Jessie Paul on No Money Marketing

Free! Ok, sorry, almost free!

2009-07-04T16:30:00.002+05:30

One of the hottest attractions in a trade show is the free popcorn. But it isn’t truly free. You don’t have to pay any money to get it, but you will have to barter something - a few minutes of your attention. Depending on how much 5 minutes is worth to you, the popcorn is either free or expensive.

Memories of that yummy popcorn were triggered not by hunger, but by Malcolm Gladwell’s (author of Blink and Outliers) review of Chris Anderson’s (author of The Long Tail) new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Gladwell’s review starts with pondering what will happen to newspapers and journalists when information is supposed to be free. Well, they were founded on the premise of “news”, being defined as fresh information. When everyone newsworthy or in possession of information can “tweet” their own updates in real-time, clearly there isn’t much value for information. The role performed by newspapers, should then be closer to that of aggregators – bringing together material of interest to a particular target audience and exercising some judgment on its credibility. This is still a very valuable role, so why should it be done for free?

In the 90s, when India liberalized, the Iron Curtain came down in USSR, and China decided to be more market-savvy, over 1 billion people entered the global work-force. This exerted a downward pressure on real wages in many countries – more people vying for the same pie. Something similar is now taking place in the communications industry – so many people on social media like blogs, facebook, twitter, are competing for the same eyeballs that used to earlier be glued to the newspaper and TV. All these mini-broadcasters can afford to do it for free because they make money elsewhere. Given the ever-growing pool of such people, obviously it is going to be extremely hard to make social media a profitable venture. A very,very few people, those who can add either a lot of insight or aggregate really well will be profitable and might be fully employed by this business.

But as Seth Godin points out in his blog people will be willing to pay for souvenirs of news. So you’ll see a lot of these micro-broadcasters making money on speaking tours, books, consulting sessions. (Though, frankly, just because you’re a good blogger doesn’t mean you’re a good speaker or trainer!!)

Anyways, if the content is free, what about the hardware? Here, I agree with Gladwell that even a fraction of a cent adds up to a lot when there are billions of such transactions. Many of us are addicted to blogger, facebook, twitter, youtube and consider them as ubiquitous as the telephone. But phone companies charge and social media ones don’t. At some point the big money that is keeping them going is likely to want payback, and that is going to be the next big disruptor in this space. The monetization may not be in the form of money, but in terms of time. Like the good old booth popcorn.

Since stuff IS free for now, how can you benefit? Here are my fractional cents worth:

1. Think of yourself as a broadcaster. Understand your audience, scout around for stuff that will interest them.
2. Information is cheap. Try to propagate insights too. Otherwise your audience will not be sticky.
3. Look at whether social media is an end in itself or whether you can sell souvenirs.
4. Keep a back-up copy of your valuable content. That way you can switch mediums if the current one moves to a monetization model that you do not like.

My book is titled “No Money Marketing”. It’s about how you can substitute time and intellect for money and build a brand, even against much larger competition. Perhaps that’s the souvenir for this blog!!

Build Sticky Relationships with Stakeholders

2009-07-02T14:58:00.002+05:30

In this interview to Alokananda Chakraborty of FE, Jessie Paul, chief marketing officer, Wipro Technologies & Wipro Infotech, discusses the strategies the Indian software industry can formulate to emerge stronger and more profitable when global spending on IT gets back on track. Excerpts below. Full interview
FE: The West associates India with outsourcing. Has that changed or does India still conjure up images of a low-cost back office?
JP: The West may identify India with outsourcing, but the days of India being seen as purely a low-cost destination are gone. Let me give you an anecdote to illustrate this. When I first visited the US, cab drivers would not accept tips from me because they assumed that I was poor because I was from India. Then after the dot-com boom, they assumed I was rich because I was in technology. Now, when I say I am from India, total strangers say, “You must be smart!”
This is because of two things— one, the outsourcing industry has moved into higher value areas such as consulting and business solutions, and two, India is increasingly seen as a profitable market by the global companies.
FE: In your book No Money Marketing, you’ve talked about your experience as a “challenger” marketer. What is your marketing advice for companies that are not leaders in their industries?
JP: To succeed, a company must have a superior value proposition relative to incumbents. It needs to focus on increasing market share and building sticky relationships with clients and other stakeholders. The window of growth available for the upstart to achieve a threshold market share is the time taken by the champion to successfully react to the new business model.
From a marketing strategy perspective, keeping in mind the relatively-low budgets, the best plan is to drive focused communication to potential clients and other elements of the ecosystem. Once a threshold level of revenue is reached, one should communicate aggressively to consolidate position and rapidly acquire market share. The brand levers I recommend for a challenger are price, executive branding, country of origin and sustainability. The channels that are most effective are thought leadership, media relations, awards and online marketing.
FE: But organisations seem to be using new technology to reinforce the old marketing habits...
JP: In old media, companies could buy the attention of the audience. The audience tolerated this interruption because it was subsidising their television or radio, which were expensive channels. The internet, on the other hand, is almost free and subsidies through advertising are not required. So now companies have to be interesting in order to get the attention of their prospects, and that is much, much harder. The newer channels also force immediate and personal responses—for example—CEO blogs cannot be outsourced. This is a big transition for marketers and CEOs, and yes, many will not make the leap.

Advice for domestic techs interested in India's market

2009-06-12T17:04:00.002+05:30

My last few posts have been about trade not just between the traditional partners like US, UK, France, Canada, Germany, but about them and the emerging markets like Brazil, India, China. I've also made a couple of trips to Delhi and met with institutions like CII and NASSCOM that further such growth from an India perspective. I also came across others like Organization for International Investment (www.ofii.org), a US Think Tank that documents the value added by non-US headquartered firms to the US economy. (They say around 5% of the US workforce is employed by such firms). Great stuff, but I still think there is lots of scope for more forums to promote such trade - a market opportunity, in fact :)

Meantime, I got interviewed by Sean Callahan of US-based B2B magazine on how challenger brands can use new media to enter new markets like India. Here's an excerpt:

ITM: What one thing can a U.S. b-to-b marketer learn from your experience as a marketing executive a Wipro and Infosys?
Paul: You should narrow your target audience because in a recession—or in any time—you know who exactly the buyer is likely to be. To give you an example, we rarely advertise. We don’t need reach. We go to media we think reaches our audience, and we’ll pay for a cover wrap and zone it so it only reaches the audience profile we want.

ITM: In your book, you talk about your experience as a “challenger” marketer. What is your marketing advice for companies that are not leaders in their industries?
Read complete interview.

Is intra-BRICs business the next big thing?

2009-05-26T17:00:00.005+05:30

I saw this article in Financial Express today, quoting my classmate, Rakesh Vaidyanathan who now lives in Brazil and promotes trade on the Brazil-India-South Africa axis. It reminded me to put up a piece I'd written earlier (through Rakesh's kind offices) for Gazeta Mercantil. It appeared in Portuguese in the paper (http://gazetamercantil.ideavalley.com.br/flip/?idEdicao=ad58ae373442e1022c60b3e25b48cf15&idCaderno=a510ff08c63e35ccd45b29a74f522c3e) but I hope they don't mind if I offer the original English version here. I am curious to know if y'all see intra-BRICs trade as something that will considerably increase in the future.

Building Brands, BRIC by BRIC

When I traveled by cabs in California in the late 90s, the Indian and other Asian cabbies would often refuse a tip from me. They said they couldn’t possibly take money from someone who lived in India, and was therefore, by definition, poor. Then, after the dotcom boom when a lot of Indian firms became successful through technology, they said “Are you from India? Do you work in technology? You must be rich!” It’s changed now. They assume anyone from India is involved in IT and by definition intelligent. I’ve even had complete strangers in the US now say “You’re from India? Are you in IT? You must be smart!” The success of Indian IT has transformed India’s country brand in just ten years. It also mirrors the progression of the industry – from cost arbitrage, to disruptive business models, to innovators.

In many ways this shows the progression of the BRIC – Brazil, Russia, India, China. From being seen as laggards just a decade ago, today we are seen as economic growth engines, creating innovative business models that challenge the incumbents. From being just a market for the brands of multinational firms we have started to create world-beating firms ourselves. The global consulting firm BCG publishes the Top 100 Global Challengers from rapidly developing economies. India has 20 companies in that list, including my firm, Wipro. Brazil has 14 companies in that list. Other than the size of these firms, what is notable is the speed of their growth. How have they been able to achieve market salience so fast? How were they able to challenge existing firms on such a low budget?

I marketed products as diverse as tea, soap, mobile phones and magazines in India before I started marketing IT Services to the USA, Europe and Japan for Infosys, iGATE and Wipro. Building global brands for these organizations that have upstaged the existing IT services world order on a relatively frugal budget was possible by adopting the new trends in marketing and communications ahead of the curve. These trends continue to develop and evolve, especially as the revolution in communication and delivery channels make the world flat.

Increased communications, digitization of large parts of work and cheaper transformation have lead to the flattening of the world described by Tom Friedman in his book, “The World is Flat”. By removing intermediaries and bringing down the cost of communication to virtually zero, the flat world is also changing the marketing landscape, and a firm on a tight budget can leverage this. There are many relatively small firms with world-class offerings which can use the economic disruption to outclass the competition. During times of turbulence, larger, established firms can be pre-occupied with survival and maintaining profitability, providing a window of opportunity to others to capture market-share. The make or break determinant will be how well they are able to market themselves.

Each market has its own structure and history, and an understanding of that will help you beat the incumbents in these new markets, even if you are much smaller than them. This has been achieved by the likes of Wipro and Infosys, from the Indian IT industry in North America and Europe, and by Embraer of Brazil and Samsung on a global scale.

It is important for our sustained growth that not only do we create more world-beater firms, but that we also create global brands. Companies can either build global brands organically, or use funds generated through successful domestic operations to acquire them, or use a combination of the two. For example, Indian conglomerate Tata has acquired Corus a steel firm and the automobile firm Jaguar Land-Rover. Both these acquisitions gave it a larger footprint outside India, and also raised global awareness of its brand. Wipro has acquired a number of firms to give it scale in chosen technology areas eg Enabler a Portugal headquartered firm with operations in Portugal and Brazil which has expertise in the Retail industry.

Currently the world is going through economic turmoil and it is a good opportunity for firms with a large cash balance and operations in lesser affected countries to benefit. It is a good opportunity for acquisitions (valuations are low), geographic expansion (rentals and land prices are low), building market awareness (advertising rates are low) and hiring key personnel in potential markets. The investments you make in this market could determine the success of your firm in years to come.

Based on my experience with the Indian IT industry, I have some suggestions on how BRIC countries can build more world-class brands.

Think Flat – harness globalization to treat the world as your potential marketplace and potential supplier base.
You can look beyond your home country to sell your service or product. This allows you to broaden the potential pool of your customers. For example, while Wipro was present in the domestic technology market in India since the ‘80s growth was greatly accelerated when its focus broadened to include the US and Europe. Today Wipro has sales offices in over 50 countries and has a delivery center in Brazil.
It is hard to get a foot-hold in a new country, and if you can identify people familiar with your offering or company and market to them initially, you can build a good reference base. For example, when the Indian IT firms were unknown in the US, they started contacting Indians who worked there, as they would be more familiar with these firms which were well known in India.
The Indian firms also worked together to change the perception of India in international forums like the World Economic Forum, Davos. Consumers do associate country brands with services and products made there and it is important that the country have a reputation that enhances the brand value.

Think Narrow: Sharply define the brand value proposition – why should someone choose your offering and not buy from the competition
It is very tempting to position an offering as serving many needs, but it is hard to communicate so many benefits on a limited budget. Look for the reason why 80% of your clients choose you, and publicize that. Being focused here will simplify your communications and enhance word-of-mouth, referenceability and memorability – all big money and time savers. For example, when they first approached the international market, the Indian IT firms all entered with a single service line. Once they had built a base, they expanded their service offerings and became more broad-based.

Think Collaboration: Communicate to all elements of the eco-system, not just your key buyers.
Buyers can hear about your offering from different parts of their industry, and some elements (for example media) may have a higher level of influence in their decision-making process. Often, there is no cost to contacting the members of an industry eco-system, though you will have to put in the effort to identify them and create relevant, custom communication. But you can save a lot of money by avoiding the mass media required for a direct contact with the buyer.
Once you have built critical mass in that chosen space, you can expand the circle of potential buyers and eventually when you have sufficient money go mass market.
When we enter a market or launch a new offering, we draw a map of all the elements which could influence the buyer and develop a communication plan to address each. For IT services, a sample diagram of an eco-system is:

Think Frugal
Constraints can force you to be clever. We always look for new ways to reach out to customers. Usually when you do something creative it can also be cheaper. For example, we wanted to reach our clients, many of whom travel often. Instead of doing a mass advertising campaign, we placed our messages in airlines, business lounges and airports.

Be interesting: There are many things that we do as part of our business – hiring, training, signing up suppliers, going green, selling, producing, customer service. Make each of these things interesting; seek opportunities to do them differently or uniquely. This will get you lots of media interest which will help you gain awareness.

Be insightful: Thanks to the Internet, information is easily available. What customers and prospects value today is insight. A good way to stand out amongst the clutter is to have a good point of view, and provide insights into the industry. This will generate word-of-mouth buzz and free publicity, in addition to creating a loyal base of customers.

In the years to come I hope that the BRIC countries produce not just global companies, but many more global brands. Today, the Interbrand listing of the top 100 global consumer brands does not have any entries from Brazil or India, as most of the successful multi-national firms from these countries are in the B2B (business-to-business) space. As we become economically more powerful, and have greater consumer clout, I am sure that we will harness our marketing talent to achieve this.

How New Media Can Set Marketing Free

2009-05-15T14:39:00.004+05:30

Digital communication channels ie New Media are going to be very significant in the future as internet penetration rises in India. The importance of this new medium is equal to that of radio or television in the previous century. Radio and television made reaching lots of people easy, convenient and cheap. Aligned with newer mass-manufacturing techniques and transportation, this led to the creation of mass consumer brands like soaps, soft-drinks, cigarettes. New media does just the opposite – it allows you to reach a small group of people economically. Coupled with increased digitization and reduced costs of transportation and communication, these media will drive greater customization and exclusivity in products and services.

The really big difference between new media (websites, blogs, facebook, twitter) and old media (television, radio, outdoor) is the cost. New media is often free. There is, of course, a slight catch. Two, in fact. You need to understand these issues in order to benefit from this free-for-use communication channel.

The first catch is that TV and radio broadcasts were expensive, so users tolerated advertising because it subsidized their cost of usage. However, because of the low cost of communication and even hardware, internet usage is very cheap. Since there is no subsidy involved, consumers see ads mostly as a nuisance.

The second catch is that in the past information was a powerful tool to attract audiences. In the pre-digital era, data was hard to find and audiences were grateful to those who provided it in an easy-to-absorb format. So if your communication was informative, audiences would flock to you. Today, we are flooded by information – almost everything you want to know is easily available online. What audiences want now is someone who will help them make sense of it, convert this information to something they can use. Information is cheap, Insight is expensive.

What this means is that if you can make your communication non-intrusive and insightful, you can market your stuff for free! If your target audience has internet access, you must have a new media strategy. If your target audience is unlikely to be on the internet, you may still find that you need a new media strategy to reach out to influencers like media.

New media requires effort to get it right. Here are some constructs that have worked for me in the past, and which you may find useful as you build out your new media strategy.

Adopt a “mall & main-street” approach. Retailers often have their company showrooms on the main street in addition to being present in malls. Similarly, a company needs to have its own corporate website (main street) in addition to being present on aggregators like YouTube. Aggregators give you a chance to attract audiences that are not familiar with you.
Dedicate effort to create insight – tips, trends etc. Not only should you publish these on your website, but also post them on other relevant sites like blogs, industry publications. This will attract audiences to your website, as well as increase your search ratings.
Eliminate human latency. Many web-users want everything instantly. So provide automated tools for them to get all the information they need in a self-service manner. Where possible enable online purchasing, otherwise enable a chat or phone model which allows 24x7 closing of deals.
Be connected and consistent. Ensure that all your new media channels are connected to each other and that the messages are similar

Which new media you should use depends upon your target audience and the time you can spare. Here’s a handy reckoner:

Adapted from No Money Marketing, Jessie Paul, McGraw-Hill India

Once you’ve got the hang of new media, you can communicate direct to your customers and prospects, for free!

Published in the May issue of Management Next. Visit www.managementnext.com to subscribe and get access to this and other great management articles.

Marketing for the Present

2009-03-24T08:02:00.002+05:30

Happy families are all alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
—Leo Tolstoy in Anna Karenina

A slowing economy hurts everyone, but the extent varies. Each company is unhappy in its own way. The world is no longer the big flat smiley dreamt of by Tom Friedman, but fast reverting to the lumpy, grumpy, pock-marked soccer ball that it used to be. Though the technology exists to create a flat world, we still aren’t there in terms of the governance, economic and geopolitical systems.

There are various factors that determine the impact of the current economic crunch on a firm. First, how dependent is the firm (or its customers) on credit? Any credit-oriented industry such as construction or automobiles will be more affected than others. Second, how much of the firm’s revenue is derived from countries with high exports? Export-oriented countries such as South Korea and Taiwan are likely to be more affected than India, where exports are just 25% of gross domestic product. Third, which industry is the firm in? According to research by McKinsey, in previous recessions, consumer staples have been among the least affected; consumer discretionary spending on goods such as clothes, home furnishings is the most affected; information technology is usually first-in, manufacturing is often last-out; while energy, utilities, and health care remain relatively unaffected. Contd...

Continue reading this article at Livemint.com to find out how a marketer could respond to the current economic downturn.

PS: Does anyone know if it is ok to publish one's published articles on a blog? From a copyright perspective? Leave me a comment if you do, thanks!

Now that we're connected, buy from me.

2009-03-20T21:56:00.004+05:30

“Hi , I want to sell you stuff , tell you how good I am and get connected to people who I don't really know”. This was posted as a joke by one of the members on one my LinkedIn groups. Don’t laugh. It really is what a lot of people on social network sites want to do.

And that probably explains why many people don’t benefit much from trawling these sites. I was reading up on the art of persuasion. I’d always thought that people bought from people they liked, but this research gave me another perspective – you have to like your potential clients. Intuitively, makes sense. We usually like people who like us!

I went through a McKinsey piece “When jobseekers invade Facebook” and another obvious truth leapt out at me – you should enter a social network as a giver, not a taker.

Sounds so much like what mama taught you – when you’re going to someone’s house as a guest, take a long a gift for the hosts. And in India, there’s a whole industry running on “return gifts” at kids birthday parties. So, all we have to do is figure out the online application of these ancient rules of etiquette.

Here are my suggestions – feel free to add yours:

1. Try to build a network of people you like.
2. It is hard for people to maintain a relationship with more than 150 people, so tier your network. You could consider keeping your acquaintances on LinkedIn and promote your friends to Facebook
3. The best time to build your network is when you don’t want anything ie when you’re happily employed or your business is in a steady state. This is also when you will have time to invest in your online presence.
4. Be a giver to your network. Help others find jobs, connect them to useful people, post interesting articles. Remember, do unto others as you would have done unto you.
5. If you feel things are out of control build a walled garden for yourself. Invite only those you really want to have a relationship with into your new secret garden. Facebook allows you to control settings for access, and LinkedIn allows you to form your own group.
6. Don’t assume that online relationships will thrive purely online. There is only so much that a status message can communicate! Phone or meet the ones you like.
7. Use multiple communication channels – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blog, website, YouTube so that you have a range of formats. This will also protect you if one of these falls by the wayside.
8. Stay interesting professionally – read up, conduct polls, go for industry events. Your network needs you!
9. Don’t go online – opt out! Use that time to invest in cultivating the few people you really want to know. I love doing business with a furniture store where the owner remembers my birthday without recourse to a birthday book or reminder tool. It’s a successful business but she still finds time to offer a cup of tea to every regular customer when they visit.
10. If despite point #9, you still want to go online, plan on investing half-an-hour a day to make it successful.

Davonomics - Rise of a New World Order

2009-01-31T16:12:00.003+05:30

Having braved a 3-hour train-ride with two changes in the snow, I arrived in Davos. Mood isn’t quite as perky as it used to be at the world’s biggest conference, but a fair number of CEOs have made it here, perhaps flying commercial for the first time in 30 years. There is definitely a drop in the number of limos, and a significant rise in security. The current economic crisis has broadened geographic representation with countries like Azerbaijan, Armenia getting time in the spotlight, and Vladimir Putin and Wen Jibao ably positioning their countries. (Traveling with an entourage of 100+ does tend to amplify the presence.)

We hosted our annual Wipro-CII Bollywood music party last night. Amitabh Bachchan was in Davos with his wife, Jaya, to collect his Crystal Award from WEF and stayed at the same hotel and was invited to join the party. But while very gracious to fans asking for a photo or autograph, he decided not to join in. So we ended up with the slightly surreal situation of a roaring party with 250 people of all countries dancing to Bollywood numbers, while one of its biggest stars sat in the hotel lobby (the only spot with wireless access) and conscientiously cleared his email! Only in Davos.

The Chairman of Wipro is addressing the audience today on the global economic outlook. I was researching material that showed the linkage between economic wealth and geopolitical power when my friend Lan Lakshminarayan gave me a nifty framework “economics follows demography, and geo-politics follows economics”. So rather than just focus on the recent financial meltdown as just another recession, we could view it as a cross-border economic shift which could alter the world’s political and economic balance on the same scale as Industrialization, Rise of Britain as a colonizing sea-power, Germany’s land-based expansionism, America’s emergence as the sole global power, and the Bretton-Woods agreement.

Why do demographics matter? Historically ‘younger’ nations have been more dynamic and have created wealth at an accelerated pace, and today roughly one third of the 76 million people added to the world each year are in India – 22% and China – 11% (UN figures). Automation and productivity improvements have helped reduce the direct linkage somewhat, but the cost of supporting the aging population with a smaller base of workers tends to offset those gains. Also, governments will push more of their responsibilities (eg healthcare, transportation, security) and associated costs towards private enterprises and increase the cost of doing business in those countries. So we can assume that there will be a disruptive shift in riches towards those countries that maintain their populations at the replacement level either organically (birth-rates) or inorganically (immigration).

Economic growth rarely takes place without geo-political shifts. Growing economies embark on expansion to gain access to raw materials and ensure free flow of their goods and services (Similar to the vertical integration adopted by companies to secure their supply chains). For example, energy security is a key objective for many growing economies and they focus on securing adequate supplies and then safeguarding its transit. In the past, a country – or business enterprises like the East India Company or the South Sea Company – would have simply “annexed” the required territory for its pipelines or ships. But today, similar to the recent business trend of economic partnerships substituting absolute ownership, countries increasingly exercise soft power and economic clout to gain their strategic ends, rather than the military option. For example, China uses ASEAN as its platform for building a free trade zone, from which politically strong trading partners like US and India are excluded. China even offers IMF-style funding assistance to ASEAN members. Both China and India are actively investing in places as disparate as Bhutan and Africa.

This competition for resources, and the desire for prestige, will cause changes in the geo-political map. While America will continue as an economic powerhouse despite the current dip, the financial meltdown has reduced America’s premier status as the chief economist to the globe. China is currently larger than India in terms of output and trade, but the gap is expected to narrow over the coming five to 20 years. The bilateral relationship of India with China and of both these emerging ‘superstates” with the US, Japan, France, Germany and other economic powers will shape both geopolitics and economics in the years to come.

For business, there is an additional dimension to consider. And that is the transforming power of ubiquitous technology in enabling a world where the nature of work is increasingly services-oriented and digital, and where work can be done anywhere. The current economic cycle and the accompanying focus on reducing travel and increasing flexibility to ramp-up and ramp-down, could accelerate trends such as
· work-from-home which would cause a decline in the growth of mega-cities
· increasing use of teleconferencing/telepresence as a substitute for business travel
· temporary virtual aggregation of individuals on a project-basis eg crowdsourcing leading to a decline in full time employment

To summarize, when we come out of the current recessionary cycle, the world will look different politically, economically and technologically, and those who plan for those changes now, will not just survive but thrive.

And who knows? Maybe ten years from now, the axis will have shifted so far that WEF will up itself from its icy, inconvenient home and relocate to the equally picturesque town of Madikeri, Karnataka. It’s just as well connected!

Superstar CEOs - a statistical perspective

2009-01-11T01:45:00.006+05:30

Why? Why would a much-felicitated, award-winning, philanthropic, super-rich, founder-CEO do this? This is the question many ask themselves as they track the unfolding saga of Satyam's founder, Mr Ramalinga Raju who confessed this week to overstating revenues by a billion dollars.

But is there a marketing angle to this? No, no, not the overstating revenues bit, but in creating an environment where CEOs become superstars, and think they can get away with playing by rules which are, umm, different. In an excellent piece of empirical research, Mr Malmendier and Mr Tate of UC, Berkeley argue that the consequence of media-induced superstar status for CEOs is actually negative for shareholders.

Here's how it works - the CEO performs really well for a few years, and then starts to win awards given out by the media and becomes famous. He or she then starts to devote more time to activities like authoring books, playing golf, and sitting on other company boards. (This is also accompanied by an above-average increase in non-cash compensation to reflect his "star" status.) Then, because of all these distractions - which could also as per the research include increased loans from the company to the CEO, payments to his favorite charity, sponsorship of sports - the CEO doesn't devote as much time to the company as he used to. Now, to meet analyst expectations, he starts resorting to earnings management. This usually stretches to a max of 5 years after which the company starts underperforming. The important caveat however is that all of these tendencies are far more likely in companies with poor governance.

Intuitively it seems to make sense, and the authors put up an impressive mass of data to support their thesis - even golf handicaps of the top CEOs and how it increases after winning an award! The data is from the US. But the celebrity culture is taking root across the world, so it seems pretty likely that this should hold true globally though perhaps with weaker linkages in less celeb-influenced cultures.

So, should marketers stop pitching CEOs for awards? No, but it is important that the company has governance mechanisms in place to ensure that the superstar CEO doesn't have too many "star moments" and continues to work for the shareholders.

There are also those who blame the media for hyping up CEOs. This research shows that the reputable awards (which are mostly owned by media firms) do their research pretty well based on public data and the CEOs do tend to outperform their peers in the years prior to winning their major award. (Though the performance could be due to luck rather than excellence.) It is only the CEOs post-award performance that varies, and that is correlated to the presence of good corporate governance controls.

So why is a celeb-culture wrong in business but ok in other industries like films or music? The key difference is that a CEO is made a celeb by the media and the marketing team (through ads and editorial) not by the actual beneficiaries ie the shareholders or clients. This is unlike films or music where the audience has to like the product and buy it for the creator to be a celebrity. The media plays a supportive role in managing their perceptions. And when the celeb has one star moment too many - like Britney or Lindsey - the audience can drop them without any financial pain.

What can companies do to ensure that they are benefited by a celebrity CEO (and not taken for a ride)?

1. Diffuse the "star" status across a number of top management roles so that the company gets the benefit of the star-power without being dependent on any one star (and thus open to rent-seeking behaviour)

2. Create a special cadre of non-operational 'evangelists' who can be given star status without impacting the performance of the company

3. Have strict governance mechanisms in place to ensure that CEO commitment does not decline and that company resources are not diverted to the CEO's hobbies

4. Task marketing with making a clear distinction between external activities that promote the company's strategy vs those that only promote the CEO, and fund accordingly.

5. A sharp fall in the CEO's shareholding should trigger an alert to the Board that he is perhaps not as committed to the firm as before. Another empirical study suggests that a management holding of 0-5% and >25% are best for the firm.

In short, media and marketers have a role to play in restraining the rise of the celeb-CEO culture, and companies need to have a strong oversight mechanism to check the celebrity CEO.

Thanks to Dom Dada, Flick'r for the photo.

Moving away from "my" media to "our" media

2009-01-04T16:54:00.005+05:30

I helped create my first commercial website back in 1998. (To see what the Infosys site looked like in 2000 visit the web archive project ) For most of the next 10 years at various firms a lot of my online efforts have been centered around driving traffic to the company website. The techniques varied and got more sophisticated - we started using professional SEO, paid for adwords, signed up for distribution networks like Techtarget. But essentially it was all towards driving traffic to "our " website.

Quite a bit like the old sandwich-board chappies drawing customers to a main-street shop. It wasn't till last year that this old model finally looks a bit frayed. 2009 might be the year when businesses will be expected to provide customers with ALL the information they need, where they are, and not expect to entice them elsewhere, to a corporate portal. So if your potential customers are on Facebook, Youtube, or LinkedIn or any other online hangout, you may need to start - and perhaps even close -the conversation there. Some like Youtube allow businesses to do this legitimately and easily - you can buy yourself a channel. Others, like Facebook are still experimenting with various models to demarcate commercial vs personal.

Marketers have of course been using ads in popular hangouts to get attention and get potential customers to visit their sites. The difference is that now the ads have to be infotainment and the potential customer may not want to leave their hangout and may just want to transact with you where they are. For a generation brought up with paypal and ebay and amazon the concept of visiting a corporate website to close a transaction may seem sooo old economy.

So essentially there is a shift from "owning" your prime online property - your corporate website - to "renting" it from a new media firm. And you will have multiple such leased sites - at all the popular hangouts. Today, for most marketers these "rental" properties are still intended to direct traffic back to your "own" website. But I am not sure that will continue to be feasible. And, while it is great to become your own broadcast channel and leverage the ready audience proferred by these hangouts, the rents will rise as these hangouts overtake traditional media in reach. So what can marketers do to build their own "rent-free" properties in a world that is increasingly congregating in a few hubs?

As part of Wipro's efforts to expand on the new medium and present content in an interesting manner, we posted a "Holiday Story of SOA and Penguins" on youtube. It is a pilot and it still needs some editing so it wasn't promoted - but we still got over 1400 hits in a week. Sure, a corporate website picks up that many hits in a minute - but that is from folks who were already interested in your firm, whereas this video is targeting those hanging out on Youtube, with an interest in SOA (or perhaps penguins). This story got picked up by Financial Chronicle too. So for a limited spend - just the animation cost - we got pretty good airplay. But that brings me to my original concern. How do I ensure that I have a powerful channel of my own that does not rely on aggregators like Youtube? Ideas welcome!

Thank you for reading this blog. I wish you all a 2009 filled with peace, joy, and true recognition of the power of marketing!

Staying Up in a Down Economy: Eight Marketing-Strategy Tips from Best Buy and Wipro CMOs

2008-11-19T00:31:00.001+05:30

Article by Ron Young in www.marketingprofs.com

The Obamarketer: Obama Wins the US Presidency

2008-11-05T10:27:00.003+05:30

I am in Chicago, though not near the scene of today's excitement. Am parked in front of a large screen TV as Mr Obama makes his acceptance speech. Seen up close over the past two days, his marketing machinery has been very impressive. It validates my belief that when you are a upstart brand it makes sense to establish a bulkhead through word of mouth and new media, but once you have acquired critical mass, you need to mobilize those channels to expand your coverage and make it (a) immediate (b) broad-based. Getting over a million doors knocked in one week just through volunteers mobilized through a website is awesome. A half-hour commercial on prime time tv shows that the brand has arrived.

I had done a piece in March on the difference between defining yourself on who you are versus on what you have done http://www.jessiepaul.com/2008/03/obama-or-clinton-who-or-what.html The "who you are" camp has won. This is probably the first political victory attributable to a great extent to new marketing skills applied to projecting a personality. And shows how important these skills have become for any brand with mainstream aspirations. Take a look at this earlier map of the Obama electronic footprint ( http://www.jessiepaul.com/2008/08/minibrand-anyone.html ) and see how much can be replicated for your brand. After all it's time for a change :)

Picture: Flickr Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/briansolis/

2 for 3 or 2 for 1?

2008-11-01T15:31:00.007+05:30

"Two for the price of three". Sounds absurd? Perhaps you mentally translated it as "Two for the price of one" which is a far more common phrase. But 2 for 3 describes luxury branding at its simplest. The additional value is intangible - trust, pride, reliability. Intangible, but valuable. to the consumer.

You may be wondering why I am discussing luxury brands when the economy is pinching even these creamy layer products. (Though the really, really rich may decide that it's a good time to splurge on a second slightly-used mega-yacht for the family!) Well, that's because I think the philosophy of luxury brands - the personalization, reliability, predictability - can be replicated even for brands that aspire to address a broader audience. Everyone wants to be special.

I recently attended a case-study based training program organized by Dominion which had Professor David Bell from Harvard Business School speak on Strategic Marketing. It was more tuned towards products, but there was one big take-away for me - you are loyal to brands you are grateful to. And you are grateful to brands that deliver more than you expect or do something for you. For example, he cited the example of alumni contributing to their alma maters because they were grateful for what the education (or brand stamp) had done for their careers. I remember certain restaurants and coffee shops not because of what they sell but because of what they give free with the food. If a retailer takes back stuff even if you have lost the bill, you are grateful to them. Using a Mont Blanc pen renders a certain cache to the writer - you are grateful to the brand for establishing your credentials. Ditto luxury cars or green products or alternative clothing brands or where you live.

I think this is what lies at the heart of all classy brands, lux or otherwise. Going beyond the ordinary and baking that into the customer experience in a sustainable, scaleable way. And loyalty is a good thing to have when the world is uncertain.

PS: I have my husband to thank for the phrase "2 for 3"

Frugal Marketing for Foggy Economics

2008-10-11T19:00:00.005+05:30

Given the current economic flux, marketers are (or should be!) concerned about how it will impact their roles and industries. Ways in which it is likely to impact firms are:

1. Companies feeling the pinch because of the global credit crunch will look for ways in which they can limit up-front investment and capital expenditures

2. As consumers and companies are uncertain about the economy they are likely to postpone discretionary expenditure

3. Even consumers and companies not (yet) impacted by the crisis are likely to be more agressive in seeking value and in justifying the returns of any purchases. They may not necessarily ask for lower prices or trade downwards, but they will ask more questions and measure benefits more tightly.

While we are waiting for the economic situation to become clearer, should a marketer continue as business as usual? Perhaps not. Here are some ideas of what might be useful:

1. Postpone big bang, discretionary, brand campaigns that do not directly impact purchase behaviour. Better to do this when the dust has settled and you are sure of your short-term positioning in the new economic scenario

2. Focus on emphasizing the value delivered by your service or product. Provide data on why it is a good investment. Offer third party benchmarking and audits of the value delivered.

3. Structure options that lower upfront investment and spread the payments through the usage period

4. Emphasize services or products that will reduce the consumers' expenses

5. Structure service contracts into shorter time periods, with an option to renew

Instead of wringing its hands and worrying about its budgets, marketing can be very useful in identifying strategies for companies to deal with the new economics and emerge stronger in the long run, when this down cycle (like all other cycles preceding it) too has passed.

And while we are waiting for the fog to clear, it is a good time to invest in building high quality content. In times of uncertainty, customers look for information on how they can deal with the situation and what are potential services and products that can help them. Marketers can also help in restructuring services to address the customers new needs.

And all of these can be communicated at low cost electronically. As customers try to reduce their travel, many are going online to seek answers. So being active on LinkedIn Answers, Facebook, Twitter and in the blogosphere is not just frugal, it is the most effective method.

Photograph: Courtesy of Thomas Hawk at http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/ Used under creative commons, attribution+no-commercial usage

Leadership 101 : Self-Realization to Self-Actualization

2008-09-13T15:48:00.018+05:30

I was asked to speak on leadership at Cisco's Women's Action Network. I applied branding principles to career planning and came up with this ten-step program.

SELF-REALIZATION

STEP 1: DECIDE WHO YOU ARE

Life isn't about finding yourself.
Life is about creating yourself. ”
- George Bernard Shaw

STEP 2: BUILD ON YOUR STRENGTHS

“Be more dedicated to making solid achievements than in running after swift but synthetic happiness.” - Abdul Kalam

STEP 3: DIFFERENTIATE OR STAGNATE

The middle of the road is a good place to get run over”
- Mark Kassof

STEP 4: JUST ASK
“Every moment of your life is infinitely creative and the universe is endlessly bountiful. Just put forth a clear enough request, and everything your heart desires must come to you.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

STEP 5: CONTROL THE VARIABLES

“The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.”
- St. Thomas Aquinas

SELF-ACTUALIZATION

STEP 6: GOAL YOURSELF

“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy and inspires your hopes. ”
- Andrew Carnegie

STEP 7: STRETCH YOURSELF

“If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. The more things you do, the more you can do.”
- Lucille Ball

STEP 8: BRAND YOU

“And I'm not an actress. I don't think I am an actress. I think I've created a brand and a business.”- Pamela Anderson

STEP 9: HELP OTHERS

“If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants. ”
- David Ogilvy

STEP 10: ENJOY MAADI

“True happiness is... to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.”- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Let me know if you have any examples of situations where you have experienced the benefits of these guideposts.

I apologize if I have used your photos without acknowledgement. It isn't intentional, this isn't a commercial site, and I'd be happy to link to your site if you let me know.

Bangalore in 2025

2008-09-12T20:51:00.002+05:30

Navi Radjou is one of most articulate ambassadors for innovation, and the title links to his recent blog post on Bangalore. That was an outcome of a WEF led discussion on innovation covering geographical innovation clusters, innovation talent, and collaborative innovation. It's a good read, but I'd like to put out my personal vision for 2025 - (1) Thanks to cheap and easy teleconferencing technologies travel will be a luxury for business (2) mobile, secure computing infrastructure will mean that you can work from anywhere - much as you can today make a phone call from anywhere in the world (3) with a wide variety of software solutions on tap, and supported by almost invisble hardware pipes, IT will be ubiquitous (4) large parts of enterprise systems will be user defined. (5) with a world which is connected electronically, but where travel is a luxury, e-networking skills will be a differentiator for success in business
What do you think?
Or is it just my 1 hour commute causing me to hallucinate?!

Some websites have it, some don't

2008-09-07T19:37:00.002+05:30

Bangalore already has local politicians putting up billboards wishing you "Happy Ganesh Chathurthi, St Mary's Feast, Ramzan". It's that time of the year when marketers start thinking about e-greetings and email signatures for the holiday season. What? Did I hear you say cards?! Ooh, that is so un-green. Well, maybe just a few. On recycled paper, of course.

Anyway, I researched the history of viral marketing. Hotmail, which pioneered this marketing medium, went from 500,000 users to 12 million in 18 months, just on the strength of its email signature which said "Get your free email at Hotmail". I didn't know that Hotmail wasn't the first free service, and that there was a competitor called Juno which went the traditional marketing way and achieved considerably less number of subscribers - 3 million if press articles of the time are to be believed. Hmm.

I found this cool post on the Top 10 Viral Marketing programs at http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/the-top-10-viral-marketing-campaigns-of-all-time/ There isn't a B2B service campaign there - can anyone point me to one? Is there more to viral for B2B than cutesy email signatures, widgets like calendars, competitions? Yeah, these work for awards and to drive event attendance, but certainly not on the scale of Hotmail. The google chrome cartoon was pretty cool, but it's still B2C.

I'm really grateful to y'all for visiting my website from the 176,748,506 vying for your attention. (Yup, those are the August figures). So why do people visit some sites and not others? I was looking at the alexa rankings of the top 10 sites in India vs the US, and apart from the obvious suspects of Orkut and Rediff being more popular in India, I spotted Blogger at #7. Isn't that cool? We've always been a nation that likes to talk, and now we're doing it electronically. So much so that today's newspaper had a whole piece on what assorted bloggers thought of the nuclear deal (they had the grace to name the bloggers though not their sites).

Oh, and the other interesting discovery I've made during my viral marketing research is that hardly anyone visits the homepage anymore. They key in their topic of interest into google, and then visit the relevant page directly. So all the fancy research we did on site navigation, homepage design is just a tad redundant now. We could just string up a bunch of useful pages and not worry about the flow and all that jazz. We could go back to those minimalist websites we had back in the mid-nineties. For a trip back in time visit http://www.archive.org/ and key in your favourite url.

PR in the Flat World

2008-09-03T14:25:00.005+05:30

Digitization and advances in communications have removed many of the barriers to communication. This is causing changes in industries, like PR, which were built upon their skill at access.

In this new digitized paradigm, there are no gatekeepers – if you know the journalist’s phone number you can talk to them. They may not listen to you, but then they couldn’t have read every press release that was faxed to them either. Nor is it hard to socialize with the media – most news sites have places where you can comment on their articles and very often, if the response is valid, the journalist will respond to your comment and you can commence a dialogue. Many journalists run blogs, and hang out on Facebook. All this is making the old, treasured tools of PR redundant, as the table below shows:

Table 1: Transformation of PR tools in the new media

As this trend continues, PR mavens have to provide more than information. They have to provide insight. And that is going to be far more difficult, and from a client perspective, expensive. I predict a lot of changes in the way this industry will transform itself.

Minibrand, anyone?

2008-08-30T15:19:00.003+05:30

I've been to two of our premier acad institutes in the past month - IIM Indore and IIFT, Kolkota. I went to IIM Indore because Neeta Nagar, a former colleague, found me playing online scrabble and made the case. In the case of IIFT, they had partnered with NASSCOM and were holding a full-blown event on the topic of "Indian IT at crossroads". At both the places the students were earnest, well-organized and very interested in the topic of branding. Very different from the way we were.

Is it because the new media with its glut of information intensifies the competition for attention, and hence the need for brands? Or that it is now possible for everyone, potentially, to be a brand? Well, ok, being a megabrand like Paris Hilton or Pamela Anderson isn't for everyone, but a minibrand with a thousand followers is pretty doable.

I was researching Barack Obama's online efforts for my book,Marketing in a Flat World, and it is truly amazing what he has pulled together in terms of his social media presence and in connecting it with his offline activities. I did a mapping of the online instances and it could serve as a blueprint for anyone who wanted to build either their own brand, or that of their company.

There is a lot of good analysis including one in the MIT Technology Review on how the campaign went about doing this, and it is worth reading for anyone who wants to be a mega- or mini-brand.

Posts on any indian equivalents to this are welcome.

On another note, the interest in Second Life continues with two requests from the media this month for story inputs. Wipro also had its virtual SOA lab inaugurated by Srinivas Parthasarathy of Farmers Insurance, which shows that SL is now getting more business interest. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDciO4JbFUA

Second Wind for Second Life?

2008-08-01T19:07:00.002+05:30

I got no less than 3 queries from the Indian media about Second Life last month. One resulted in this press article http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=330062 and another in a short tv clip on UTVi.
Wipro has been on Second Life for over a year now and our island has had 4000 unique visitors. It is very useful as a 3D representation of labs and other features, though I have to admit its user interface is a bit challenging for those who are not 'digital natives".
Now with Lively from google there is another virtual world to play with. I'd like some views on why virtual worlds are not experiencing the kind of fast business adoption that would be expected. And if you have an island on Second Life, what your experience has been.

Social Networking for a Social Cause

2008-07-11T19:09:00.002+05:30

I am just back from a visit to my alma mater, REC - now NIT - Trichy. I went to address students who were planning to apply to my company. Close to 16 years since I went back, and it was very cool to see some old faces and also to see the huge amount of improvements that have taken place.

But that's not what this blog is about. Some time ago, there was a request on the alumni bulletin board trying to raise funds for a school for the children of the college support staff. I spotted this and used linkedin and facebook to propagate it. Almost everyone I contacted came forward with a pledge we rapidly raised enough money to fund a classroom. So social networking works really well for a good cause - mainly because there is someone vouching for the cause and pulling it together, and it's nice to do things as a group you know. (In the past religious organizations were the main coordinators of this sort of thing. Which makes one wonder - has facebook replaced the town square/churches/temples where people used to hang out not so long ago?!)

The catch of course is how to reach the money to trichy, particularly from those outside India. Wouldn't it be cool if there was a global portal which took care of electronic money transfers for good causes? with a button on facebook and linkedIn of course!

Listmania: Just say No

2008-07-04T15:20:00.001+05:30

Since we’re social animals, we like to compare ourselves, passively or actively with others. Hence the interest in lists of “Most Powerful”, “Best Dressed”, “Richest”, “Kindest”, “Most-beautiful-American-of-Indian-origin-in-New-York”. Yes, the last one is for real. The lists which are easy to understand are those based on some publicly defined and understood dimensions such as wealth or quantum of philanthropy, and most debatable are those which are entirely qualitative like beauty or fashion. Even those who wouldn’t dream of participating in these lists are guilty of reading them and wondering where they stand. And if you studied in a regular Indian school you have been brought up in the belief that being “First Rank” is all that matters.

In the business world this translates to organizations comparing themselves with other organizations. Again, some of the lists are simple enough – those based on revenue or profits. Others are based on surveys and polls and depending upon how transparent the pollsters are with the methodology these are quite credible. Then you have surveys based on consulting “experts” or the Delphi methodology. These are more difficult to understand. And then you have some other lists which are clearly in the realm of voodoo, as they share no information on the methodology or panel.

Not so long ago, research was a very expensive proposition and very few individuals could afford to invest in it on their own. So publications conducted this research as a public service and recouped their costs through increased sales. In the pre-internet days these guides were often the only source of comparative information. Now the cost of conducting a survey or poll has dramatically declined, publications are in a very competitive space fighting for circulation, marketers are greedy for PR of the businesswire variety, and the combination of these factors has led to a rapid profusion of lists.

It is hard for companies to stand up and not be counted. And we are trapped in a vicious cycle of being silent even when we do not know the methodology that was used. We marketers encourage the creation of lists by celebrating when we are winning (and whining when we’re not). We rarely publicize errors either because we stand to benefit or we come across as sore losers.

One of the most prolific lists in the past three years has been the “Black Book of Outsourcing”. It is interesting to read the BusinessWeek expose on them. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_28/b4092084064809.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_news+%2B+analysis

It is time to consider whether many of these lists are an anachronism because with new media technology the cost of conducting a third party survey has dramatically dropped and everyone can customize the results. The methodologies vary so that it is impossible to compare two lists. And with social networking it is easy for anyone to bring together their private panel of experts whose opinions matter most to them. There is still a need for credible third party research which is in-depth, qualitative, and based on opinions not just data. But I think the day of the pure rankings is over.

Logo is NOT for life

2008-06-29T23:19:00.002+05:30

Like all other design elements, logos too get outdated. Unfortunately, most organizations get emotionally attached to their faded logos and refuse to let go. Often, the examples cited to support the cause of the ailing logos are the same - IBM, Apple, Microsoft. How these logos are simple and such classics that they never have to change. (As though a logo that has to evolve is somehow flawed).
This article on the evolution of tech logos is thus very liberating. Because it shows how even these icons have had to transform and modernize over the years. Read it to know that the original Apple logo was actually a complicated illustration. Or that IBM has had multiple avatars, names and logos in its long existence.
http://www.neatorama.com/2008/02/07/the-evolution-of-tech-companies-logos/
I'm providing this for those who are in need of some data to bolster their case. But think carefully about whether your really need to refresh your logo before you plunge in. Or if it is just to bring some excitement into your life. Remember, the brand manager is usually the first to tire of a logo. Mainly because they spend their working hours staring at it. The average customer does not. Sadly.

Green is the new Clean

2008-06-15T18:27:00.003+05:30

I haven't blogged in a bit. Instead I was doing that big ecological no-no, flying! (Wipro is installing Telepresence so maybe I won't have to travel as much any more)My team and I in marketing have been doing our bit for green over the past year - tried to cut down the amount of paper generated in the form of brochures, stopped taking printouts, religious recycling, using carafes at events instead of individual plastic bottles. As a company, Wipro is doing its bit to be green too http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Guest_Writer/World_must_act_now_for_ecological_sustainability_Azim_Premji/articleshow/3112239.cms . But it isn't until I went to Europe and US that I realized how big the green movement is over there. Thank goodness we had decided to make our customer forum, Mandala, carbon neutral. (http://in.biz.yahoo.com/080604/139/6ucn3.html) Awareness of this problem has just shot up in 12 months. Developing countries are rapidly adopting green philosophies too - the first event on Green IT I have come across in India takes place Friday http://itenablinggreen.com/about.html

So much so that green is no longer a "nice-to-have" but a "must-have". On Earth Day, we did a little (electronic) release on Wipro becoming a member of "Green Grid" an initiative on the greening of data centers. I am a cynic who believes that hardly anyone reads press releases (though they do tremendously help with google ratings) but the green grid response has been very good.

What does this mean to marketers? Most companies have a long way to go to be as eco-friendly as they can be. But if you aren't trying -at least within the sphere of your own influence to be green - you will be left behind in the new wave.

Stumble on (yet more) information

2008-04-26T19:00:00.005+05:30

Are you being drowned by emails? Bludgeoned by blogs? Choked by the information overload of websites? Hounded by people following up on their emails? Quizzed by yet another game show (Panchvi strikes this weekend).

We're going the way of the Ancient Romans.

They didn't have electronic communication. But they had poetry. And direct marketing. And publishing houses churning out copies. They held recitationes in all kinds of public places, homes and parties. They had competitions - the famous one in Naples ran for 13 hours and the audience was not allowed to leave. Even their emperors competed (just like Amitabh Bacchhan entering the fray with his blog!!) Perhaps their empire collapsed in sheer fatigue and frustration!

Now, if we don't want our internet empire of information to implode, we've got to have smarter ways to find relevant information in the sea of mediocrity. Or succumb completely to randomness. That's where www.stumbleupon.com steps in. It's a crowdsourcing or friendsourcing way to identify what's good on the web. You select your topics and then it takes you to sites which are heavily rated by other members. When you do a google search it has an icon to point you to the sites which have the best ratings from other stumblers. Thanks to siddharth nair for pointing me to this useful site. The difference betwen stumble and searches like google is that it brings the power of social networking to deciding the most USEFUL content as opposed to bots deciding what words are most relevant to a larger audience. And folks pls do stumble my blog too :)

To know that we are facing a crisis, you only have to read this desperate plea I received as an out of office response last week "Due to immense high workload there will be a delay in replying to your emails. Please refrain from telephone calls if you have already sent an email. I apologize for any inconvenience."

To know more about the poetry craze among the Romans, visit http://www.believermag.com/issues/200309/?read=article_perrottet

I stumbled upon it.