Friday, February 22, 2008

The World's Most Innovative Companies

#1 - Google
#2 - Apple
#3 - Facebook
#4 - GE
#5 - IDEO

Read On...

Jay, from Bangalore

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Challenges shape talent

Challenges shape talent, and even create it.

That said, creating a climate of opportunity and yes, challenge, is no mean task. One man's boredom is another's challenge, and yet another's insurmountable brick wall.

Einstein would have had a tough time to get into the MITs and IITs of today.
And as Steve Jobs said famously, his Stanford Address was "the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation".

How do you create the right challenges that bring out the talent in people? What is the "right cut" that brings out the shine?

Jay, from Bangalore

Friday, February 15, 2008

Four ways to improve PowerPoint Presentations

Lifehacker has an interesting post on Harvard cognitive scientist Stephen M. Kosslyn and his four suggestions to improve Powerpoint Presentations.

The Goldilocks Rule
Present the "just right" amount of data. Never include more information than your audience needs in a visual image.

The Rudolph Rule
Rudolph the reindeer's red nose stood out from the other reindeers' and led them. Even small differences guide your audience to what's important. If you're presenting a piece of relevant data in a list, why not make the data of interest a different color from the list? Or circle it in red?

The Rule of Four
The brain can generally hold only four pieces of visual information simultaneously. Don't ever present more than four things at once.

The Birds of a Feather Rule
Organize information belonging to the same group by giving them similat visual tags -color or shape.

Read On...

Jay, from Bangalore

Scoble and the art of breathing

These days, if you are not doing something that scares you once in a while, you are probably not doing anything really worthwhile. Question is, are you breathing healthy while you are at it?

Scobleizer has an interesting post here.

Here is my take on it.
It takes more than breath control to stay on top of your world. It takes a “Perspective view”, a sense of the “whole” even when you plunge into one world of detail after the another.

In short, it takes meditation.Breath control is one of the ways that help you "get" it.

Look at what the meditative guys are doing - look what a stint of soul searching in India did to Steve Jobs. Or what the burning man did to the Google folks.

Jay, from Bangalore

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

The Steve Yastrow Blog: Great Thinking, Great Conversations

Steve Yastrow, the author of "Brand Harmony" and "We: The Ideal Customer Relationship", has started a new blog at yastrow.com

Great thinking and great conversations make for a great blog. Just try Steve's blog!

Jay, from Bangalore

Bad news for online display ads

Slashdot goes to town with a new report that 6% of viewers generate 50% of click throughs. They are mostly males between 25 and 44 years of age, have incomes under $40K, and their clicks are not related to offline buying.

The reason why organic search engine results always beat paid ads.

Marcom/ SEO/ SEM brethren out there, time to sit up and take notice.

Jay, from Bangalore

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Fear, Hope, Love

"The easiest way to build a brand is to sell fear", says Seth Godin. "The best way, though, may be to deliver on hope while aiming for love..."

"Chanel is in the hope business. How else to get you to spend $5,000 a gallon for perfume?"
"Rudy Giuliani was the fear candidate."
"Ronald Reagan was beloved. So was JFK."

Read on...

Jay, from Bangalore