THE Y-AXIS by Rajesh Kumar

I was fairly amused to read excerpts from former President Kalam's former secretary PM Nair's book via this report, which gives a real description of the conversation between Kalam and Musharraf as it happened.   “Mr President, like India you also have a lot of rural areas,” Kalam said, and put a poser, “Don’t you think we should both do whatever is possible to develop them on priority?” As Musharraf said “Yes”, Kalam wasted no time to detail his “favourite” subject of Providing Urban Facilities in Rural Areas (PURA). It took 26 minutes to brief Musharraf on PURA. The duration of this meeting was 30 mins. That kind of reminded me of my own post, done about a year back, which was titled, "Humour:A conversation between Presidents Kalam and Musharraf which never happened" . Musharraf: Mr. President, my entire country right upto every single child wants…. Kalam: Ah, children. In my last five y...

I was reading with great amazement the stats revealed by the MD of Nokia India on India's mobile revolution. But before I go to the statement, it ought to be noted that the MD of a mobile phone company was speaking at Goafest which is all about advertising, marketing and media planning. Read Saurabh Garg's or Rajiv Dhingra for more . So what's the relation between advertising and mobile phones? The connection is content, as well as new emergent channel of 3G services of mobile, which allow content to be captured and shared with much ease. And when there is content and a channel, advertising cannot be far behind. Now look at the slightly hyperbolic statement from D Shivakumar, MD of Nokia India. “If YouTube is big, 3G services here will redefine the space. YouTube will pale into insignificance in the next few years with India user-generated content” If you wish to point out that YouTube does not enable content creation, only dissemination, your point is taken. He ...

I have read The Tipping Point   by Malcolm Gladwell and even commented about it in passing . I did like the central point of that book and though been meaning to read Blink ( Full title is Blink- The Power of Thinking without Thinking ) but then reading has been a little low of late. Finally I am resuming (with great hopes!) my reading for 2008 by borrowing Blink from my boss' personal collection (I am blessed- he's quite a bibliophile). Meanwhile, do check out SR's and prolific reader Heather's impressions of this book. I shall come back with my thoughts few days from now. Related post: Shelfari is a book lover's delight.

I clicked this picture in the parking outside my office -I found it simple and crisp. I am not talking more, let the ad talk for itself - see below.   The medium of communication - copy on a tyre - provides an instant connect with the service being promoted, which is tyre puncture (or flat tire) repair service with a mobility. The placement of the ad in the parking area is just apt.The ad is not loaded with unnecessary detail. I was amazed by this intelligent ad! Do we really need to outsource creativity or necessarily expect only gurus to come up with brilliant advertising?!!

Okay, I agree I have been giving too much of this blog's prime real estate to the Times of India upcoming launch in Chennai. Not that I have a great love for current day TOI, but as a graduate of marketing, I feel competition in this media would make the readers great benefits. And yes, I would get to see my childhood newspaper, in my city. To be fair, others have tried to challenge the Hindu in Chennai , the Deccan Chronicle and the New Indian Express are there too, but have not been able to come up anywhere near the market leader.   As I suspected, the outdoor action has started. I noticed this advertising hoarding yesterday on my way to office. The traffic at the Turnbulls Road curve was standstill, giving ample time to click this snap.  While it does not say about what product it is advertising, the hints are that it is a Times of India ad, which is seeking attention and acting as the teaser for something to follow. The artwork is a collage of some newspaper, pres...

This morning I noticed Google Reader was recommending a feed of from one of India's largest telecom service company - BSNL . This company is an example of a corporation being formed out of what was earlier a government department- though its business is to facilitate conversations, it certainly is not one known for having conversations with its own customers - you would know that if you have been a BSNL service subscriber yourself. Needless to say, I quickly added this feed to my list. What attracted me even more was that there were over 70 subscribers already - okay, not very high, but interesting.  I had also noticed the term 'blog' on Indian Income Tax Department main website , as well as Police Blogs, and this whole phenomenon of Government Departments and Government Owned Companies moving towards 'conversation' appeared attractive enough to check out. Cut to BSNL blog. It is actually a news feed, and not a full fledged blog with its own crisp URL (such as ...

The debate on globalisation moves forward. Move over Tom Friendman, here comes Prof Pankaj Ghemawat . To be frank, when I had read Tom Friedman's The World is Flat in 2005 at the height of its frenzy, my first thought was that it is an over hyped reporting, rather than something really based on facts and figures. It is good to hear that a scholar such as Pankaj says the same in this interview with Economic Times . Not that I am an accomplished scholar as Prof Ghemawat to be able to counter Tom Friedman's oh-so-adored theory, but simply put, it appeared to further a romantic idea of globalisation which everyone wanted to hear, rather than something based on facts. I had done a post on this subject on this blog, which incidentally, was among my first blog posts. While I have not read Prof. Ghemawat book Redefining Global Strategy yet, certainly waiting for it to appear in the shelves in India. So what if it was published in Sept 2007- the world is so flat yet.