Saturday, July 12, 2008
Confused... :S
I was trying to test the internet connection speed at home today, and I saw so many links online which could do this. Each one giving different results.. :S Anyone out there knows how I can check it? And what all parameters I should check?
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Marketing Strategies?
Sometime this week, I was reading the newspaper and saw an ad about a management institute. It covered a whole page and has been seen very consistently in the last few days. Till recently, they had their tag line as "Dare to think beyond the IIMs". It was annoying enough to see a not-so-well-known institute making a statement like that. But the latest ad crossed all limits when it said - "Dare to think beyond the IITs". Then, they also print the photo of the dean of their institute, who had written one best seller loooong ago. Apparently he is a management guru. And they have a note below his picture saying that to know about his skills, we should read his best seller book.
The first thing that struck me when I read this ad was - either the guy who has written this ad is still in 5th Std, or, maybe this institute is one of those which hasn't got enough recognition inspite of good work. Or, maybe I was just totally ignorant about this institute. Hoping that someone would go - "What! You don't know this institute? Its almost as good as the IIM!", I decided to find out about the institute. And, after learning some things about it, what can I say? I haven't been more disappointed about an ad before. Anyway, I go to visit their website to check if they have some rankings put up. I see that they have "Rankings don't matter" in one of their sections, and yet, put up an ad saying that they are ranked so-and-so in a top magazine. Disappointing. Especially considering that the dean of the institute is one of the more successful management guys in India.
Then, I started to wonder, how should an upcoming management institute advertise? Well, I might not be able to give insights on advertising technicalities, but here are my 2 cents -
1. Do not compare yourself to the big competitors you have, esp if you haven't made a lasting impression on the public from a long time. You need to first make a name for yourself.
2. Do not intentionally use a name which *sounds like* your competitor's name. You are out there to make a name for yourself, and have an identity of your own. ( Seriously, I have not understood the motivation to use names like that - do these people think that educated public falls for these kinda things?)
3. You might have the most successful guy in the field as the head of the institute, but you still need people who are NOT connected to the institute and who have NO compulsion for praising the institute, to make statements about how good you are. Just putting up "promises" from the dean would not persuade people to join. )
Well, those are the few things I could think of. But I am sure any MBA guy with a decent advertising experience could think of better strategies.
The first thing that struck me when I read this ad was - either the guy who has written this ad is still in 5th Std, or, maybe this institute is one of those which hasn't got enough recognition inspite of good work. Or, maybe I was just totally ignorant about this institute. Hoping that someone would go - "What! You don't know this institute? Its almost as good as the IIM!", I decided to find out about the institute. And, after learning some things about it, what can I say? I haven't been more disappointed about an ad before. Anyway, I go to visit their website to check if they have some rankings put up. I see that they have "Rankings don't matter" in one of their sections, and yet, put up an ad saying that they are ranked so-and-so in a top magazine. Disappointing. Especially considering that the dean of the institute is one of the more successful management guys in India.
Then, I started to wonder, how should an upcoming management institute advertise? Well, I might not be able to give insights on advertising technicalities, but here are my 2 cents -
1. Do not compare yourself to the big competitors you have, esp if you haven't made a lasting impression on the public from a long time. You need to first make a name for yourself.
2. Do not intentionally use a name which *sounds like* your competitor's name. You are out there to make a name for yourself, and have an identity of your own. ( Seriously, I have not understood the motivation to use names like that - do these people think that educated public falls for these kinda things?)
3. You might have the most successful guy in the field as the head of the institute, but you still need people who are NOT connected to the institute and who have NO compulsion for praising the institute, to make statements about how good you are. Just putting up "promises" from the dean would not persuade people to join. )
Well, those are the few things I could think of. But I am sure any MBA guy with a decent advertising experience could think of better strategies.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
What if...
Remember those stories we heard in childhood - about Spiderman, Superman, Phantom and other super heroes? Remember how amazed and happy we were when he heard these stories? Most of us would probably have made a secret promise to ourselves to become like one of them some day. Ahh.. those childhood fantasies!! :)
And, after so many years we think of them again, and they don't appear to be anything more than comic stories now. Maybe most of us don't even recollect what those promises were. But there are still a couple of us who believe secretly that, someday, God may become kind enough to grant us that wish. The wish to climb buildings like Spiderman, or, the wish to rule the world, the wish to be the favorite of everyone in the world, the wish to apparate...
Anyway, what if we do have a little out-of-the-way but still close-to-reality kind of wish? Maybe the next big thing science can amaze the world with? Like, for example what if we could program our minds to be able to hear and understand everything told/thought about us by people when we aren't around.
Like, say, you've had an interview and want to know right then, what the interviewers thought about you. You would get an exact picture of what they thought about you and what they actually told you. Try as hard as they may, but you would know whether they exactly meant what they said. You would know who your true friends/well wishers really are. And, you would know whether your boss means what he says about you. Handling people will be a lot easier because you would know what's exactly on their minds. I hate to say this, but this would probably help guys to understand girls a lot better. :P Maybe, also in those corner cases, this would help the girls too, where guys act weirder than girls would generally do.
And, for all those people who think this wish sounds a little too self-obsessive, we could have a beta-2 version - in which you give a particular person's name as an input to the program, and feed to any random person's mind. You would know what that random person exactly thinks about that particular person.
Maybe in a world where everyone would speak their mind out and stop acting diplomatic, this wish would be futile. Maybe its not a great thing to know all the time what people think about you. Like, when your friends plan a surprise party for you. But then, which super power did not have drawbacks?
And, after so many years we think of them again, and they don't appear to be anything more than comic stories now. Maybe most of us don't even recollect what those promises were. But there are still a couple of us who believe secretly that, someday, God may become kind enough to grant us that wish. The wish to climb buildings like Spiderman, or, the wish to rule the world, the wish to be the favorite of everyone in the world, the wish to apparate...
Anyway, what if we do have a little out-of-the-way but still close-to-reality kind of wish? Maybe the next big thing science can amaze the world with? Like, for example what if we could program our minds to be able to hear and understand everything told/thought about us by people when we aren't around.
Like, say, you've had an interview and want to know right then, what the interviewers thought about you. You would get an exact picture of what they thought about you and what they actually told you. Try as hard as they may, but you would know whether they exactly meant what they said. You would know who your true friends/well wishers really are. And, you would know whether your boss means what he says about you. Handling people will be a lot easier because you would know what's exactly on their minds. I hate to say this, but this would probably help guys to understand girls a lot better. :P Maybe, also in those corner cases, this would help the girls too, where guys act weirder than girls would generally do.
And, for all those people who think this wish sounds a little too self-obsessive, we could have a beta-2 version - in which you give a particular person's name as an input to the program, and feed to any random person's mind. You would know what that random person exactly thinks about that particular person.
Maybe in a world where everyone would speak their mind out and stop acting diplomatic, this wish would be futile. Maybe its not a great thing to know all the time what people think about you. Like, when your friends plan a surprise party for you. But then, which super power did not have drawbacks?
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Coincidences?
Today, I had been to the temple and just saw two friends meet each other. Both total strangers to me. But the smile on their faces when they surprisingly looked at each other, was something I haven't seen in a long time now. :)
How many times has it happened to you that you are continuously thinking of someone and suddenly that person comes right in front of you? Well, it has happened to me once and I remember it to be one of the happiest moments. :) Its like God expressing how much HE loves you and decides to grant you a wish, and bingo! you see what you want to see.
All this looks so simple, right? But is it all just about coincidences? Or, are they actually tricks God plays with us? Like parents do when they play with their kids? Just wondering on how these things work.. I've heard that the world maintains an order in which things work. And that things don't generally happen, by chance. There is a pre-planned sequence of things in which things go. And it is all having some reasoning. Hmmm...
How many times has it happened to you that you are continuously thinking of someone and suddenly that person comes right in front of you? Well, it has happened to me once and I remember it to be one of the happiest moments. :) Its like God expressing how much HE loves you and decides to grant you a wish, and bingo! you see what you want to see.
All this looks so simple, right? But is it all just about coincidences? Or, are they actually tricks God plays with us? Like parents do when they play with their kids? Just wondering on how these things work.. I've heard that the world maintains an order in which things work. And that things don't generally happen, by chance. There is a pre-planned sequence of things in which things go. And it is all having some reasoning. Hmmm...
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
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