Here's my favorite Man Friday, Ram Pal. We exchange life notes, but we're not chatty. He drives to put his daughter through an engineering college somewhere in Haryana. Someday, he wants to just loll about on an old fashioned palang near his fields and eat fresh radishes and carrots with a little sarson ka saag. Not too different from me. Meanwhile, we race about on Delhi's highways. Okay, no, actually we inch painfully through Djinn City's pandemonium.
My childhood skills in hide-n-seek serve me well - my secret smoking nook in the venerated 125 year old St. Stephen's Hospital. |
| Fleeting glimpses of my day.The first photo is in the 'Who is the Observer?'category.The second is about a quick encounter with a passing camel outside my gate. I stepped back briskly to avoid my toes being crunched. I did not ask the herdsman whether he had a driving license. That would have been too Inspector Clouseau. But I did admire the body paint on the beast.The rest of my day was pretty strange. Which is okay, too. |
| ... 3 tips for Entrepreneurs in 2011
1. It’s a winner-takes-all worldAim for being the best at doing what you do best. If you’re already doing that, then go out and offer it to the world. People won’t buy your goods or services unless they know about them and that means using all the exciting tools that are available, on and off the Net. The tools are cheap, but don’t spend cheap on building marketing strategy and customer communications. Pick the best people you know for presenting your offerings. Pick people who are terrific and passionate about their work, and appreciative of the opportunity that you present to work with them.
2. Being good enough just isn’t good enough anymoreBeing average doesn’t cut it.
In 30 years in local, national, and international advertising, I’ve never worked with a client that needed to settle for being average. (Some, unfortunately, have settled for being less.) Identify the gap into which you could train yourself, your company, your product, whatever – into being the best in its class. No amount of marketing and advertising can help an average company, product, or service in today’s environment.
3. Be generous.I know - the competition is stiff and the economy is still rough around the edges. Or, perhaps you’re in a sector that is doing really well, and perhaps it seems like too much effort to raise the bar on existing standards – after all you’re doing well aren’t you?
It’s been said before, often enough – by Seth Godin, Brendon Burchard, and way back in time, by Norman Vincent Peale and even earlier - be generous. Generosity is counter intuitive in the domain of business, where every action relates to a bottom line. Trouble is, in the 21st century, markets do not respect this instinct to conserve. So, consider this: when you give away something of value for free – time, money, or share what you’ve learnt – you make a difference. People want to engage and interact with you. When you allow them to do that - on social media, white papers, videos, blogs, and all the other delightful ways to connect - you stand out from the rest and become the go-to company in your field.
All the tools, especially on the internet are there for you to share abundantly with your audiences. If you don’t know how to use them, find someone who does. Quickly, because your audiences won’t wait for you.
These are just three pointers, and … I would have shared more, but research shows that the human mind can only remember three things at a time - and that too, with difficulty! I have a tough time plugging these into my structures every day! |
| How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then to rest afterward ~ Spanish Proverb. Most of this month - I've done zilch. Then just as I was beginning to rest afterward, I got a call from my film maker colleagues (www.whitebalance.in) who said, "We want a mature voice for a road documentary. Will you do it?' I know they meant 'old' but they meant well. And, while I've done a lot in films, this was a first. I wish I had a whiskey voice like Sean Connery, but all I have is a mellow mid-age baritone, and I gave it all I've got. The whitebalance studio is in Hauz Khas' urban village, in South Delhi, always a treat to visit. |
| Non profits aren't where the action is. Not-for-profits aren't where its at. Non government organizations almost never make the headlines. Non-something makes it sound like its not part of any action. But the strange truth is that this non-stuff is a mis-label, a bit of nonsense.Mahatma Gandhi was non-government. Mother Teresa was from a not-for-profit. Martin Luther King was non-something.This non-something area, wherever it is, is where the action is, where transformation happens. This is where turning points in individual history, and in the things that have historically never shifted take place.Think about it. If you're a company that's mired in the slowdown, or succesful, but have reached the growth ceiling - would it be worth it to examine the thought that something else, aside from rigid marketing formulas and stiffening-like-a-corpse mission statements, will produce new found effectiveness?Tantalizing thought, isn't it? |
Around this time of year, especially, I usually have a slew of people asking if I will handle their communications work. I'm careful about the work that I pick. I like work that will take about a year to complete, because that's about the length of time that it takes for results to show up in many kinds of branding work.Most times, though, organizations are clueless about the depth of work that is involved in branding and brand architecture. Often, people come to me and say, "Give me a logo (or, a web page, or brochure, or something else), and what they mean, most times, is, "Aha! When I have THAT, I'll have Kryptonite - and then, I can kill the competiton!".This happens irrespective of whether it is an established company, a leftover from the command-and-control economy days, or start-up ingénues from IT. That's brand naivete. I usually go over the following points with them carefully:For the purpose of this presentation, the statements that follow encompass the term, 'brand'.
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| Genghis Khan (probably 1162–1227) was one of the world's most influential men, with an empire, riches and influence that could rattle many a multinational, even today. His brilliance on the battlefield and ability to forge strategic alliances were legendary. But an innate talent for storytelling held his administrators, soldiers, conquests and others spellbound - glued to the magnificence of his vision and mission.Great advertising is like that, too. From Wendy's to McDonald's to Coke, BMW, Nike, and Marlboro - its the story about the brand that acts like super glue and grips a target audience, keeps customers loyal, builds the buzz.I came across this passage in John Man's fascinating book, Genghis Khan: life, death and resurrection and thought I would share it in this context. (In fact, I actually abandoned one of my favorite authors, Terry Pratchett, to read this book!) "How Tales Originated among the Mongol People Once upon a time, plague struck the Mongols. The healthy fled, leaving the sick, saying, 'Let Fate decide whether they live or die.' Among the sick was a youth named Tarvaa. His spirit left his body and came to the place of death. The ruler of that place said to Tarvaa, 'Why have you left your body while it is still alive?' 'I did not wait for you to call me,' he replied. 'I just came.' Touched by his readiness to comply, the Khan of the Underworld said, 'Your time is not yet. You must return. But you may take anything from here that you wish.' Tarvaa looked around, and saw all earthly joys and talents - wealth, happiness, laughter, luck, music, dance, 'Give me the art of storytelling,' he said, for he knew that stories can summon up all other joys. So he returned to his body, only to find that the crows had already pecked out its eyes. Since he could not disobey the Khan of the Underworld, he re-entered his body and lived on, blind, but with the knowled ge of all tales. For the rest of his life, he traveled across Mongolia telling tales and legends, and bringing people joy and wisdom." |
