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

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

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

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

The Steve Jobs Secret

What is the Steve Jobs secret? He sells the Steak and the sizzle at the same time, says BusinessWeek Communications Coach Carmine Gallo.

How Steve Jobs does it:

1. Set the theme
2. Demonstrate Enthusiasm
3. Provide an outline
4. Make numbers meaningful
5. Try for an unforgettable moment
6. Create visual slides
7. Give 'em a show
8. Don't sweat the small stuff
9. Sell the benefit
10. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse

Read the BusinessWeek article here.

Find an entire chapter on the Steve Jobs keynote here.

Jay, from Bangalore

10 Secrets to success

Pick The Brain talks about the "10 Secrets to success".
1. How You Think is Everything.
2. Decide upon Your True Dreams and Goals.
3. Take Action.
4. Never Stop Learning.
5. Be Persistent and Work Hard.
6. Learn to Analyze Details.
7. Focus Your Time And Money.
8. Don’t Be Afraid To Innovate.
9. Deal And Communicate With People Effectively.
10. Be Honest And Dependable.

From Lifehacker Comments on the 10 Secrets
"Success means getting up one more time than you fall down"

Read On

Jay, from Bangalore

Rock your presentation

LifeHacker has some great presentation tips.
Get them here.

Jay, from Bangalore

Looking for a few good images for your next PPT?

Great painters talk all the time about where to find a good brush, they say. And the mediocre ones? About styles and trends!

Well, we Marcom folks talk all the time about images. My personal all-time favorite is istockphoto. Mostly at 1 dollar a pic, (Except illustrations), iStock helped us create the "winning ambiance" for 2 of our successful Fortune 10 presentations last year.

Another good resource may be the open-sourced images in Flickr.

Presentation Zen has a good list. Find it here.

Jay, from Bangalore