May 14, 2012

Monday Motivational # 3: Emotions

Lets face the truth : Monday is the worst day of the week. And this was confirmed today when I realized that Blogger did not 'auto-save' my post which I was planning to publish today, instead of this. So, a little motivation for you and me to feel a little better about our lives and work our way through the next five days!

Credits : HighExistence 
Food for thought : Its all in the mind - your supposed 'emotions and feelings'. You feel what you want to feel, also because, apparently, we have been 'wired' to do so. NO. Beware, because your brain is playing tricks on you. You do have a choice over what you experience!

Remember :

All feelings are uncontrollable - happiness, anger, love, envy etc.. but we get to choose what to feel. Don't spoil your day by indulging in negative feelings!

May 7, 2012

Introverts : Rise!

Shy or just Emo? (Credits
My group recently had a presentation on a particular course in our college. There were 6 of us in the group. Now, the thing about working in groups is that some people put in more efforts than the others. In my group, I along with my friend - lets call him S, did most of the work. The rest of the members put in from medium to low efforts to prepare the presentation. But during the presentation, guess who did the most of the talking? Hint - not S and me. Guess who saved and steered the presentation in a new and teacher-friendly manner? The ones who did the lesser work. Well, damn..

Apr 23, 2012

Monday Motivational # 2: Individuality

Lets face the truth : Monday is the worst day of the week. A little motivation for you and me to feel a little better about our lives and work our way through the next five days!
Source : 9gag


Food for thought : Despite what others say, there is nothing wrong with you. In fact, the terms 'wrong' and 'right' are relative, not absolute. What may be right for someone is wrong for the other. You were hardwired this way. Its in your genes. Celebrate your uniqueness. And ignore the haters!

Because remember :
Haters gonna hate!
BTW, watch out for my next long post this week. Its also on the topic of individuality and adaptability. See you around and spread some motivation around!

Apr 16, 2012

Monday Motivational : A Day of Your Life

I've decided to start this series of short posts called the 'Monday Motivational', which I plan to post (almost) every Monday (duh!). Now I'm doing this because of three reasons:

1. Being an avid internet surfer, I come across a variety of inspirational and motivational material on the net and I want to share it with you all. Oh yes, I could share it on Facebook too, but then 90% of my friends on that social network don't care for such intellect stuff. 

2. Lets face the truth : Mondays are the worst days of the week. A little motivation for you and me helps in a big way! 

3. And ya.. some of my friends say that my blog posts are too long.. :-D  Well, I can't help it! I love writing long posts but I also understand that it puts people to sleep. To strive for some balance, these type of posts will be short but strong ones. Now without much bakwaas, lets get on with it :

Credits - HighExistence

Food for thought : Our life is limited. We all are gonna die one day. Make sure the work you do, counts. Why spend your day fighting with your neighbor, indulging in mindless gossip, complaining and cribbing, doing something that you don't love? Afterall, when you're on your deathbed and your whole life flashes before your eyes, you wouldn't want to regret wasting your life on silly things, would you? 

Remember : 
This is your life, ending one minute at a time  ~ (Fight Club, 1999) 


Apr 10, 2012

Ahmedabad : A Traveller's Delight


Ahmedabad, its a city I only wish to have good memories of, but have to be painfully reminded of one of my biggest failures this year (the MICA blunder). Neverthless, this post isn't about my failures or anything, its about the beautiful and serene city of Ahmedabad and why its one of the best places visited by me till now.

Now each city has some peculiar and unique features that sets it apart from others and some may argue that each deserves a post of its own. But then this post is not about other cities. Its only about what sets Ahmedabad apart from others - including my hometown. You already know how its the education hub of India - IIM-A, NID, MICA (no wonder it has an 80% literacy rate). Then there is an eventful history associated with its state - from the times of Indus Valley civilisation to the struggle for independence to the infamous riots - the state of Gujarat has seen it all. Lets start...

Mar 30, 2012

How Cartoon Physics Nearly Killed Me Once

We are the 90's and 80's kids and luckily, we did not grow up on things like iPhones, Tablets, reality shows and stuff. Entertainment for us was something else - playing cricket in the ground even during the hot Indian summers, hanging out with friends till night, going to art / music / dance classes, watching TV shows etc. But since the computers during our childhoods were just good enough for MS Paint, most of our time went into watching TV shows and cartoons.

I remember the craze the one such TV show called 'Shaktimaan' had. Such was the influence of the show that children were known to have attempted the famous 'Shaktimaan spin' from the top of their roofs and meet their untimely demise. 'Pfft, are these kids are stupid or what?', used to be my reaction until I attempted to do enact something similar and came very close to meeting Sir Yamraaj. So, here goes my story...

Mar 20, 2012

3Vs To Consider For Making Your Business Failproof

So these days I am preparing for my MICA GD/PI and for the case study preparation, dad gave me Telenor's (Uninor, India) Marketing Guide to understand how the company carries out the process of Marketing and CRM globally. So while I was flipping through the booklet's pages, I found something  called the '3V Model'. It was a method which Uninor followed to maintain focus on its business priorities and way of working. While it was being successfully applied within Uninor, I thought that it could be extended to almost any business out there, no matter how big or small, online or offline.

Now, if you are dreaming of having a business / venture / start-up of your own or already have one, this model is a must-know to maintain your sight on your venture's purpose of existence. It is easy to dream up big business ideas but if you don't know the purpose of existence of your venture, it is bound to fail.
 
Source
So here are the '3Vs' you must keep in mind before coming up with the next 'Facebook' or 'Google' :


1. Value Customer : (V1) Who to serve?

It defines what customers are most valuable to your business. Who you should target in order to build your business profitably. Afterall, if you target the wrong audience, they most likely won't be interested in your services and hence, you are bound to fail.

Example : A pizza chain like Dominoes needs to focus on their 'right' consumers - the youth. If they started putting more focus on -say, senior citizens, their campaign would fail as they seniors simply aren't the pizza generation and hence, they are the 'wrong' consumers.

I must admit that I've also had big dreams of having businesses of my own. But with time, my common sense asked me the question - 'Who are you planning to build this thing for? Yourself?'. Just because you like the idea doesn't mean everyone is going to like it. Build your businesses based on the needs of your consumers. The reverse isn't true.

2. Value Proposition : (V2) What to offer?

The second most important question. You define what your product / service is. That is because people will come to you only if you have something valuable to offer to them. They will come to you only if you solve one of their problems or make their lives a bit easier than yesterday. They will come to you only if your brand is unique in relation to other related offerings.

Time is of essence in this generation. Capturing people's attention with your product is what really counts. But remember - you need to have a product which has the potential to do it.

Example : I have seen many designers (including me) starting a design blog just because they know design stuff and can spew out design gyaan at others. But the problem is, there are literally thousands of design blogs out there, each churning out the same type content. Hence, these wannabe bloggers fail terribly. They do not get the expected number of visitors, lose heart and then stop blogging. It happened with me. This was because I was offering the wrong thing. People did not want more of design gurus. They already had enough of them.

It is a headache knowing and coming up with something that people really want. Seriously. But there are ways.. I'll tell you when I get to know of it myself.

3. Value Network : (V3) How to deliver?

If my interpretation is correct, it refers to the 'Place' and 'Promotion' part of the 4 Ps of Marketing. OK. So you've got a product (or service), you've researched upon the justifiable price and all, and are ready to sell it. But where and how do you plan to sell it? Seriously, just because you have a nice product, it does not mean that people will suddenly wake up from their sleep one day and realise that you have come up with something that could solve their problems. You have to tell it to people! You need to promote it, not everywhere and anywhere, but only at the place where your target consumer is.

Example : Since we are using their model, lets take up the case of Uninor only. In India, they are famous for their low prices and quality of service. They may not have as many subscribers as Airtel or may have been hit with the recent 2G spectrum verdict, but they are still adding customers like hell.

Source : Operator-wise net subscriber addition (Jan 2012)
And this is because they are doing something right : the place and promotion. They are targeting the semi-urban and rural areas aggressively as it is where their concept of low prices would be most effective. They are doing localized promotion. In short, they are 'delivering' their product in the right way.

So this is about the innovative 3V model. I am sure it'll help you think about the 'why' and 'how' of your business plan and weed out the unnecessary ideas.


I'm no businessman to talk about starting businesses but all I can say is that this does bring some clarity in the flow of our thoughts. Share this post if you like it!