Bill Gates - a computer in every home and on every desk

Thank you Bill for that bootlegged Windows 95 OS on which I learned to make mistakes.
Thank you for Windows 98 on which I grew up.
Thank you for Win xp on my office PC. It did not even crash once the last year.
Thank you for Office 97. And thank you for office 2007.
Thank you for Regedit. Thank you for "format c:"

And thank you for DX8.1 on which my son Sriduth discovered his first games.

Thank you for making computers ... well, usable, playable, tweakable, and kickable.

Jay, from Bangalore

Story of the web

Like any real-life success story, this one is also full of surprises, unexpected turns, off-track growth, and adrenalin pumping breakthroughs, not to say the best years of the world's best.

And who succeeds the best? As always, the ones who sell pans!

How the web was won. Read on...

Jay, from Bangalore

Obama and Drucker: the five eternal questions

Peter Drucker's five eternal questions for business:
What is our mission?
Who is our customer?
What does the customer value?
What are our results?
What is our plan?

Business Week's Rick Wartzman wrote an interesting article about how Obama found the right answers. Read On...

Jay, from Bangalore

Office 2.0 is here

There is nothing virtual about it. Office 2.0, the connected, networked, real-time work place is here.

Work together, anywhere, says Adobe Acrobat. Google Docs offers "Free web-based word processor and spreadsheet, which allow you share and collaborate online." (Right idea, wrong grammar!)

Many organizations now prefer the real-time features of Google Docs over Microsoft Office, making for surprisingly speedy adoption..

Here is Scoble's take on Office 2.0

For an exhaustive list of Office 2.0 tools, click here. How many of these are you using right now??

Jay, from Bangalore

People and environments

"Pleasant. Caring. Engaged." people are the key to success, says Tom Peters.

‘Pleasant, caring, engaged’ work environments create "Pleasant. Caring. Engaged." people, says ideaburger.

Join the conversation here.

Jay, from Bangalore

12 PR secrets for startups

"Measure Success, Not Traffic" - reminds Brian Solis.

The PR secrets:

"Understand You’re Not the Only Story in Town."
"Pick the Right Person or Team to Lead PR."
"Participation is Marketing."
"Identify The Target Audience For Every Step Of Your Growth."
"Don’t Launch on Mondays."
"No Two Bloggers or Journalists are Created Equal."
"Measure Success, Not Traffic."
"Customize the News For Each Influencer to Make His Or Her Job Easier."
"Get a Spokesperson."
"Your Company Blog is More Powerful Than You May Think."
"Blogger Relations Extends from the “A-List” to the Magic Middle."
"Follow the Conversations and Join In."

I find #3 and #7 the most revealing.

Read On...

Jay, from Bangalore

The changing face of business travel

Business traveling is changing.

"Certain types of corporate jaunts may be dead for good.", says Business Week. [more]

"If oil is $130 a barrel and if security adds two or three hours to a trip and if people are doing more and more business with those far afield...,and if we need to bring together more people from more places when we get together...,and if the alternatives, like video conferencing or threaded online conversations continue to get better and better, then..., I think the standard for a great meeting or a terrific conference has changed." says Seth Godin [more]

Means a paradigm shift in business communications. Is your next business presentation compatible with a virtual meeting?

Jay, from Bangalore

Social Responsibility - the new competitive advantage

The 2008 IBM CEO Survey has some startling facts.

Over 18% of the 1000 + CEOs and Public Sector Leaders surveyed claimed they are adopting their organizations to address the social concerns of their customers.

Is this the dawn of what IBM calls the "Socially Minded Customer" - a new breed of customer who knows what's good for society at large is also good for her, and knows where to pull the levers to get it?

Is Social Mindedness here to stay? Can you be social minded and still meet quarterly targets?

A lot more than business profitability depends on the answers. What do you think?

Jay, from Bangalore

Building Brand Friendship

Creating Friends for your Brand

Rule 1 - "The only way to have a friend is to be one."

Rule 2 -"you can't force friendship. As a marketer, there's no way to compel people to feel comfortable with your brand. You can, however, take steps to initiate friendship."

Read On...

Jay, from BangaloreSave as Draft

The mafiosi's management handbook

Running the mafia can be infinitely more challenging than running a legal business. That's why the innovative always thrive, even among the mafiosi.

Here is a sneak peek into the mafiosi's management practices, some of it penned by Bernardo Provenzano himself - from Jail.

Read on...

Jay, from Bangalore

The dark side of blogging

The New York Times has an interesting article about blogging here. And Scobleizer has an interesting rejoinder here.

Well, blogging is certainly proving to be deadly to another class of journalists. The print media professionals.

Read the Washington Post article on declining newspaper sales here.

Jay, from Bangalore

"The absolute dominant screen in the world. "

"None of us now, are ever, ever, ever, more than a few inches away from a screen because we all carry the mobile phone in our pocket, we all have a computer at work or at home, we all have five or six TV screens at home, we have our iPods with us" - says Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saachi Worldwide.

"We're constantly in a world with a screen. More and more that screen will be, as it is in many cases already, interactive, it will be social, it will be networked and it will be mobile".

But for the next 20 years or more, "TV will be the absolute dominant screen in the world", says the author of Lovemarks.

"You're not going to watch a game of football on a 3x3 inch iPod; you're going to watch it on a 40-inch high tech, high digital TV screen".

Read On...

Jay, from Bangalore

If you are "innovative" enough

If you are "innovative" enough, you can trigger a global economic meltdown.

Here is the New York Times take on it.

Tom Peters has a Sub Prime Primer here.

Jay, from Bangalore

Creating an interesting resume

"A resume is not your life story.", says Brazen Careerist. "The only things that should be on your resume are achievements."

Here's more -
Don’t focus on your responsibilities, focus on what you achieved.
Don’t make your resume a moral statement; it’s a marketing document.
Don’t give everything away in the resume.

While I personally disagree on the idea of focusing on the don'ts, it may be of assistance
if you are creating a resume now. Read on...

Jay, from Bangalore

The six M's of Marketing

One more interesting list to ponder over.

• Mission
• Message
• Market
• Media
• Moment
• Money

Read on.

Jay, from Bangalore

When your marketing clashes with the "Surrounding context"

"Marketing isn't just about creating impressions or getting attention" - says Business Week. "To be truly effective, the visibility your brand generates should be relevant within the surrounding context."

What happens when your next big idea is a disconnect?
Read on.

Jay, from Bangalore

Fostering Innovation

The Fast Company Blog has Marissa Mayer's 9 principles of Innovation.

But nothing fosters innovation better than Challenge AND Trust.

You innovate the best when you are trusted and relied upon to do the impossible, yesterday.

You innovate the most when you need to cram in more than the usual 24 hours into your days, and you need to do it over and over again.

Jay, from Bangalore

Social Networking Worldmap

The social networking worldmap at psfk.com, very useful if you are into Social Media.

Click on the image for a larger view. Find the orginal post here.

Jay, from Bangalore

The World's Most Innovative Companies

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

Read On...

Jay, from Bangalore

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