Saurabh Garg generates gibberish on Culture, Ideas, Marketing and Technology
Archive for June 2008
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If everyone is evangelizing new media and social media, then how come the same “evangelists” get excited about even a small and insignificant mention of their name in the most obscure of the newspapers and TV channels that no one bothers to read/see?
Dichotomy at its very best.
In this post I shall talk about brands as I understand them and as they are applicable to digital brands. Please note that this list is still in beta and will evolve with time. Your feedback would be really appreciated.
This is required because we need to stop looking at startups as just startups but serious businesses where branding plays a vital role. Often, the way you look at the business makes a lot of difference to way you work.
Coming to the point, I think there are three principles. Utility, Emotional Connect and Relationship that goes beyond just one product.
A: Utility
B: Emotional Connect
C: Relationship extending beyond single product
Which one of the three things are valid about your brand? If it does only one, how can it do other things?
Please give your feedback to me at saurabh.garg+digitalbrands@gmail.com
William Henry Gates 3, better known as Bill Gates is retiring from active duty at Microsoft today. This marks an end of an era. An era where a seemingly new line of business was created by Bill Gates and Microsoft. An era that symbolized new generation entrepreneurs taking over the world of business. An era that gave hope to millions of small time businessesmen, dreamers that its actually right to dream and chase them. An era when two young men can produce something that can rule the world some day. An era that envisioned a computer on every desktop. An era that changed the way we work and think. An era that made sure the world is on a rapid path to development.
For me, a computer is probably the most important invention after light bulb and telephone. It made tedious tasks lot easier, faster and fun. This is where Bill Gates played an important role. Gates made sure that a computer is accessible by even an ordinary man. He was the first person to have created an operating system that makes a computer easy to use as a personal tool. And rest as they say, is history.
From a humble beginning, Microsoft went on to become a huge giant in software space. They have an entire suite of productivity and office products. Its fantastic that a company commands a valuation of more than USD 250 bn and most of their revenues come from something that is non-tangible. Compare this with other businesses where at major chunk of valuation comes from tangible and fixed assets. For me, Microsoft is truly the first company that created an empire just on the pillars of information and productivity.
Obviously Bill Gates couldn’t have worked forever at Microsoft and he had to go at some point in time. What’s good about them is that he is leaving at a time when businesses are doing fairly well, obviously there are lots of challenges. Then they have been planning a succession for almost 2 years.
Now that Bill Gates is gone, what happens to Microsoft? I think they already see the company in uints like software, services, gaming and Internet. If at all I was at Microsoft, I would look it as a company that enables people to be more productive (Windows, Office), enables people to connect (FB, Internet, MSN), enables people to entertain themselves (xBox and gaming division) and enables companies to work better (developer applications, programming languages etc.). Moment you start thinking on these lines, there is so much more than your company can be rather than just another software company. You suddenly are playing on a different level altogether.
For a lot of people Bill Gates stands for control, closed-systems, authority and monopoly. Everyone is free to have opinions and if I could defend Mr. Gates, I will use only one line. That Bill Gates is trying to run a business. Everything that he has done was to make sure that his business grows. For me, Bill Gates stands for Entrepreneurship, Business Acumen, Vision, Execution and a Great Mind. Would love to pick his brain some day.
Bill, you will be missed.
Image Credits: Flickr
Vivek posted a very interesting post on Venturewoods and here is my comment on the same.
Hi,
This post could be true for me I could change the location to Mumbai.
Comments by other people have been really interesting and here are my 2 cents on the same.
1. How do you balance the pay packet for a potential employee? Please give two scenarios - (a) You are self funded. (b) You are financially backed by an angel or a VC.
A: If I was self funded I would not have a lot of money to give away. I would be forced to look at things like equity or just share in profits. If it was a VC funded, I would have made adjustments for employee costs in my business plan and hence I would have money. Also my understanding tells me that most VC funded startups HAVE a lot of money.
2. Would you consider the prior experience of a candidate from a different domain, or would you simply consider him/her to be a fresher from your company’s perspective?
A: Tough one. I think depends on what person brings to the table. He could bring his experience, his learnings, his background, his perspective, his contacts, even things as intangible as his enthusiasm. If he brings something that I desire, I will make sure I will recruit him.Talking about fresher or experienced, in a startup personally I dont think I need to have that kind of categorization for people. I want people for skills, not for showing off. Moment I start talking like that I become a lazy, slow moving company.
3. What kind of commitment would you expect from the new hire? What kind of notice periods/bonds would you look at?
A: No notice period. No bonds. Commitment - believe in the idea and evangelize that.
4. What are the legal aspects which you would look into before hiring someone? Would you do extensive background check on the candidate or rely on references or just hire him/her for what value they can bring in?
A: I would want to hire without checks. For me checks waste a lot of time and for a startup, time to market is really crucial. Once we start working, we can always figure out in due course if the person was appropriate or not. And if at a later stage, he is found inappropriate, we can easily part ways.
5. Would you have an age criteria to hire? In other words would you believe that a 21 year old could be as valuable as a 40 year old?
A: No age criteria. Yes a 21 year old can be very valuable. How? You just asked 5 questions that a 40 year old would have never asked. And when you are 21, you are not scared to ask those questions. And thats a huge things to have. There are more areas like understanding of the market from a teenager’s perspective, contacts with more fresh minds and top of everything else enthusiasm and confidence that young people have.
Today India won their first ever Grand Prix Lion at the Cannes Lions. JWT won the award for their work on Lead India campaign for The Times of India Group. The idea was simple yet effective. JWT created a reality TV show to choose an Indian that can become a political leader in times to come. This campaign was executed on print, tv, radio, BTL, Internet, on-ground and almost all the platforms available to reach the consumer.
This Grand Prix is important because it marks the arrival of Indian Advertising on the global scene. Indian advertisers have now proved that they are at par with (if not better than) their counterparts from other markets. It is also important because Lead India was a very visible campaign (compared to other winning ideas that are hardly seen in main stream media).
Congrats to JWT and winning team. Hope this would give inspiration to everyone else in the Indian creative community to create more commercial good work.
UPDATE: JWT also won the Integrated Lion 2008 for the campaign. Two big wins for India in one year. Kudos.
Have renamed the blog as The New New Thing.
Why?
1. “Saurabh Garg talks” was really an inappropriate title. I am trying to collect interesting things here and “talks” is a boring, overused and abused word. Had to move away from it.
2. Although I never cared for what people make of this blog, I have realized I should. This marks a fundamental shift in the way I perceive my blog. Earlier I was writing because I needed an avenue to let out my thoughts. I have seen that blogging is an awesome way to meet new people and get more ideas. More and more people around the world are looking at blogs to express their thoughts and share what they know. Everyone has a publishing power that they did not have. Everyone has the tools to be able to gather audience. Everyone can now make fans. Time is appropriate to start using blog for professional reasons. And hence the change.
3. Why “New New Thing” and not anything else? Since I am always in pursuit of interestingness and that new thing, I thought this would be an apt title for the time being. Until I find the newer, better and more interesting name. Everything is in a constant state of flux. Things might change rapidly, slowly, in small steps but the they do change gradually. What is interesting today might now be interesting tomorrow. In all probability it will not be. No one can predict what would be hot. And hence the name The New New Thing. And as I have said earlier, I might change it again. (Advisory: Name copied from the book The New New Thing by Michael Lewis. Brilliant book. Must Read. My review is here).
We live in a branded world. Brands are everywhere and without realizing you come in contact with tons of brands. I am right now at Cannes Lions Advertising Festival. This festival essentially celebrates and awards the best pieces of paid for communication. Winning the lion is amongst the best things that can happen to anyone in the creative business.
I had an hour to kill that I utilized to finish some of my Google Reader list. Today has been an interesting day. The presentation on advertising in China by Saatchi and Saatchi China was ordinary to say the least. The workshop by Wunderman was brilliant. The Mindshare talk on Branded Entertainment was interesting. All in all an interesting day so far. Better than yesterday where none of the sessions was really impressive.
And for the lack of something really brilliant to say, I am right now in a lounge where free Internet has been sponsored by Microosft. From where I am sitting, without turning around, I can recognize following brands Motorola (Phone), Nokia (Phone), Blackberry, Coke, Macbook, RayBan (glasses), Puma, Adidas, HP (laptop), Evian (water). Not a large number by any standards but interesting thing is that all these are global brands and universally they stand for the same things.
Coming back to the festival, India has had some 20 odd shortlists so far. Haven’t had time to see the entries and work submitted by agencies around the world but will soon see and comment on them.
Wunderman left with a lot of food for thought and there are few ideas. Need to go back to Mumbai and work on them.
So far the festival has been very ordinary to say the least. Even things like scheduling is bad. Most of the sessions are overlapping and they could have better planned. For the second day in the row, the sessions are overlapping and everyone around here is been complaining about it.
More notes soon.
Communication at the very core is one to one interaction. Typically interactions happen over one medium and are typically synchronous. For example two people could be talking and exchanging ideas or two people could be writing letters to each other to keep in touch. A lot of back and forth happens around a particular subject.
With advent of instant modes of communication (emails, phones, sms etc.), these conversations have became asynchronous. This is counter-intuitive. Conventional wisdom says that if we can talk instantaneously, the conversation can be closed right there. The outcome however is exactly opposite.
You receive a message over one of these many devices. You take time to deliberate and think. And then you reply over one of the devices. The conversation could have started on the phone and you could be adding onto the conversation using IM, SMS, email etc. And all of this is perfectly valid. This is where the shift has happened. Instead of using one device, we are open to using more devices. Services like BlackBerry are further enabling the process by synchronizing IM and emails.
Evolving still further, we now have reached a stage where we assume that communication can take place over many devices and all these devices are inter-connected. Both the sender and recipient assume that the other party understands that communication can happen over many mediums and thus relies on the delivery.
This for me is a paradigm shift that has happened in the way we communicate. Many devices, any modes and many connection points. Any thoughts?
If everyone became a publisher, we would be back to the jungle where everyone wants to rule and instead of actually working on things, we will only indulge in flame wars, ego battles, mud slinging.
Every culture, society, system and civilization needs some kind of moderation. Moment this moderation is absent, everyone by their very nature wants to rule. With this urge to rule comes narcissism.
People say the future is digital and the traditional media as we know it will be dead. If that happens, I will be a scared man. A very scared man.
