Indian Politics League

Though I couldn’t find anything positive about the whole IPL fiasco, I was able to come up with more reasons that could dent the reputation of the biggest ever cricket tournament, or atleast that’s what they say. From a mere sporting event, IPL has now become a political issue. I should appreciate the people who run our country for their ability to mix politics into everything that is possible.

The latest development regarding this issue is the recent tussle between our Home Minister P. Chidambaram, BJP Leader Arun Jaitley and the BCCI board. Indian politicians are famous for playing the “blame game” and that’s exactly what they are doing right now. BJP is blaming the current government and so is the BCCI board and in his defense, our home minister, is asking the BJP to shut up and BCCI to get lost.

I should appreciate Mr.Jaitley for rightly identifying the opportunity cost involved in this whole debacle with the elections right around the corner. Though this may seem as amusing as ever, the burning issue is the image it has created on India as a nation. In my view, I see this as a lack in ability by the country to provide the required security. I am not gonna blame my country for this, I’d rather blame IPL.
The whole idea of flaunting around money and having things their way is not helping IPL in anyway but put down the nation for their personal gains. Modi has said that he is willing to compensate the franchisees over and above the cost they would have incurred if it was conducted in India. The reason stated by him was that brand image of IPL would take a hit, if it was postponed to the next year. The costs for hosting it expected to exceed $40 million and most of it is benefiting some other nation and Modi is proud in stating that it would help the economy of S.Africa.

This is what Warne had to say about the whole situation “Hopefully they get some good crowds. But, it'll be nothing like if it was in India, and it's a shame it can't be in India” This is also gonna jeopardize the future of Indian cricket because if we do not have the ability to run our own domestic tournament, how will foreign countries tour us in the future. It is truly a shame and India's image is under the radar because of the ego clashes on top.

I am sure I will enjoy this season on IPL as well because of the passion I have for the sport, but I'm sure it can’t override my Season-I memory.

Social Media – Elucidated

In simplest terms, social media is a set of online media that helps us get connected with peers, gain information about the unknown or just play around with all that is available. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction through the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio.

Research has identified six kinds of social media which are Social Networks, Blogs/Micro Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts/RSS, Forums, and Content Communities. I guess none of these needs to be explained any further as most of us have experienced at least one of them.

So what is with the buzz around this “social media”? Why has it gained so much of importance lately? In all honesty, one of the great things about Social Media is that no one really knows what the next big thing is. It truly is like trying to capture lightning in a bottle. New innovations are being added on a regular basis which makes it a constantly evolving entity. As most of us are an active part of Social media, we understand its importance and explaining the importance of the social media would just make this post redundant.
In an effort to determine the effect of the hype around "social media", I decided to flesh out its advantages and disadvantages based on my experience:

Advantages:

• Common platform for people with different interest to share and connect
• Content is mostly user generated
• A means embrace your passion and identity
• A platform for organizations to connect directly with consumers
• Establish relationships and connections

Disadvantages:

• Content overload and problems in filtering out the right content
• Authenticity of the content (Like this one, how do you believe me?)
• Information and networking overload (Too much of networking is also not good at times)
• Consistent content delivery is a problem
• Addiction to social media

I am not sure if we will still be using Facebook or Second Life five years from now, your guess is as good as mine. Web 2.0 and Web 3.0, still in its beta stage, are driving innovations to unprecedented scales. There will no doubt be exciting new variants on current formats and perhaps innovations that come to be thought of as new forms of social media. One thing is clear though - social media– is a genie that will not be disappearing back into its bottle.

India to launch domestic airlines from India to S.Africa..Wow how domestic is that?

So, after a short sabbatical I am back with yet another one. This time it’s my favorite topic, sports and wat’s better I am gonna write about Cricket. Wait its gets much better; it is about the “INDIAN” Premier League (IPL). So if you guys are wondering why the bold font and Indian within quotes, it is for obvious reasons.

You guessed it right, it is about the “Indian” (domestic) premier league that is gonna take place in S.Africa. I mean, there is very good reason why it is called “domestic” cricket. I know there are a lot of commercial elements about the whole T20 format, but this time the cash rich BCCI has taken it to a notch higher. Well here’s an opportunity for everyone to voice out an opinion, why did they have to do it?? I am sure we all know the obvious reason being the election dates coinciding with the IPL dates, but dint they realize it when they fixed the dates?

Ever since IPL season II was announced, I was wondering what could be the rationale behind this decision. I haven’t taken much effort in reading articles and finding out the “real reasons”. Although, in my effort I did find out Sachin and Yuvi were immensely disappointed with the whole f*** up (an instance where profanity is a mandate). I know this could be the only best time for hosting it given a hectic schedule for rest of the year but still in S.Africa???

For those who witnessed IPL in all its glitz and glory last year, I am sure it is gonna be a huge disappointment. I mean, imagine Sivamani with his “othaiadi” at the Wanderers, who would enjoy that??? Now for those who are wondering what othaiadi means, its just a form of drumming that could possibly get you high without being drunk :) The energy levels at the ground, the passion, the excitement; India is gonna miss it all. I am sure it can’t get anywhere close to that in S.Africa.

Think about the revenue that could have been generated. I for one spent about 4000 bucks last year on tickets alone for 5 matches, not to forget the hard hats, the yellow t-shirts and the matches watched at 10 Downing Street or Escape. Why do you wanna throw it away to another country??? I am sure BCCI is not gonna generate half the revenue of what it could have generated last year with ticket sales. Given our crazy passion for cricket, TV rights could generate a lot of ad revenues. I could go on and on about how commercially unviable this whole venture is and I am sure you guys can figure that out as well. The question is, is it gonna be worthwhile?
If someone actually knows a really good reason for Modi’s killer idea, post your comments. Honestly I haven’t tried to look for any cos ultimately it wouldn’t convince me! I really hope IPL makes all the effort to live up to its expectations and not fall flat on its face. I am patiently waiting to see!!!!!!!!

(p.s) I would like to thank Lalit Modi for giving me this opportunity to blog during a time when I dint have really much to blog about. Read his stupid comments http://content.cricinfo.com/ipl2009/content/current/story/396651.html

I just drank 354.876 ml of Pepsi. Why would I?

So what’s with the US measurement system??? Why does it have to be so complicated??? Or is it just me??? Let me show you how the conversion works

1 inch = 2.54 cm
1 foot = 12 inches = 0.3048 cm
1 yard = 3 feet = 0.9144 cm
1 mile = 5280 feet = 1.60 km
1 fluid ounce (fl) = 8 fluid dram = 29.573 ml
1 pound = 16 oz = 453.592 g
2000 pounds = 1 ton = 907.184 kg
32 F = 0 C

The US measurement system is a confusing matter and still holds itself apart from the metric system employed by most other countries. There are a few exceptions. Medical and scientific fields use the metric system, and many items for trade are now measured in the International System of Units (SI), also called the metric system. If you are someone like me who grew up learning the “international” system (I strongly believe there is a good reason why they call it that way) your life is gonna be tough.

The SI system has a simple base 10 approach 1 Km = 1000 m = 100,000 cm = 10,000,000 mm. Now, how easy is this? Now American standards: 1 mile = 1760 yards = 5280 feet = 63360 inches. As a kid, I would go mad in trying to figure out how they could be related and I still am. Even after mastering the art of multiplication over the years, I had to use my calculator to come up with these numbers.

Now a use-case scenario: I wanna buy soda. Do I choose a 12 oz or a 16 oz cup??? BTW, these are the standard sizes available. I’d rather want a 10 oz or a 20 oz cup because of the plain reason that it’s a round number. Now, if you notice there is no underlying relation between SI system and the American standards of measurement and even if there is, I am not Einstein. I just found out that this system was called the British system and even the Brits have stopped using it a century back. Why does America resist the change?? Or is it just coz they wanna be different in everything????

Generational Marketing and India - Part I

The latest buzz word - Gen Y, what does that mean? Ever since I've set foot in this land, GEN Y is one word that has been thrown around quite a lot, atleast in my field of of work. For the first time I heard it, I was not quite sure what it meant and now here I am writing a post on it. For the benefit of those who are wondering what this means, like I did the first time I heard it, here it is:

Americans have divided their generations into 3 major demographical groups called the Baby boomers, Gen X and Gen Y.

Baby Boomers (1946 - 1960) are those people who were born post world war II and account to about 70 million people. They are the largest demographic section due to the fact that the veterans who came back after war had nothing to do but produce babies.

Gen X (1960 - 1980) also referred to as baby busters owing to the sudden decline in birth rates, account to about 35 million approx. This was may have been the time when contraceptives (aka condoms aka rubber) was in vogue.

And finally our generation GEN Y also referred to as the 20 somethings. There is a lot of confusion in the birth years of this generation and so for this post we shall consider them to be people aged 18-28. This was generation that grew up on technology and is hooked up 24/7/365.

Having explained these demographics, the next question is "so what?" ....Well Ill tell you what, there are 2 basic questions that came to my mind when I started thinking about it.

a) How are these guys (US) using these demographic classification?

b) Is there such a classification back in India? and if so, what are they doing with it?

I got the answer for how these guys utilize that data. If I was to explain that, it would become a thesis in itself. Demographic classification is one of primary data and a vital tool used in marketing. The amount of research that happens among these generational classification especially GEN Y is amazing.

Though we don't have to have such fancy names for the generational classification in India, being the world's largest in population (thanks to Tushar who updated me on this info) what have we done????? Gen Y in particular are being researched by so many companies because of the fact that they hold the key to the future of the brand. Their lifestyle and the market potential that they hold is immense. I agree we do targeted marketing, but is there a method where we try to engage GEN Y in trying to make them customers for life and building a brand image at the same time?

The power of word of mouth, especially with this generation and popularity of social networks are so immense that it can make or break your brand. Companies have started deploying MySpace, Facebook etc as a means to reach to GEN Y. Orkut is one of the biggest "adda" (hangout) of the Indian Gen Y community, but I haven't seen much marketing happening there and even if there is some bit of marketing, there aren't any Indian companies. It is high time we moved away from our traditional marketing cliches are tried innovative methods by making use of Web 2.0. But have we????

I am closing this post with a series of questions and no solutions, the only reason being I haven't thought of any. When I come up with a "killer idea" I'll post them. BTW, when you start your own business, please make sure you address all these questions.

My next post is not gonna be this serious or even this big. I had to do justice to my blogger name.

From the Scratch

After years of contemplation, I have made up my mind to write my own blog. But the big question is ' what do I write? '. From the very beginning, I decided I was gonna post random views and opinions of anything and everything, cos hey "This is MY BLOG".

Well on a serious note what do I really write? No prize for guessing. I just gave it away in the last paragraph. I am gonna be writing about my life experiences, my opinions, views on anything and everything "under the sun" (the reason I named my blog so). Well mostly its going to be sports, movies, business, cars, work related issues, economy, statistics, applied sciences, finance, astronomy, astrology, psychology, wildlife, human life, extra-terrestial life and what not?

I promise you one thing though, you would not find any of the posts very enlightening or boring. Ill try and keep it as professional as I can. I will make sure I gauge my audience right and keep them engaged at all times. Readers will of course get to opine their views and all comments, both good or bad shall be taken. No Profanity unless I decide it's appropriate. Regular readers will get to take part on polls and special prizes will be announced. Keep checking back for more updates!!