India’s early exit from World 20-20.

I am writing this post after a rather comforting though anxious win in first ODI over WI in the Caribbean. It has been quite a while, and no point digging old graves but let me keep up with this Indian tradition and do my bit. I have been etching to write something on this, but sometimes there are more important matters on hand than a mere game. So what went wrong and what could have avoided this?

First nothing kills like overkill: BCCI never cares for the players or the love for the game when it is up against the Gandhi backed notes. So the IPL went ahead although there was not much gap between the finals and the bigger, more important WC. I don’t know how big a factor fatigue was because Australians as they themselves claimed were all charged up and raring to go but fizzled out in very first round. And then there were teams like SA who too have played without a hiatus for long and their games were lot more competitive and demanding because all the times they squared up with Australia (Some 10 ODIs, 6 tests, 4 Twenty-20s), there was some no.1 ranking on the line. But what differentiates India is how IPL is theirs and not SA’s (13 of the 15 SA players for WC squad did participate full time in the IPL), how they carry a lot more burden with their representation and how these petty games also gained the stature of life and death in this cricket crazy, bizarre nation. Did I emphasize crazy enough? Nope ok again, a really crazy nation.

What IPL does but never tells: It divides the players into leagues, who succeed at the cost of one-another. Harbhajan is now a Mumbaikar, Sreesanth’s dosa comes all the way from Punjab, Gilli is leading at the cost of Laxman and much more. Suddenly the all united men in Blue, don’t seem to be united at all. The team had no special camp to gel together after they were made to go after each other in gay madness for a month and half. From slap-gate to the things which don’t make into the news a lot goes down in these silly games. Calling press conferences to show off the united front just shows the differences.

Half-fit side: Too much cricket and too little rest made Zaheer, Riana, Sehwag, Yuvi and all not give their best. I hope it rhymes! Whatever, If poor fielding was in anyway associated with that, then we know why we lost more than we won.

Sehwag: well you may say India has a lot of fire power, but only Yuvraj comes anywhere close to the sultan of Multan when it comes to instilling fear and intimidation in the minds of the bowlers. His one-off match-winnning innings and otherwise brisk starts were missed. More than anything, i guess Gambhir misses him.

Leaving till very late: Well we can get out of any hole and all players are capable has been the mantra that has gone down well, but there should be a lot of hunger to go along with talent to achieve that. This team lacked the bite that they had in the first WC. Losing to England, the mother of all chokers that too in twenty-20 just goes to show how awful it was.

The world has caught up: Now the bowlers around the world know how to put the breaks on scoring, we saw that in all the matches. They all have come up with an ace up their sleeves but ours still lack the bite, over-reliance on batting did cost us dearly. The SA, Pak, Sri, Ban spin attacks are better than ours and what to say about the pace battery! More so the bowlers have learnt how to bowl to India's big hitters.

Jadega: Oh man! He couldn’t have scripted a worse start to his career, could he? To his credit bowled well and if he had just batted at run a ball, his selection would have turned out to be a masterstroke. As a bowler as good as Ojha and a batter now we could have an all-rounder. But the much-touted Warne prodigy just went down and took the team with him. We can’t burden the loss on his young shoulders alone though, Dhoni played an ace too.

The Captain cool: coming to the point of Dhoni, well he is all captain-cool and has won us many matches, his record as captain has been very good till date but how do you measure coolness in Cricket? Does it mean playing safe? Does it mean no worries; there is plenty of time still left to win the game? Instead of fastening the seatbelts and driving he sometimes prefer a walk, against NZ, 3rd test this season and then against England at home in the 2nd test he showed how he was too defensive for his own good. Being defensive and waiting for things to happen in twenty-20 is not very different from digging one’s own grave and with this attitude one can never ever become a world-beater.

Twenty-20: This format is the most unpredictable in Cricket and one should not hinge a lot of thought into what goes down as the result.

TO SUM UP: India is too talented a side especially for shorter formats of the game to go down like this, the faster bowlers do have a lot to learn and without Zaheer or with unfit Zaheer we do have a lot of problems. But most probably this would only be one tiny black blemish on otherwise good record of the men in blue and this Windies tour will kick the blue out of the Men in blue. Ironic!
IPL is a great investment to nurture talent and bring out names that could have gone into oblivion or taken a considerable more time to make their mark. It puts them in scenarios where they played shoulder-to-shoulder with the legends of the game and grew in tight matches. But 14 games/team for that is just outright madness and greed! And nothing, just nothing kills like overkill!

Marketing in between the overs and the Strategic Break

This IPL season, howsoever pathetic it was and the early Indian exit notwithstanding, (thanks to a private TV in my PG accommodation in Hyderabad) I watched Television for hours which I have not notched up since my childhood days.
So what did I learn or unlearn?
Well I tried to do multi-tasking and make an observation or two about marketing whenever or in whichever form it was used:


(1) Zoo-Zoos were bigger hits than the IPL itself- well Vodafone goes more often than not right on the money. While Airtel was busy advertising the age-old and Yuk concepts of “pyar” between their “high profile” couple and over-killing the concept unlike it had ever done before, Vodafone realized that they had nothing novel to offer in terms of product, so it was left only to creativity to build and improve their brand. They came up with a flurry of low-cost videos which were shot outside India, in an attempt to stop any untimely suspense kill.
The videos although don’t market a service any unique than other service providers, were graceful in the way that they didn't become popular at the cost of Vodafone. The interest they entice in the viewer make them look up and read that it is Vodafone and not Virgin or some other service provider. Virgin did try and the "Virgins" are still trying, for reasons fathomless to me, to cash-on the cartoon themes but on the sucker scale are ranked only slightly lower than Airtel. From when "Think-hatke" became "think-crap"? They even invested in sponsoring a marketing competition in NITK, but i don't think they took any note of what we had offered. As the judge himself acknowledged that he is from print media and is not remotely associated with video ads... proves the point of how Virgin India is de-valuating a remarkable brand that Branson nurtured over the years, overseas.
Vodafone on the lines of No-Overkill have now discontinued Zoo-Zoos and are back to the puppy and girl Ads. Now i pray that this would knock some sense into Airtel Marketing.
Bottom line: use creativity to savor or revitalize your brand when you have nothing novel to offer.

(2) The rage about L’Oreal cosmetics which was found guilty on racism counts: Now lets see who is talking, in case it is France they have legitimate concerns but India, come ‘on we are the most racist country in the world! When are we going to finally accept that, now we do try our best and the Aussies are also giving their best shot to defy us of that elusive no.1 but do they stand a chance against this age-old hypocrite, divided by cast-creed left, right, north and south country, (Pause) Well I don’t think so! The interesting thing to see is how the marketers, having predicted the possibility of being found guilty with all guile and genius, had already changed the message, although subtly but so decisively. Sonam Kapoor is now given more air time, Penolope was withdrawn, “Because you are worth it” became “Because we are worth it”.
BottomLine: Being Proactive is much better off than being Reactive especially in Marketing.

(3) Nothing kills like Overkill: well IPL-2 was bust as compared to IPL-1, I don’t think a lot, would have changed had it not shifted out of country. The “strategic break”, 14 matches per side, making sides play KKR, when they themselves don’t want to might have just milked the cow to its death. Now with the WC debacle, and some of it being attributed to IPL, BCCI is treading in rather unfriendly waters, the sooner they realize this, the sooner they would be able to save “one of the biggest brand” in sports. Some thoughts about two IPLs in one year, well forget it and I bet BCCI if they do go ahead with it, they won’t even get a chance to give CPR to this brand.

(4) The Nokia Express Music ad: Of late we have seen a flurry of Touch screen phones in the market, Nokia probably the latest entrant has hit a home run though. Before Nokia, Samsung, Sony and LG marketed the emotional appeal of a touch-screen and how large screen makes viewing, touching and working a pleasure. With advent of 3G, the gap would become even wider. So what did Nokia do? Well many thanks for the emotional appeal already generated for touch screens, they decided to go right on the functional and the "Nokia" brand part. What the other mobile companies missed was that they were marketing the industry, in this case any touch screen phone and not their respective brands. Samsung does that for other phones very well with “Next is what” but missed the mark with touch screen. Nokia on the other hand added functionality to already rake up emotional appeal by adding “Now your touch will create music” and used the already established Nokia express brand.
Bottom Line: There is a distinction between marketing a product and marketing your product. However subtle it may be, but it can account for a downfall of huge marketing schemes like a pack of cards.

(5) The debacle of Sony, Bravia and the stand out Sony, Cybershot: Sony TV screens are considered as the pinnacle of technology but they didn’t even got close to it in branding. The previous ads were all good to say the least but this mother of all ridiculous ad doesn’t even come close to the novel Cybershot ad, the other SBU Sony primarily is launching in India. How come they are marketing something that envious in such a grouse manner?
The LG mother of all television, the seduction for TFTs and the “feel it to believe it” LCD ads hit a home run everytime. They came up with clear functional and emotional components.
Cybershot however focuses at first the exotic lady (as I should say in the video) and since she moves into the camera with a click of a button without much fuss about focusing the lens, it just navigates you effortlessly to the product and the brand.


(6) The Bing: Now I don’t know who in the name of god came up with that name, but if they want to make Bing synonymous with Search as Google has become over the years, they should have done a better job. I recall Bing only from “Chandler Bing” the funniest Friends' character, not as a sound indicating information on your finger tips. How a marketer is expected to market it, GO AND BING! Not appealing to my creative senses and it also fails to tickle funny bones.
Microsoft lives up to tradition of losing to Google though! Quite similar to SA in big games of Cricket.


(7) Reliance and Rithik’s (mis)adventure: it is good that Reliance have the deep pockets to finance someone as high profile as him as brand ambassador but don’t they spare some moolah for hiring some creative ad agency.
Rithik thanking just anybody he knows is all good in films but does it make any sense for establishing Reliance as a reliable network, I am at loss.
With the other misadventure of watching matches on your mobile, they have lived up to their name when it comes to using crooked methods and you-can’t-prove-them-false either-Nonsense to get customers.
Now come’ on live up to the expectation and spice up that little baby. Or Reliance-Commn. will be as doomed as their business is in UP. At least they learnt the importance of GSM, may be with time they would out grow this age-old, Ambani’s senior ad philosophy as well.
BottomLine: Hiring a high profile human as a brand ambassador is just a start of the story, one has to deliver the story-line as well. Godrej is an apt example and has used Rithik to maximise their brand value (Their strategy just backs the claim of Godrej Sr. of having handed over the beacon to his sons and daughters to reviatalize the otherwise trailing and historic brand).


(8) Intel Inside: Now here is player who is playing smart. Intel is doing the non-fancy yet effective part of marketing. Every now and then when a laptop ad comes up, comes along like a pop up, the Intel Inside, core 2 duo, 3 second clip with their particular tin-teen-ti-ting audio.
It is like marketing every laptop has Intel inside, AMD has a lot of ground to cover in India. And they better start now, with Intel becoming more and more synonymous with Computer processors in India.

There might be a few who have skipped my mind... I don't boast a heavy hard-disk! Any comments and discussions over the same are more than welcome.

Internships and Jugad

In this post and the one following this, I have tried to chalk out some key points for any college student who wants to do training or an internship in inter-semester breaks.

For one you can use the age-old, tried and tested, Indian-Jugad (which I used for a 6 week training at Bhabha Atomic Research Center, Bombay to help me out with the mandatory technical training after my 2nd year of B.Tech). Jugad takes you places where you actually don’t deserve to be and makes going around the loops lot easier. I would suggest you to take this route only when it comes to mandatory internships in fields you are not actually psyched up about. So don't use it in fields you feel, you can be good at or at good at, as they have limited scope in terms of opportunities and learning. Remember Jugad is a Jugad and not an alternative for hard-earned, well-deserved position someplace.

Anyway here are some points to help you with "Jugad":
(1) The network: Go through your network and find people who may help. The number will be more than you might actually think. Seniors, friends, Profs, Aunts & Uncles and relatives everybody counts in.
(2) (Jugad) ^2: forge contacts with people who are following the same philosophy, the good thing about Jugad is that it works for a common good, the greater good. Some of your friends would not like to feel lonely; some are even instructed to bring friends along with them. So you can tag along with them and this is the easiest way to go about things in the Jugad world.
(3) After you land up with an internship never-ever admit to having used it to an official. Act as if you deserved to be there, and it is all thanks to the stellar ability of yours. You don't know who may decide to blow a whistle or at a less grave level make a wrong impression about you.
(4) Don't over use it. Nothing kills like overkill. Sooner or later you will knock into someone who will give you a hell of kick ass for using it and even your tungsten balls (read your Jugad and contact) won't save you then. So be wary of using it, even if you are Mayavati's youngest nephew or only daughter of a dear friend of the son of the in-laws of Laloo's brother.

In the next post I will discuss about the Non-Jugadi method, some ways our political class would approve of in the face of media glare.

The non Jugadi Method

The prelude:

What about Jugad in fields, you feel you are good at or have a definite passion for? Strict unwritten rule: NO JUGAD. Trust your instincts and abilities; they will easily outdistance the five letter word. Trust yourself to swim in unfriendly waters. So what is the “ethically right and functionally better” route? Well you will have to apply through usual channels, some applications will be unsolicited, yet you would mail them. Some will turn you down even without a reply; some will do that in writing thus would be more polite. Then there will be some who would offer you what you are not looking for and a rather meager number of those who would be interested in what you are willing to give and work for. So how to go about this rather tiring exercise?

As is the case with many college students, one doesn't have a corporate or official work experience to boast off, so we have to rely on the extra-curricular and educational activities during our college and some stellar performances in high school (Keep them to minimum though). Your employers or prospective mentors have no choice but to trust their gut when it comes to selecting people for an internship/2month training. So make it easy for them by giving an honest and holistic review about yourself in not more than three pages (Excluding cover letter). I can’t overstate the importance of honesty, even without certificates they can incriminate and you will be digging a hole if it turns out to be a fruitful relationship and just a petty lie to ruin it.

If you feel like experience and exploration are key issues to you, you can seriously think about working in a start-up. You might have to let go any summer-money dreams but you might get a real firsthand experience, with a job you are held accountable for and a Pre placement offer as well! Start-ups work on a shoe-strung budget and have a dearth of human resource, so they usually don’t mind a helping hand but they can’t pay you much for that. Mostly remuneration is performance-based. For a search on start-ups Google "top start-ups" "start-up competitions india" etc.

So how to go about writing your resume and making sure it reaches the right people?

You will have to make a sales-pitch and dig all over the net to find the right people to pitch it to. But the process is not as scary as it may sound; if you use the smart keywords for search you can easily get the contact info of at least 100 companies within a couple of days. You might think selling, marketing is “phony”, “unethical” at times but even good products have to be sold. Without the right marketing nobody will take you, or you would underachieve relative to what you could have. You wouldn't be hired without you convincing them that you are a good product to invest into. So if you let me, we can now look into how to make a good and convincing sales-pitch.

The cover letter and resume are covered next.

Where the Cover Letter and Resume are the protagonists...

Cover Letter: The first impression, make sure it is worth reading and investing time. Most resumes don't see the day light thanks to a lousy cover letter.

Respected Sir/Ma’am,

Para 1 (3-5 lines): What do u want?
What you know about their business. Make it personal and tailor-made rather than one letter for all. Induct their company’s/ College’s/ Professor’s name and business/Profile into your first paragraph. In one or two lines describe their business/Research as perceived by you.
How you think the future would be for the organization or the concerned person’s research topic.

Para 2: who are you? What are you doing at present? What are your areas of interest? How you have pursued those areas, I would suggest to be vague and don’t give any specifics at this point of time. How you think this internship will help you in your endeavors? Is it some mandatory requirement for your degree or you are doing it as a self-interest!

Para 3: How it is a symbiotic relationship, a mutual benefit? What they/he/she should expect to gain? Talk about how this is a long term investment, how you see this as a start of a long term relationship rather than a one time, 2 month deal.

Para 4: What monetary gains you expect for yourself: I wrote and believe in: "I personally believe in nothing more than Operational Reimbursement and of course that too contingent on performance". Give a thought for a person who is investing both time and money in you without any idea about your abilities or you as a person, at least this is one safety net you should give to that poor chap (buch of chaps).

Closing statements before the verdict is issued: Should you have any questions you may reach me via phone or e-mail.
Thank you for your consideration and wish you every success in your endeavors. I look forward to becoming a part of your team.
Please find my resume attached with this mail.

Greetings and your name, organization’s name you are officially affiliated with, mob no, email-id.

P.S: Emphasize on your delivering capability and how they have every right to kick you out in case you don’t live up to their expectations or not able to deliver what you promised. But let them know that you are confident that such a scenario won’t materialize and how you respect their resources.

Add some humor in case you have something: I added the apology for plausible duplicate mails and how we are not very proud of our bandwidth and internet usage at NITK.

Include this if required: In case the degree you are pursuing has no relevance to your interest or you would not like it to be considered as the basis for the internship (As was the case with me, with my engineering degree having no correlation with my business interests.). Please make a due note of it to avoid unnecessary confusion.

The process of finding relevant contacts: I was looking for startups with my interest hinged upon business and management, so every successful startup was my target. I looked up for startup competitions and found the best companies. For really good prospects, invest time to look into their web-site or blog so that you understand what they do and are better prepared for interviews over the phone.

The process of emailing: Divide your prospective employers in two categories, one you have real enthusiasm for and one just because you stumbled upon them, you should mail them.
So for the first category go for tailor-made, business specific emails.
For the second category spam but not in hundreds, say ten email ids per mail. In the first paragraph let them know about your limitation and how this is not a spam.


Now coming to The Attachment: Duh! your resume. The funda is KISS (Keep it simple and stupid).

Name
Full address
Mob. No.
Email address

Education: Just talk about your current degree and no high school bragging. You can add your percentage or Grade point average in case it is relevant (Your study has anything to do with the internship) or is really good (say a distinction or above 8.0 CGPA) despite otherwise.


Interests: I included apart from the core interest: business/entrepreneurial, some co-curricular interests like writing (and Blog URL), painting, reading and more specifically like SAAS, WEB 2.0 (the domains of a significant number of companies I was applying to).

Achievements/ Activities: can highlight some stellar performance in high school, but don’t go overboard with it. What you won, achieved in the past and what you are currently working on or looking forward to.

Qualifications: Apart from the degree you mentioned about in the first paragraph any certifications or other qualifications like computer languages. For me it was NCFM modules.

Experience: Even though it may be a complete zero in actual terms, tie in the small experiences which have brought you this far. For me some were like a couple of failed ventures and other practical business activities. What I learnt, how was the experience?, and include figures like by how much percentage you improved the performance, or how much was your ROI in the business.

Career Summary: Short and sweet two lines which sum up everything.

Future Goals: Plans for immediate future, don’t clutter with long-distance plans.

Skills: Skills which are expected but not enunciated in broad day light, like proficiency in Office or Excel, presentation skills, aptitude, and leadership etc-etc. Try to include examples wherever possible.


Please care to notify in case i missed on some important point. Good Luck. And yes start 2-3 months in advance with the procedure of searching and applying, this gives you ample time in case they do want you to do some offsite work before-hand and improves the probability of you striking gold.

NITK Surathkal And Engineering in general...

Well many thanks to people who have posted comments or asked relevant questions regarding NITK Surathkal or Engineering in general... all of those along with my replies are in the comment section in the post "NITK SURATHKAL: From the eyes of a student (batch-2010)...."
I plan to integrate all that into a new post sometime in coming weeks as most of the doubts cater to all the freshers in general and ain't very case specific. So for now you may treat them as a separate post with some insights... feel free to go through and may be they would answer some of your own questions...
Look forward to help to the best of my capabilities... thanks... good luck...

a couple of things:
1) go with your gut rather than your parents' coz it is your life and only you would have to live it and in case you botch up, to your credit least you did it yourself and this my friends feels much better, i speak from great experience here.

2) KISS: Keep it simple and stupid... don't clutter your mind with more and more mind boggling, unnecessary scenarios. Anxiety and misery have some magnetism, so save yourself... whatever may be the college, if it is known to be at least a good one for some years, and you commit to being in the top 15%, you will sooner than later end up with the same opportunities which a premium college would have provided... the only differences a reputed college makes is in Post graduation resume, recommendations for the same and for placements the benefits just stay with the 1st job....

3) Be wary of the fact that whatever you may like today or feel like having enthu for, can become history in no time, over the time you spend in college.... so go about with an open-mindset and see the things for yourself before clinging to one or another. i.e Go ahead with Dual degrees, MS, Phd courses with a lot of introspection...
before committing to something please explore how much knowledge you really have about that field... Google should be your best friend in this endeavor...

4) don't let yourself be bound by the regional boundaries when it comes to choosing college... explore... this is the best time of your life to do that and there is so much to learn... by living in the cocoon which many parents want (Knowingly or unknowingly) for them to feel secure, will only spoil you for the worse and would be not be unlike a frog in the well with no idea what is beyond....North Indians especially please explore south unless you are getting a seat in IITD, PEC, DCE, NSIT....learn/unlearn... make new friends....JUST EXPLORE...

the month of may...

The business internship i was so eagerly looking forward to has not given much breathing space let alone peace of mind to pull together enough strength to write something if not earth-shattering at least a piece of value, so :-(...

Hate to see no posts in 2-3 months...hopefully the twenty20 WC will help get over the exhaustion. Whenever the topic of home used to come up, i with a bit of cockiness used to claim being non-homesick(tough and resilient like the artificial grass i am marketing here) but this is quite clearly not the case anymore (I have come to realize how friends in college are real life saviors)...life without family and on top of it no friends becomes miserable to very core....

life is full of trade-offs and choices, sometimes your gut works, sometimes it doesn't. in a place where you have no friends, not even acquaintances a backfiring gut can become life threateningly cruel (some exaggeration of course).

still there will be Sunrise on dark horizons...and there will be some more posts... :)