Friday, November 13, 2009

Amazon Kindle’s viability in India (Wharton Article)

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A really informative article on Knowledge@WhartonIndia about the viability and market potential of Amazon Kindle’s entry into Indian Market caught my eye.

Post the launch of Kindle DX, which was much fanfare, it hasn’t gained much a momentum. Indian market doesn’t seem to have given an open arm to this new ebook Reader on the shelf.

"There is no plan to advertise the Kindle," says Laura Porco, director of Kindle Books, who was in Mumbai last month for the launch. "We will rely on word-of-mouth publicity."

 

But who is going to create a word of mouth. Indians are pretty stiff about talking good about something. On top of that, connectivity in India (on the fly) is not much to support Amazon’s vision of “download any book in 60 seconds”.

At a price of $350 it is really difficult for an Indian consumer (the regular 9-to-5) to imaging buying a tablet that only reads books and newspaper. The same price brings her a laptop, with many more features. At the same time, the biggest enabler to Kindle is connectivity, which will take much more time to make it possible for the “60 second download”.

For the full article jump here

 

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The World's Most Powerful People – FORBES

Forbes in a special report on Nov 11, has released a list of 67 most important people in the world.

Here is the full list.

Obama for the most obvious reasons stands on top of this list. Four of them are Indians. Osama bin laden also takes a seat in this list (God knows where he is now)

1. Barack Obama 24. Kim Jong Il 47. Dominique Strauss-Kahn
2. Hu Jintao 25. Jean-Claude Trichet 48. Zhou Xiaochuan
3. Vladimir Putin 26. Masaaki Shirakawa 49. John Roberts Jr.
4. Ben S. Bernanke 27. Sheikh Ahmed bin Zayed al Nahyan 50. Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar
5. Sergey Brin and Larry Page 28. Akio Toyoda 51. William Keller
6. Carlos Slim Helu 29. Gordon Brown 52. Bernard Arnault
7. Rupert Murdoch 30. James S. Dimon 53. Joseph S. Blatter
8. Michael T. Duke 31. Bill Clinton 54. Wadah Khanfar
9. Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al Saud 32. William H. Gross 55. Lakshmi Mittal
10. William Gates III 33. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva 56. Nicolas Sarkozy
11. Pope Benedict XVI 34. Lou Jiwei 57. Steve Jobs
12. Silvio Berlusconi 35. Yukio Hatoyama 58. Fujio Mitarai
13. Jeffrey R. Immelt 36. Manmohan Singh 59. Ratan Tata
14. Warren Buffett 37. Osama bin Laden 60. Jacques Rogge
15. Angela Merkel 38. Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani 61. Li Rongrong
16. Laurence D. Fink 39. Tenzin Gyatso 62. Blairo Maggi
17. Hillary Clinton 40. Ali Hoseini-Khamenei 63. Robert B. Zoellick
18. Lloyd C. Blankfein 41. Joaquin Guzman 64. Antonio Guterres
19. Li Changchun 42. Igor Sechin 65. Mark John Thompson
20. Michael Bloomberg 43. Dmitry Medvedev 66. Klaus Schwab
21. Timothy Geithner 44. Mukesh Ambani 67. Hugo Chavez
22. Rex W. Tillerson 45. Oprah Winfrey  
23. Li Ka-shing 46. Benjamin Netanyahu  

 

For the full report click here

Friday, November 6, 2009

Amazon Kindle’s viability in India (Wharton Article)

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A really informative article on Knowledge@WhartonIndia about the viability and market potential of Amazon Kindle’s entry into Indian Market caught my eye.

Post the launch of Kindle DX, which was much fanfare, it hasn’t gained much a momentum. Indian market doesn’t seem to have given an open arm to this new ebook Reader on the shelf.

"There is no plan to advertise the Kindle," says Laura Porco, director of Kindle Books, who was in Mumbai last month for the launch. "We will rely on word-of-mouth publicity."

 

But who is going to create a word of mouth. Indians are pretty stiff about talking good about something. On top of that, connectivity in India (on the fly) is not much to support Amazon’s vision of “download any book in 60 seconds”.

At a price of $350 it is really difficult for an Indian consumer (the regular 9-to-5) to imaging buying a tablet that only reads books and newspaper. The same price brings her a laptop, with many more features. At the same time, the biggest enabler to Kindle is connectivity, which will take much more time to make it possible for the “60 second download”.

For the full article jump here

 

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Workshop on "When your Brand is your Business" @ WE School (Welingkar), Bangalore

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Welingkar Institute of Management, Bangalore

is organizing a B2B Branding Workshop on 13th November 2009.

The theme of which is :

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This one day event would be featuring good practices in the space of Corporate Brand Management.

Speakers include:

  • Sachin Mulay (GM, Strategy Marketing at Wipro)
  • Raghu B. Viswanath (MD of Vertebrand)
  • Pandrang Row (Partner at Vertibrand)
  • Dr. Githa Heggde (Head of Marketing at WE School, Bangalore).

This event is in joint organization with:-

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The keynote points that will be covered are:

  • Importance of Branding for B2B
  • Developing a Good/Strong Brand
  • A Company’s Intelligence and Personality of a Brand
  • Importance of Design, Creativity in Branding

Who should attend:

All those interesting in selling their business to another business. And to students and academicians of business management, this is an interesting workshop

For registration, details and further information please contact

Soumya Chakraborty (+91 9886713367)
email:soumya.chakraborty(at)gmail(dot)com

 

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Friday, October 23, 2009

Before and After Internet

Here are two contrasting mind-maps on 5 different aspects of the world – Communication, Information, Business, Finance and People.

Before Internet

WORLD BEFORE INTERNET

 

After Internet

WORLD AFTER INTERNET

 

I may have missed a couple of things. Please comment if there are points that can be added. I will update the mind-maps appropriately.

 

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Thursday, October 22, 2009

Is it the “What” or “When” that defines entrepreneurship?

From past few days, there have been lot of discussions happening in life around a concept very close to my heart– Entrepreneurship.

 

Someone who’s quite experienced to have started his own business, told me, that if you want to start something, don’t wait for the perfect idea to emerge, rather jump right into the bandwagon and take the risk. Entrepreneurship is not about answering “What do we start?”. In fact it is about answering the question “Do we start…now?

 

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Monday, October 19, 2009

TRUTH is a loaded word

From “Personality Not Included” by Rohit Bhargava

 

Truth is a loaded word. Marketing is not about the search for truth, and we all know it. If it were, no one would believe that a bottle of water shipped halfway across the world with an image of a Swiss mountain on it was any more healthy than one bottled in a Coca-Cola plant in Connecticut. To compensate for having a less than interesting “truth” behind their products, brands often invent a truth. If I told you the number of times I have been in meetings where people debated whether we should use the word healthful or healthy to describe a product, you’d understand the pain involved in trying to find a truth. Maybe you feel it already.

 

I like this specifically, because it talks of the falseness of TRUTH in marketing and its so much TRUE…

Quite a pun of words, eh!

 

I am also looking forward to reading “The NEW NEW thing” by Michael Lewis. I borrowed it from my professor, but more of a friend Mr Pankaj Guglani, Founder, REDQUANTA.com

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Wisdom in Knowledge Management

A tap, water, bucket, a person is data. The water comes from tap and fills the bucket is information. The phenomena that the person daily turns the water tap to fill the bucket is knowledge.

Then what is wisdom : The ability of the person to take a decision when to turn the tap on and when to turn it off, and most importantly why to turn it on or off is wisdom.

Wisdom is not just the application of knowledge. But it is the application at the right time, right place and in the right manner.
Humans are wise, per se. Every decision making process is an output of a wise choice.

Wisdom plays the role of the judge when the case of choosing between alternatives is presented in front of the court of brain.

Wisdom exists due to one sole fact of life : That life is a pattern of intertwined web of strings, each of which represent a set of "Cause And Effect". And that the brain needs to not just look at these strings but also the rationality and emotionality of the "Cause and Effect". Wisdom is the force that will act on the strings to create a perfect balance of strength and durability ( read "right and sustainable decision")

This brings out a very interesting topic : Is wisdom manageable.
Interestingly I came across few articles and websites, where a lot of discussion on the "Possibility of Wisdom management" is taking place. Quoting a few :

http://manypossibilities.net/2008/04/wisdom-of-knowledge-management/
http://www.greenchameleon.com/gc/blog_detail/wisdom_management/
http://knowledgefutures.wordpress.com/2008/04/16/wisdom-management-and-wisdom-leadership/
http://www.actkm.org/

To end this thread here's a thought :
“If brain were like a planet, then data, information and knowledge would be like humans in varying levels of intelligence and wisdom would be like the culture that integrates all three to have a meaningful existence.”

(Thanks to Prof Arkalgud Ramaprasad, whose five day session on KM and the practical approach of using a wiki, has intrigued me to write this article. Hopefully more will come on knowledge management)