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Showing posts from 2011

Who will buy when you die?

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Steve Jobs did it by building Apple aficionados . Marc Andreessen did that with Netscape when he forced people to look web browsing as an entertaining experience and not just "a geek activity". Sean Parker ,  Shawn Fanning and John Fanning did it with Napster when they changed the way people look at the music. They all are/were great product guys who knew what the tribe wanted even before the tribe had laid eyes on their products. They didn't do the focus group studies or market research to know the viability of their idea. They didn't show the stakeholders, mocks of their products so that they can "fill in the blanks". But is that the only way to leave the product legacy? I don't think so. Google products , passes through at least 3000 eyes, before they get released even for the Beta. Agree, their hit rate is low but that is because they churn products dime a dozen, an evidence of their agile environment - one of the most important as

On Life & more by Justin Halpern

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It is becoming a rarity (because of work and me juggling at least two books at a time), but yesterday , after a long time, I finished a book in just few hours. The book's name is " Sh*t My Dad Says " and it is written by Justin Halpern . An insanely hilarious book, the lesson it imparted was prophetic. And yes, for most of the book, though I was laughing my heads off, I still managed to jot down my most favorite excerpts (call them gems!) from the book, for keepsake and for sharing with you all, so that it can make you wiser, just as it made me. From " Sh*t My Dad Says " by Justin Halpern On Showing Fear : " When it's asshole-tightening time, that's when you see what people are made of. Or at least what their assholes is made of . On Sharing : "....If he wants to be an asshole and not share, then that's his right. You always have the right to be an asshole - you just shouldn't use that right very often ." On Dea

Books and more books

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For people who know me, know how close reading and books are to my heart and how Shweta (my wife) and I have this whole library stock of books at our home. In just between yesterday and today, I have been able to mop off 2 books which I was reading at a snail's pace. Apart from that, I started off 2 new ones, out of which I did finish off one just in few hours, which is becoming a rarity now-a-days. Hence it will be understatement to say that this week has been phenomenal to me, at least, up until now. The two I wrapped up, though covered diametrically opposite aspects, at the heart, they both were business books: The Real Deal by James Caan is a brave and courageous autobiography, which covers nifty aspects of businesses. What, actually makes it brave was that, despite being a celebrity, James Caan, stayed truthful in his personal stories and with a lot of candor, spoke about the journey which he undertook to find himself, considering he was an Asian and a Mus

Chasing the tail lights with Mr.Jobs

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I usually don't read a book just because everyone else is reading it - it makes me thinks conventionally, corrupts my thought process into more of a mass one, not the kind I usually love to live with. But if I can take the liberty of paraphrasing Steven Levy from " In The Plex ", with his new book, Walter Isaacson made me chase everyone elses' tail lights, and for the first time, I am kind of proud at being conventional. From today, I am going to start reading Steve Jobs in Hardcover, which has gotten shipped at a 50% pre-release discount, from Indiaplaza (Yes, Flipkart ; they pipped you this time!), a couple of days back.  Now if you please excuse me, I have to go to get some carrot juice for Mr. Jobs! It's Halloween after all!

Old Versus New

To build a new system, you don't compete with the old one. You build a new system and make the old system obsolete - Buckminster Fuller Too often, we end up spending too much time staring at the old system, trying to improvise it for the new world, that we lose the race even before we start running it.

All that glitters

is not gold. However, its better to dig and figure out that it isn't gold than not to dig at all. I know life is too short to do all the mistakes by yourself to learn from them. But then, at times you just can't rely on someone to do a mistake for you to learn.   You got to pay your own dues, to avail the services of genie called Mr. Experience.

Value System

There comes a time in the life, when you realize that your value system is different from that of your parents'. Guess, then it is the time to start all over again!

Don't Shit

just because you know (or you think, you know) that someone can clean it after you. Instead do it right the first time. And if you can't do that, just get rid of that responsibility doyen which doesn't allow you to think without being corrupt, biased, irrational. That's the least you can do to push the humanity to be a part of thought based approach of work as against factory based approach of work.

Sony Mix - Addressing the long tail of music (traditional media)

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I don't even need to speak how Apple changed Music Industry using iTunes. Most importantly, they tapped the long tail of songs which were almost impossible to sell for the Brand labels and impossible to buy for music affectionados. They end up contributing to roughly 10%-15% of the iTunes music sales now. To understand in more detail as to long tail has contributed to iTunes Marketplace , check out Ryan Hupfer 's graph.    In India, a similar effort in now being forged by Sony Mix , the new music channel by Multi Screen Media Pvt. Ltd. (a subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment ). In their "About Us" they explain their product positioning as "Moving into the gap created by erstwhile music channels rechristened as ‘youth channels’ and other music channels dishing out non-music content as interstitial programming, we are confident that viewers shall enjoy MIX as a channel that remains true to the music genre." A good stab at MTVs and Ch

Why did the last person leave?

Could be a thorn of a question, especially if not asked. Better still put a positive spin, and ask as Business Insider says , "Am I replacing someone or is this a new position?"

The world owes him nothing

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 He has landed on the playing field of life. The only question is: Will he Play? More often than not, he spends his life either being busy digging the place where he stands, to skew the level field or staring at the wrong question: Will he Win/Lose?

Digital N U - My Seminar at Christ University

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Last Friday (1st October, 2011); I had an opportunity to talk at Christ University , with the First Year Marketing Student. I did a small presentation, explaining students what I do, explaining them what is Digital Media, what are its sacred pillars (according to me - clearly arguable) and how it can work for them in India. But it became interesting after that. It was students who made it a worth while session. They were intrigued, involved, and their quality of questions they asked blew me away! They made me realized that it's not the IIMs but the institutes like Christ, where management education is being re-invented. The seminar's excerpt is also featured at Christ University's Marketing Club Mouthpiece Here is the presentation. Let me know your thoughts and how can I make it better. Digital media and you View more presentations from Ankur Sharma

Two Eulogies in two days

It takes a toll on you. All of a sudden, it makes you believe that death is imminent. It is close by. And you better live with the philosophy Steve Jobs made famous with his commencement speech , "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" Just in case you are not following my blog, the two people who I wrote about, were Steve Jobs and Jagjit Singh . They couldn't be more different from each other. But from the time I have been thinking about writing this note, all I could see was similarities. They both were geniuses in their own field and transformed the way people saw their respective industries. Mirza Ghalib once said, "When your creations are started being used by tawayafs and fakirs " - 19th century version of common man - "then you are destined to be immortal". Steve Jobs did that to Personal Computers and Jagjit Singh to Ghazals.

Papa and Jagjit Singh

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My father has been a lasting influence on how I and my siblings think, what we do and aspire. He isn't one of those expressive ones who would cuddle and would take us to play. That was Mummy's job. His way of showing love was talking about the studies, giving pat on the back when we did good and of course bashing up when we didn't raise up to the bar. But there was one thing which bind him and me, even till today. Ghazals My Father had a childlike fanaticism about them (he is kinda grown up now). In 1970s , when buying music system in India wasn't as easy as buying groceries and wasn't as cheap as Rs. 4000;  he got it assembled, just to make sure that he gets to listen Ghazals on "just the right music system". He sat through all night in the recording shops, to get the live recordings of Ghazals on the  cassette tape and spent lavish sum of his salary (by those standards) to get those tapes. I grew up listening those Ghazals and understanding

Steve Jobs: Eulogy & his Legacy-Apple

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Last month, when I wrote a post about Steve Jobs , his famous Stanford Commencement Speech and Karma; little did I realize that I am going to write another post about him so soon, and not for all the right reasons. He is no more and his passing away has made even the President of United States comment about how Jobs was "bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it". Surely he was. He first changed the way people publish content, by working with Adobe. People only talk about their conflict, in the light of iPad not using Flash. Rarely do they talk about what they both together did to publishing industry. I believe his second biggest contribution was to change the way people see music. Sony had already started this revolution, but it was Jobs and Ive and iPod, who drove it from inflection point. Now there is nothing else which has not already been written about him, post his death. But having said that, there is one thing which

Google as smart as you!

"If we aren't a lot better next year, we will already be forgotten," Page said to one of the first reporters visiting the company.  The founders also knew that Google had to be a lot smarter to keep satisfying users - and to fulfill the world-changing ambitions of its founders. "We don't always produce what people want," Page explained in Google's early days. "Its really difficult. To do that you have to be smart - you have to understand everything in the world. In computer science, we call that artificial intelligence." Brin chimed in. "We want Google to be smart as you-you should be getting an answer the minute you think of it." - From " In The Plex " By Steven Levy

Uncertain at best - Incompetent at worst!

Getting out of comfort zone is sexy! But is it really so? With all the Seth Godins of the world touting it as the next best thing to do, it surely has become glamorous to talk and rave about it. Though what happens when this secure bubble really bursts? (or you break out of it, due to its sheer sex appeal) Well, for people who have already not seen this transition - it can leave you feeling uncertain at the best of the times, while incompetent at the worst of hours. There would be no peer network to fall back upon, who already know that "you are the best". In fact, it will be the process to start all over. Making new friends, failing all over, building credibility all over and it gets tougher by the day since all this comes along with the expectations to deliver! As they say, "Take calculated risk, it's better than being rash" And now that you have the both the sides of coin on breaking out of comfort zone; take the leap only if it suits you and

Bums and Recession!

Can baby bums tell you how economy is behaving? At least Advertising Age thinks so! Their number crunching shows how, in United States, during the last year, fall of unit sales of disposable diapers outnumbered infant population decline 3 is to 1. What's more telling is, that "the unit sales of baby ointments and creams rose 2.8%, despite fewer babies.", speaking of parents trying to treat babies diaper rashes which is happening because of less frequent changing. All this is clearly in proportion with increasing unemployment rate in United States. However, there is something else which took me by surprise. According to P&G, India, as a country, tops all in terms average daily diaper changes. Now let's see how e-commerce companies in India, who are lapping up this craze (of change) are going to tap this!

"It's the writing, Stupid"

When Dick Wolf mouthed those prophetic words , he didn't realize he is talking for Internet industry as well. But sure he did. For all the self-proclaimed SEO gurus, who believe training guns on infinite number of signals Google factors in its algorithm, would yield them results, this is the sole lesson which should work. Not to forget "instant gratification" afflicted, clients - they need to sit back and let the content do the job, if they really want to win the war (not just battles). It is your content, which builds the fan following, brings people come to your site on the days when Google is not your best friend. Any one can be a prince when King is your father. This serves the lesson for the likes of Expedia and Nextag, who are busy championing against Google. Their case is clearly the case of sour grapes! Nextag wanted Google to change their product feature so that Nextag can come up on first page. While Expedia clearly looks pissed off by not finding plac

Burning Man

Ever seen a city in desert being laid out for a week and then it being vanished after a week, leaving no traces of its existence whatsoever? That my friend is, Burning Man ! Burning Man is an extraordinary festival celebrating as varied principles as Self-Reliance, Decommodification, Civic Responsibility and Participation. A vision of one man , it sets about to change the perception in which art is defined, created, perceived and consumed. Don't believe me - See it by yourself via Scott London's picturesque photographs (and that's just 2011).

"Free"

So what is free for you: Free as in Free speech or Free as in Free beer ?

Larry, why do you say you want to do research?

"He ( Krishna Bharat ) said to Page .  "You are such a tiny group!"  Page's answer was surprising and impressive.  "Looking at things from a different perspective could lead to unexpected solutions", he said. "Sometimes in engineering you look at things with tunnel vision and need a broader perspective."" - From " In The Plex " By Steven Levy

Jobs, Karma and Superman

"You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life." When Steve Jobs spoke of these prophetic words at his Commencement Address at Stanford University in June 2005, what flummoxed me that a man of such stature, who had like made Apple rise like a phoenix in recent years was giving away pretty much all the credit of beautiful Typography and developing Macs to Destiny. This was the time, when iPods, Macs & iTunes were already a sensation and though India which at times considered the "nerd country" (owing to the PhDs they have produced in United States), Macs & Ipods were still not a commonality as they have become now. Among all this, I had just started working, was pretty much broke but was consumed by idealism of capitalistic nature which was sweeping away India (where I live). And here was the poster boy of  all the "nerds"

A man who did what was right!

I was in Delhi last weekend, on an urgently arranged trip.  My sister's father-in-law had passed away. Having visited there, was a humbling experience for me and taught me a thing or two about life and most importantly death. I wanted to show up in person to offer condolences, more so for my brother-in-law, than for any thing else. The reason was simply that he is one person I believe closest to who I want to be, in terms of temperament and finding happiness in life. And I truly believe that one of the biggest of reason of who he is and how he is; is because of his upbringing, father being large part of it. For people who think, death scares kids, I found my nephew and niece handling it far more in a far more mature manner than many adults.   During our conversations over the weekend, my brother-in-law talked about the happy times he had with his father, telling me, albeit not directly, what does it take you to be a good father and most importantly a great fa

Good Product Manager

Can you go through the phases where everyone in the organization resists the idea of your product being developed, from the phase where everyone wants to work on the project when it gathers momentum; not to forget the momentum-gathering phase? If you can keep yourself grounded in all these phases, then my friend, I believe you are a good product manage!

Cardinal Rule of Office Politics

An employee would never ever pick a tiff with her peer for the sake of her subordinate She may pretend or tell the subordinate otherwise, but you know it better! Some people, however, just don't get it.......

Did you hire that JERK!?

So you are interviewing and you feel that you have got the best person for the job. Fast forward 90 days: You are sure that 90 days back, the person whom you found the best person for the job and for the team is a jerk. So much so, that you are ready to bet your fortune on it! So much so, that it has become a public act! Actually it didn’t take you 90 days to figure that out, but isn’t 90 days what every management book tells you should wait before making a judgment over a new employee? Now the perils this jerk can bring are that: 1. She can drive away other talented people simply by being annoying, acting tough, unlikable or simple by being know-it-all. 2. Her personal limitations can prevent her from accepting the change is what she needs and not everyone around her 3. She won’t be able to let the organization drive changes even if it’s a do or die situation 4. To top it all, everyone will know that you have brought this jerk onboard and they will talk about it in hush-h

Travel's Online Persona

This presentation explains Travel's Online persona and how has it evolved in various regions. Later on it discusses that what does it takes to be successful at Travel Business using Online Marketing. I presented this at Online Marketing Enthusiasts' (OME), July Conference. Check out this Presentation and please email me at ankurdineshsharma@gmail.com for any further information and/or details on this: Online Travel Persona View more presentations from Ankur Sharma