Friday, May 22, 2009

The visual trove

There are few people who are unique, who are innovative, who are talented or gifted with a talent...And these people in the below videos fall into one of these categories and they are inspiring. Although these people stand in the news for a certain epoch of time, I still love to hear the speech by Steve Jobs even if it was done 3 years ago. Be in business or anything in life, there are two main things that are pretty hard to have - One is determination and another one is creativity. Only few people have these two in life and they tend to taste the essence of success. Enjoy the videos :)

Steve's commencement speech @ stanford:


The 'Sixth' sense:
http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/index.htm#VIDEOS

Tribes:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/lang/eng/seth_godin_on_the_tribes_we_lead.html

Happy @ work?
http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/05/7_ways_to_be_happier_at_work.html

Britain's got talent:
Similar to 'American idol', this one had news on Susan Boyle for months and her video got youtube hits in 6-8 digits I guess. But Shaheen's performance speaks it all...the charm of a 12 year old :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wqyEjkX_m4&feature=related

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Thursday, July 24, 2008

Start-up...

I was reading this 'What inspires people to startup?' and suddenly this flashed my mind - 'What inspires me to startup?' Literally speaking, I dont have a startup but I would like to... It's my dream...My pathway to Success!...That's my wish, my hope for future and what not? Easier said than done :) I remember watching the KWA show in VijayTV where the music legend ARR talked about his dream of making an Orchaestrial Symphony and that inspired him to start his conservatory. It took him 8 years to implement this idea.

Actually speaking, it is not easy to set a startup. Everyone knows that. It requires years of toil and passion, plethora of ideas, capital, resources etc., On the other day, I was talking to one of my friends when he quoted about his group of friends who have a small startup and what they do in business. As always, I had the same question - "When they are devoid of ideas after their startup goes fine for few years, what will they do? It's nervecracking when I think about it...". But got an answer from him that it's not like the way I think. When you start and move forward, you will always have various areas of improvement and enhancement that keeps you going. Maybe, he's true.

It's fascinating to hear people's success stories but at the same time it's a great learning too...For some of them, entrepreneurship is dream, to some - it's money, to some - it's ideas, to some - it's that passion in that area that percolated their minds, to some - it's an outer world from the 8/5 monotonous job....If you ask, to me what it is? It's a blend of all these above :))

There are not much people in India who would like to give it a shot. People are afraid of taking risks but want to savor the taste of success...But if there is someone who could give me support and motivation, it would be a great asset to me...Wat say???

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Saturday, June 14, 2008

'Go, Kiss the world'

Subrato Bagchi, the COO of MindTree Consulting in India has released his latest book 'Go,kiss the world'.While I was grazing over the news lines today and checking for this book, stumbled upon the link for the speech that he gave 4 years back @ IIM. Simple thoughts, realistic life's happenings and the principles that he has inculcated from his life, is worth reading and following!

Those I liked:
"I have to create a bloom in a desert and whenever I am given a new place, I must leave it more beautiful than what I had inherited".

"You should leave your newspaper and your toilet, the way you expect to find it".

Imagination is everything. If we can imagine a future, we can create it, if we can create that future, others will live in it. That is the essence of success.

Success is about the sense of independence. Success is your ability to rise above your discomfort, whatever may be your current state. It is about giving back more to life than you take out of it. It is about creating extra-ordinary success with ordinary lives.

Go, read the full version here...
http://1stholistic.com/reading/prose/A2004/liv_go-kiss-the-world.htm

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Sunday, April 13, 2008

M & M...

These two M’s have a lot in common. That’s how I have felt most of the times, although I am prone to think about these two M’s only on very few occasions…The first ‘M’ is Marriage and the second ‘M’ is Marketing. Instead of comparing these M’s, I can say they go together – Marriage Marketing. When I say Marriage, I am only talking about the arranged marriages. Let’s take a look at the comparison:

- Marketing is a societal process which discerns consumers' wants, focusing on a product/service to fulfill those wants, attempting to move the consumers toward the products or services offered. Marriage also is! Maybe the product, consumer, service is different in this case – The consumer being the Bride/Groom, Product being the long term relationship and the services offered are many…

- Marketing is fundamental to any business growth. So as Marriage! Where the business is called “life after marriage”

- The marketing teams (marketers) are tasked to create consumer awareness of the products or services through marketing techniques. And marriage has the marketers – The Guy or the Girl who has to create awareness of their interests, ambition, lifestyle etc., to the opposite sex before forming a relationship

- Unless it pays due attention to its products and services and consumers' demographics and desires, a business will not usually prosper over time. Unless it pays due care and affection, a marriage will not prosper over time

- Marketing tends to be seen as a creative industry, which includes advertising, distribution and selling. Marriage is also seen as a creative industry which includes advertising, distribution and selling wherein you have to be creative enough to market yourself suiting the needs of the other

- It is also concerned with anticipating the customers' future needs and wants, which are often discovered through market research. Yeah! Marriage marketing does that too…Do a research in all matrimonial sites…you’ll know…:)

- Essentially, marketing is the process of creating or directing an organization to be successful in selling a product or service that people not only desire, but are willing to buy. And in marriage, the organization is the families who try to sell their own product to another organization where people desire to get this product…Got it???

Therefore good marketing must be able to create a "proposition" or set of benefits for the end customer that delivers value through products or services.

Specialist areas in common:

Direct Marketing – Guy and Gal meet at the Gal’s house – The ‘Penn Parkum Padalam’

Communication – Guy and Gal talks over the phone to get to know each other

Advertising – This comes way before the above two…Uploading your personal biodata in matrimonial web portals :)

Database research – Courtesy would be all matrimonial portals and Sangams

Event Organization – The perusugal who organizes for the PPP indicated in the first line

Branding – Based on the Caste and religion categories

Retailing – When everything said above works out and product is set for purchase

It’s a generic thought among most of the people that getting a job or running a business is much easy than purchasing a product in Marriage marketing…100% true…

Although I am not bothered about these two M’s, I am happy that my first business case study has come out well…’The Marriage Marketing’..Howzaat???

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Sunday, March 23, 2008

E-week challenge winners

If anyone want to know the background of e-week challenge, here is my previous post on this. http://reflectionsraji.blogspot.com/2008/02/beyond-borders-innovation.html

The Stanford's e-week challenge winners have been announced. This time, the everyday object provided for the challenge was 'Rubber band'. The team 'Rubberband together' created a ball out of a bunch of rubberbands and their goal was to sell it for $1/band. The sales value will go for the Breast Cancer foundation. The Team has a website too: www.rubberbandtogether.com. Check it out!

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Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Babson's Entrepreneurship

Look at the statistics of Babson College - Arthur's Centre of Entrepreneurship.
Number of entrepreneurship courses: 53
Enrolled students: 1583 of which 13.6% started a business
Percentage still in business: 89%
Faculty who are entrepreneurs: 95%
Recent grads who started a business: 12%
Percentage still in business: 100%
Scholarships: $150,000
Number of entrepreneurship clubs: 13
Mentorship programs: 10
Business plan competition: Yes; Prize: $35,000

Good that I noticed this atleast now. All that I checked was Stanfords and Harvards which doesn't actually have good Entrepreneurship programs.

Thanks to Entrepreneur.com for throwing some light on this!

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Monday, March 10, 2008

The Dropouts

Tiger Woods (Golf champion) - Stanford dropout
Bill Gates (Microsoft) - Stanford dropout
Steve Jobs (Apple, Pixar) - Reed dropout
Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) - Stanford dropout
Steve Wozniack (Apple co-founder) - Berkeley dropout
Gautam Adani (Adani Ent. - Asia's 2nd richest person) - School dropout

Although all these people are school/college drop-outs, they are tycoons now and modeled great strategies in their field. Does this mean preparing for failure can bring you success? If your child falls under this dropout category, don't scold him/her. Who knows? He/She might become a tycoon one day :) Jus kiddin'!

Source: Web

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