describe what I mean.

Cafe Coffee Day is a leading chain of coffee shops in India which started operations way back in 1996. As per wiki it has about 650 outlets spread over 110 cities, which by no count is less and as per this news item here they plan to have about 900 outlets by end of FY09 i.e 73% growth (at the beginning of FY08 they had 520 outlets). The article also mentions that the 80% of CCD’s consumers are in the 15-29 age group.

In the last year or so CCD outlets have mushroomed all over the country especially Delhi, there are at least eight outlets in C.P itself and at least three within walking distance of five minutes from where I stay.There will hardly be a mall/shopping complex where there isn’t a CCD. The way CCD outlets are sprouting I am reminded of the way McDonald’s became a household brand in India. For majority of Indians Burger == McDonald’s and the shift from Nirula’s and Wimpy’s to McDonald’s has been rather fast and interesting.

Each Brand tends to be associated with some feelings/emotions/thoughts etc and that’s what helps brand become more or less popular depending on weather the associations are positive or not and with what audience can it strike a chord. Lets take McDonald’s for example, One can easily notice that majority of its customers would be from middle/lower middle class(and lower class) and of the age group less than 30. It fits nicely with their pricing model too but there’s something about the brand image and way the brand is perceived by people that leads to a particular segment of society more attracted towards a brand than others. Maybe this image( for McDonald’s) of an outlet “that serves cheapest burgers/snacks with a decent enough quality and taste) that does the trick of making them the most popular in their segment and helps sustaining this popularity as living up to this image is not probably as difficult as living up to the image of being a hi-fi/elite burger shop.

The way I see it, CCD is more or less on the same road. It projects that sort of image(of being cheap, of decent quality and a bit stylish) and has managed to strike a chord with a particular(and populous) segment. I feel if you ask any McDonald’s customer about his/her choice when it comes to coffee outlets most will say CCD against Barista or Costa. Thinking more about the brand images/perceptions Barista(launched in 1997)  which was more popular initially than it is now offers a more classy experience. It was the first cafe(that I knew) to have a guitar which customers can play other than few board games. Barista however projects a different image, maybe a slightly sophisticated one at that and thus has its appeal limited to a particular segment(which might be small sized).

Given the way CCD is growing in popularity it will be interesting to see how they expand. Will they have different types of cafes for different people/places ? Will they diversify or stick to their existing offerings ?

It might have helped if CCD had a working website, http://www.cafecoffeeday.com/

“Over communication is better than under communication”.
I heard this for the first time during my initial days with Fidelity and its something that has been with me since then. The thing with simple statements is that while they appear ridiculously simple and obvious they are really hard to implement/follow.

Communication of all sorts is very critical as it can make or break lots of situations and institutions. From boardrooms to bedrooms its a common observation that those who are high on C.Q (communication quotient) are better placed as compared to those who are bad or not good at it.Needless to say while communication is extremely important it is not the only constituent of progress and success.

From companies and organizations point of view communication is even more crucial because their the stakes are really high and its impact can be felt on a huge number of people/employees. Their are various aspects of communication like

1) Direction:
Flow of communication both internal and external can be in various directions namely bottom to top, top to bottom and horizontal. In most cases the stress is laid(if at all) on the top to bottom flow of communication and that too it in a “just listen/obey to it” sort of way, for ex: emails from founders, managers giving employees directions/instructions. But those who understand the importance of communication lay emphasis on bottom-up and horizontal communication as well because the 360 degree flow of communication can really do wonders, to name a few things, the management would be more aware of the needs/demands/expectations of the employees and a lot of feedback/innovation can come to the surface if this channel is properly established.

Speaking of web startups: Despite the fact that its utterly easy to communicate with their users by means of blogs etc most startups suck at it and communicate only as a last resort. Be it informing users about scheduled downtimes, sharing details of new features  or seeking feedback,  more often then not its not done. I think not only should they communicate via their blogs much more but also they should keep an eye or establish channels for incoming communication by their users(ex: blogs, microblogs, forums).

2) Frequency:
What do you prefer, getting newspapers daily or weekly ? Its that simple but then again following it isn’t.

Be it communication within big organizations or small teams or with your site/blog audience. The frequency and regularity of communication is also important. Important because there needs to some basic level of communication that needs to be attained before things start to change and something substantial comes out from the other side. Obviously it won’t make any sense if someone from management asks his employees about the things they’d want to change in the company and then comes back to the same question after an year and expect a genuine answer.

Speaking of web startups: One of the easiest things that can be done is to update their blogs as frequently as possible not only about the good things but also the bad ones. I hate it when while visiting a site i find its under scheduled maintenance for 1.5 hours but there isn’t even a small mention of it on their blog. Core thought being be proactive and inform the users before them finding out and coming to you.

3) Content
Content of communication is extremely important. In the sense that the content if explicit/comprehensive  it won’t leave any scope for confusions n illusions. There a lot of cases in which communication within the organization and outside isn’t really fruitful because it does not show the full/clear picture and thus limits the vision and perception of the intended audience about the thing/issue in question. Whenever in doubt whether a thing is good/big enough to be communicated, just do it, because it might be big/good or important for someone else.

Speaking of web startups: My advice would be to share as many things as you can with your users. Users just love to hear and know more about the services/sites they like and use. Share more things big or small about your product, your company and if possible even a bit about yourself.

In times when is twitter down & “is twitter fully functional ?” is all we get to
hear not many think of this as an opportunity. Yes “Opportunity”.
This Opportunity is for pretty much who is in some way or other connected to
twitter. Not only its an opportunity for some addicted twitterers to realize that
there is life beyond twitter but also for developers, entrepreneurs and more.

The way things stand at the time of writing this post twitter’s “IM and
pagination are not working” other than some apps like “TwitterSync”.
This has been the case for the last few days and it might last for next days
or worse re-occur. What this means is

1) Incoming channels blocked:
A cursory look at the twitter home page will tell you that most of the
tweets show their source as web which clearly wasn’t the case before twitter’s
db crash. Also, twitter’s IM client is down which I think was the biggest
incoming channel as a result of which people have either stopped tweeting
or tweet very less.

2) Ability to surf/receive Tweets handicapped:
Since they’ve disabled pagination for all pages and the IM is down along
with it went people’s ability to surf tweets(either missed or otherwise)
and receive tweets as they are being sent.

3) Some twitter apps are down:
Send tweets via your facebook status aka TwitterSync is one that’s not
working.

So this makes perfect sense for people to either replicate the
things/functionalities/apps that are not working or come up with an
innovative way to solve the problem in a different or better way.

What do you guys think ?

After a painfully long wait and being postponed atleast a couple of times
Barcamp is finally back in town for Delhities respite. Delhi is not particularly
known for its Barcamp culture but seems things are in for a change starting this
time around.

For the uninitiated Barcamp is an unconference where all sorts of people come
in for all sorts of reasons (freebies, free wifi included) . Those who are willing
to present/speak on a topic simply add their names in the wiki and they are
allocated a time slot to present. Though most attendees are related to
software/internet the event is just not restricted to it, barcamp bangalore 6(BCB6)
being the perfect example which had participation from all sorts of people from
Internet Junkies to Social Activists.

If you are either a geek, blogger, internet junkie, entrepreneur BCD4 is the place
to be.

BarcampDelhi 4 takes place on 17th of may at

Amity Innovation Incubator
Auditorium, Block C, Amity University Campus
Sector 125, Noida

Hoping to see you all there..

Kwippy = Micro/Nanoblogging app (for close friends especially) + IM status logger + Social Network.

Why another microblogging app ? or How is Kwippy different from other microblogging apps ?

1) Kwippy is the only micro/nanonlogging app as of now which doesn’t require a user to go out of the way and make micro posts. You just need to signup and integrate your IM that’s it. So those of us who keep custom status messages, don’t need to do a thing as every custom status message will become a micro blogpost(other ways to kwip being via Web and sending messages via IM)

2) Organized conversations:
Ever felt the need of seeing all the replies to a particular micro blogpost at a single place in an organized manner ? or for that matter that “quotably” though good can never be 100% accurate ?
Kwippy has a much better way of having organized conversations without needing a third party app and we plan to do more to make conversations really interesting and viral, yes, Viral.

3) IM focussed and the T factor:
Not only Kwippy integrates multiple IM networks and saves their custom status messages it also intends to facilitate in having better relationships amongst users by leveraging the trust factor associated with people on one’s IM list.

4) Easiest way to bookmark URL’s
Many people I know (microbloggers n non microbloggers) have a tendency to share URL’s with their IM contacts by putting it up as their IM status. But then as is the case with most custom status messages the IM saves only a handful recent ones. So with Kwippy not only can you archive URL’s but also share them with your friends on the site.

more on Kwippy here

We had our first demo at barcampbangalore6 this weekend which went great and has generated a lot of interest. Kwippy is in private beta right now and would be going public(not the IPO route, yet ) soon. If you want an invite for the beta submit your email id here .

Ever wondered why different websites despite being of the same genre
appear/feel differently ? or why your own behavior differs from site to site?

Well the case in point being that all websites across the web consciously or unconsciously develop cultures and subcultures just like it happens elsewhere when a group of people interact with each other over a period of time.

Consider the following examples

Case1: Orkut

I’ve always felt that people(ones I know) spend a lot of time “filling the profile info” and often even more time “maintaining/updating profile info regularly”. It might be necessary in some cases but if you are just there to stay in touch with people you know its not necessary at all but still lots of people(old and new) tend to do it.

Case2: Facebook

I haven’t used Facebook much so in this regard the only thing that stands out is “Adding new apps” and “Requesting others to use new apps”. Every time I log in there are a dozen new requests to try new apps and that’s probably because this viral behavior has really got into the users and seems no signs of stopping.

How a Culture gets developed:

Culture development is a two way process. While in most cases it comes downwards from the top in some systems(emergent) it rises bottoms up. Generally the culture developed by the initial users of the site continues to grow with more people joining and unconsciously following the experienced users behaviors thereby strengthening the existing culture.

What can you do about it ?

Either you consciously develop a culture “Top down” in a planned/phased manner or keep an eye on the small/mini behavioral usage patterns, facilitate them and guide them upwards. This can be done by say adding new features or re-designing the existing ones to make them more available. I feel the features to “push out profile updates” to friends and in your face options to “invite friends to use apps” respectively have helped a lot in setting the above mentioned trends.

A simple example of “Top down” culture that I can think of(and I’ve used) is say you have a website and you want the users to upload their profile pictures instead of continuing with the default ones. One way it can work is say if all the initial user(100 or so) have uploaded their profile pictures then someone whose new to the site might upload a picture straightaway and it stays the same way going forward.

This behavior is quite natural and common as most new users don’t want to look new/naive/different, gain acceptability and become a part of the crowd so they’ll follow the established behavior without making much noise. However simple and obvious it may sound if it happens right it can do wonders for a site consider a social networking site(a friend told me about) where almost all users have provided their mobile numbers despite them not being mandatory. Sounds scary but then its not impossible.

Delhi’s Radio space has become quite hot these days with more than 10 FM channels vying for a bigger chunk of the pie. Leaving aside a couple most of these channels are alike(at least to me) and unless you are an avid listener chances are you too won’t be able to tell X from Y.

What really comes out as being Remarkable in this chaos is 104.8 FM or better known as “Meow FM“. Talking about being remarkable, Meow(India’s first just for women radio station) that came to life in June 07 is easily the most unique one. I listen to it every once in a while and what follows are a few things that make “Meow” Remarkable.

Niche Target Audience:
Instead of targeting everyone(which actually means targeting “no one”) they have focussed on Women folk, which is their biggest and probably best differentiator. This is a big plus as now they can mostly focus on airing programs that strike a chord with women without worrying much about the other gender. So now they can host a show like “Mama Meow” and even ask audience to tell “five innovative ways to break news about their pregnancy to their families” without thinking twice.

Different Ball Game:
While other FM channels are busy being better DJ’s(playing music) Meow has ventured into a different league all together. Rather than being just another music station they’ve come out as a talk based radio station which instead of RJ’s has what they call “On Air Hosts“. “Empathetic Interactivity” being one of their core value propositions this makes a lot of sense(even more for a women focussed channel) as
1) Talking/Sharing is one of the basic human necessities/traits.
2) It’s informative(knowledge sharing, listening and learning from other’s experiences and so on).
3) It has a HUGE audience(how else can you explain, people calling even before the host has finished telling the topic of conversation or people trying to call for days till they get to talk ?).

Client Relationship:
Another thing that impressed me about Meow was the way almost all their hosts talk to their callers and build relationships with them. Be it addressing some callers by adjectives like “Darling” or “Sweetheart” or asking someone who called after a hiatus “Why are you calling us after a long time ? Don’t you love us ?”.The way they handle and treat their callers is simply amazing, it works great(especially with women) and am sure they must have made some real(off the phone) relationships with some callers.To summarize in one line “try to make each customer feel special”.
I guess that’s what they are doing and doing it quite well.

Some other things that click are:
1) Good content with a variety to target various sections of women folk.
2) Great marketing(by making a noteworthy statement with the usage/symbolism of word “Meow” and other things).
3) Roping in different people with public appeal like Dr Kiran Bedi and regularly having guest hosts.
4) Anil Srivatsa(those who’ve listened to his show know what I mean).

These are some of things that I think make “Meow 104.8 FM” click, not sure about the RAM stats.They might make things a bit more cheesy from here and attract more earlobes by adding more girlie features on say shopping(discuss things like what you shop, where you shop or reviewing some shops etc) or better a gossip section(share the latest gossip in your office,college etc or in bollywood).

“Women carry the reputation of being talkative, hence Meow. Through Meow FM, we are letting women do what they do best – talk ” – Anil Srivatsa, COO, Radio Today                    

I remember reading some time back about it and for the past few days the realization and understanding of this has got stronger.By game here I mean the business you are into or upto.

While there’s nothing abstract or profound about the thought but still I personally feel most people including me(till a while back) don’t tend to think on these lines. The point being simple, what’s the size of the game you are playing ? …Every business can be done/run in various sizes or scales, with or without the involved people realizing the current size and to what size can it extend to in the existing setup.

Consider these sample cases for a bunch of guys working together

Case 1: Game = small
Building products/softwares for small clients. ex: college students working part time to get some extra cash.

Case 2: Game = Medium
Building products/softwares for medium sized organizations

Case 3: Game = BIG
Building products/softwares for the some really big organizations or better for the web in general.

The point that I am trying to make here is that when you start a business you more often than not stay in the same scale and it’s your positioning in that particular scale what changes. So the switch from one scale(or game) to another is some thing that requires a lot of hard work, mind work, motivation, resources, time and more. Another crucial ingredient is what people fancifully call “moving in the right circles”, yes you have to be in the right place with right people at right time to make this transition.
The reason why most businesses that start in a scale tend to stay within their territories is because either they fail to realize this or they fail to achieve it.

Saying all this I feel that if someone consciously and repeatedly, rather religiously tries to make this transition of scales, the game can change unbelievably. Changing with it everything that’s involved including the mindset/thought process of the people involved and suddenly the concerned people find themselves amidst something which otherwise could have taken a lot of time if at all possible in their lives.

What’s even more exciting is the fun and excitement that comes during this whole process of changing the game.It magnifies the whole set up, everything scales up and the situation without you realizing changes you and the way you approach business and maybe life in general. It’s like a wave that comes and takes everyone whose ready, to an all together new and exciting place, giving those orgasmic “aha moments” for free.