Inside CRM argues that generating more leads does not necessary lead to more sales, it is the quality of leads really matter. Essential truth about a well differentiated offering chasing dollars based on good understanding of buying behavior in a well segmented market. Blind lead chasing results in tower fabrication company brochure reaching a broker’s mailbox. Don’t compound by following up with a call and seeking a meeting. Stop!

‘Reach the decision-maker’- Am sure anyone in sales selling a high value product or service would have heard this sermon from his boss. CustomerThink poses the question, “Is "Call on the CXO" a Winning Strategy for Salespeople? ” I am not sure I agree with the premise in this article. At least, completely.

The long and short of any complex sale is that there are a set of influencers, a set of buyers and a set of decision makers.Sometimes these roles overlap as well so, it is not A vs B, but A and B.

The Mittals (Lakshmi and Aditya) were chasing an M&A target that did not see a point in the merger. The CEO was Guy Dolle, who was actually pursuing Dofosco, to gain a scale and not become an Mittal target.

Some very interesting facts. The two parties were advised by two top shot M&A advisors. One worked for Goldman Sachs and went by as Yoel and advised the Mittals, and his counterpart in Arcelor camp was Michael, who worked for Morgan Stanley. Michael Zaoui and Yoel Zaoui were real brothers!

The book is very well researched and written like a story. You feel like you are watching things on the screen. Only one complaint – periodically you come back to real life! A must read!!

This guy was riding atop watermelons. Correction, he was actually asleep atop the watermelons. Supply chain agility, or supply chain adaptability?!

At workplace many times, not knowing where a colleague is. More so in a multi-time-zone company. A Google Latitude like application, implemented within a corporation could be a great help. Tracking a sales team could be quite a nightmare ( When I say tracking, I don’t mean snooping on their planned vs actual travel, but merely knowing the time-zone for a call appropriateness. It is another matter that many organizations would like to see their guys on a screen just for that, usually fruitlessly).

Google already has this technology where your location can be shared with friends automatically depending on mobile phone connection. Large organizations buy big number phone connection from one or two vendors.

Maybe the blocks of technology of what I am proposing is already there. Imagine, on your personalized screen in the intranet/extranet, you cannot just look up a person’s contact details, but his current location. You would be wise enough to call a Tampa based colleague an hour beyond his normal time, when you know he/she is in Chicago on business.

Can I expect a reply to an urgent mail? I think that would be cool.

On the flip side, I do agree there are privacy issues. But then technology has to be used meaningfully deployed.. If an organization wants to snoop on the location of its employees, they can always do through other means. This is a cultural dimension and not a technology dimension. Imagine a positive deployment and its potential.

If one were to see the different IT applications, any application with regard to a financial transaction is considered a high risk, compared to one, let’s say, document management. That’s why it is long time since terms such as CC and SaaS are a few years away from online retail, financial services and so on. In comparison, Slideshare, a presentation sharing site and Twitter are hosted on Amazon web services. Risk perception = Difficult to answer the question – Is it a proven and safe?

It is not that SaaS is completely a no-no in the enterprise scene. Salesforce offers  CRM application as SaaS. Salesforce.com had a revenue of little under 250 MN in 2007-08 which is not small pennies. It surely hosts a great amount of valuable data. Google Apps has found great favour with academic institutions across the world resulting in some extremely large implementations. There are quite a few ERP applications on the SaaS mode. At this stage, it is not really a proven to say that data in a cloud of on a SaaS application is any less secure. One the other hand bulk storage is becoming cheaper, thanks to companies such as NetApp.

It is more of a perception thing. Which boils down to the same old point of consumer behavior- Does your product promise hold credibility to generate sales?

Trevor at Kinaxis blog has an interesting argument. He says one of the big issues in Cloud Computing is if the company hosting the CC goes bust, how do you get the data secured? He argues that the on-premise applications are no more secure than those based on the cloud. He also argues that data can be lost by way of a simple printout, which can happen either way. I go with Trevor. Every year we read about sensitive data lost via misplaced or stolen laptops or disks lost in transit, including credit card data. Why, a senior British law enforcement official recently lost his job because he carried a printout of a plan the cover page of which was visible to the media, thereby compromising on the operation.

In short, it is not A vs B when it comes to on-premise application vs SaaS or CC. Both these solutions will probably continue to evolve in parallel, and address different needs.

 After ICANN developed a mechanism to resolve such squatting, one would be tempted to believe that it is sunset for squatters of corporate brand assets, but clearly not everyone believes so. For instance the domain SatyamMahindra.com has been registered the same day the new identity announced. Clearly, the expectation is that the natural traffic arriving would get them some revenues on the parked page and also to possibly make some quick buck in case the company gets interested in acquiring this squatted domain.

If the above domain was booked on June 21, 2009, the domain MahindraSatyam.com was booked by a Gulf based cyber-squatter on May 08 itself. 

This was even before the announcement of Tech Mahindra becoming coming out the eventual winner was made. Clearly, someone was just taking chance in the hope of making good money.

What is common to the both the cases that both the registrants have not chosen the privacy protection option usually provided by domain registrars, normally, at a small fee. Clearly, both want to be reachable in case someone gets interested.

Mahindra Satyam should move internet governing body ICANN and dispute the ownership of these two domains for reclaiming these two domains. With appropriate documentation, reclaiming should not be so tough.

Updated: Very pertinent Computerworld article on cybersquatting and how to deal with them.

1. Good themes are in terribly short supply
2. Customizing a theme is quite painful.
3. Try submitting to Google Webmasters. In the face of inexplicable xml errors, you would not know how to do your site verification.
4. Circular loop error with Feedburner. If you redirect your feed to feedburner, you obviously cannot use the redirected feed to ping or to submit as a sitemap.

Frankly, when I was setting this up, it looked so archaic that I gave up. Not sure what the product management team of Blogger been upto. Good morning to you.

Decade and half later, times of changed. This time, the real form of bird-watching excites my family.  Here are some shots we took early morning.

I had to take about five shots from about 30 feet away to get a decent view of this bird.

A parrot was enjoying the mango breakfast.

This woodpecker was moving so rapidly from one branch to another that it was difficult to locate and focus. Even though the image is not so well focused, this is the best we could get.

The palm fruits are just looking so winsome. If only one could reach them.

It is said that mango loyalties are very strong. So a Mumbaikar does not consider a Maleehabadi equivalent to an Alphonso. Biharis think nothing but Langda as the real one, and perhaps the Bongs think all mangoes except for the Malda are fake.  In Chennai it is nothing but the Bainganpallis/Bangarapallis that rule.

Legends have it that in olden days, when the King sent a basket of mangoes as a royal gift to the neighboring kingdom’s ruler, the royal mangoes were punctured with a needle so that the seed cannot be used to grow saplings (ancient variety of terminator technology!).

But when you get a tree next to your house which is laden with mangoes like these, you enjoy them growing every day. Without looking at the variety or label. Why, my wife even made pickle which are just about getting ready now!

Yes, this is as good as they were. From the rooftop, I could get a basketful.

As it happens, the best mangoes are always, always, just outside the reach!

I mentally had the list of Google services I was using, but when I make a list, I find it has a long tail.

1. Google Search: Very often, several times a day.
2. Gmail: At least two times a day, more on weekends.
3. GApps Mail: Same as Gmail
4. Google Calendar: That reminds me when to pay the school fee and wish non Facebook contacts birthdays, though I am still very bad at it. See the mail alert daily. It comes in the morning.
5. Blogger: Ocassionally photoblog.
6. Google Reader: Is usually open, esp on weekends.
7. Google News: Several times a day.
8. Picasa:Multiple times a week. I love playing with my camera.
9. Feedburner: For those who follow this blog via feeds, the rendering is by Feedburner, which is now part of the great G.
10. Webmaster tools: Ocassionally I do login to check for any indexing issues on my blog.
11. Adsense: Never made any real money but runs on my blogs nevertheless.
12. Google Maps: I find myself using it on my phone few times a month(mostly to boast about my phone!)
13. Google Earth: When someone invites me to a new part of town, I surely look it up.
14. Chrome: Tried and hated. Uninstalled.
15. And how do I forget this - YouTube - we love tuning into Bollywood movie songs here. Couple of times a month.

After resisting considerably, I read one of his books - The Three Mistakes of My Life.  It has a historical backdrop, relfections of aspirations, drama, love, religion,turmoil, success and failures all seamlessly intervoven in a fast readable storyline. In fact, you do not even realize when he jumps from one to another aspect and still manages to keep the story alive. 

If you haven’t read anything in a while now, I think its time you did. Even suggest that if you travel frequently, you cannot have a better contemporary company. That’s why I am even classifying this post in ‘Business Books’

My day usually becomes when a half-sleepy me, presses the PC button and while it loads, check personal mail on my phone (Mind you, not a Blackberry, but a Sony K790i). I find that my mails come on a service called Gmail. Next, I start Firefox and fire the Feedreader, which is by a company called Google. Incidentally, while the feedreader loads, I find myself looking at the cricket, holiday and birthdays calenders, on a service which has a Google prefix too. I then check my mails coming onto my B-School alumni email id, which is hosted by GApps. Yes, from the same company with a capital G that was founded by Messers Larry and Sergei. 

In the course of the day, I look-up the web for anything from the mundane to the sundry such as data on a company, weather, stocks, timezones and unit conversions. I find that almost without a thought, I use the same G company as the starting point. Quite a few times, it is also the end point.

Here’s the experiment. I would not use any G product on Thursday and Friday and see if  I can still have a sensible life. It means I could be missing wishing some of my family members or friend’s birthday or anniversary.(It also means that I would probably find more time for Facebook). No I am not even using Orkut next two days for reasons you understood right! 

The reason for this rogue socialogical experiment is simple. Sometime back I realized I was not getting the best deals because all my banking requirements where with one bank. I was reasonably satisfied till I found I was loosing out. Is Goog likely to be my information bank in that sense? That’s why I consider this experiment to be important.

Note: My experiment has begun. I have changed the default search engine on my laptop to Yahoo. To be fair, the home page has been changed to Bing.com. Next step. See how I can view my blog feeds on some non Goog platform. I am wondering which one. Information Cold-Turkey?? Looks like fun!!!

Having undergone a change of residence  between the last elections in 2004 and now, I had followed a long process to have my name shifted to the voters list in the new area. I have always been, and remain so on this date, very possessive of seeing my name in this list.

So, this morning, I appear at the polling both, a few hundred yards from my house, and decide to take my wife’s bycycle, instead of walking. When I reach the polling station with my EPIC, I get convinced I did a good thing by coming out to vote.

The polling station, like it mostly happens, was setup in a school. The heat was unbearable. The polling staff was in sweat and a few police constables we minding the orderliness of the queue which was about two dozen long and steady. There was no AC for the staff to work in, something that we take so much granted at our workplace. They did not have any laptops or any handheld devices either. Neither did they have any magnetic card reader or any RFID enabled card reader, which could quickly read my id from my EPIC, match it with a database and return a validation.

Rather, very patiently, a polling staff member saw my EPIC, located my name in the voters list which was in  the form of a book and called my name aloud. To the uninitiated, this practice of calling my name aloud is to allow the different party agents (who sit in the back row of the polling hall) to know who is in to vote, and to challenge in case an agent feels the person is not who he claims to be. Those agents sit with their own printouts of voters list and have usually done the groundwork in that neighbourhood to know most of the voters. Of course, nobody challenged me, but even in the crudeness of this process, I was mightly impressed that they were actually doing what they seem to be sitting there for.

After my name was located in the voters list, I was asked to move to the next table, where another polling official asked for an identification and a signature, onto a long notebook, something that we call as register in India. He also put an indelible ink mark, more a tradition than a purpose, on my left hand index finger. He did not have a pen type marker, but just a bottle with a basic brush, with which he was repeating with every voter.

Then came the moment. I was directed to take my position in the polling booth and make my choice. Those rough looking EVMs somehow seem to be a wonder to me. These machines are modular, and externally wired to each other and the presiding officer seems to have a control - he enables exactly one vote for every person. Once I pressed my selection, I heard a beep, and I was done.

What we generally miss to acknowledge is the massive force of polling officials across the country who generally travel to another area ( in the interest of neutrality perhaps), carry the voting machines (EVMs) with less than optimum resources (logistics and allowances), and repeat the process of voting from morning to evening for each and every person coming in. They travel by buses, climb mountains, even travel behind came backs in states such as Rajasthan. They begin several days early, usually stay away from their families for weeks and have no great arrangement for food or stay . Yet, they do succesfully manage to bring back  the opinion of India’s aam admi.

I go to cast my vote for these folks and they remain my winners. To those who did not bother to have their names enlisted in the voters list or did not consider stepping out to vote for one of these crazy reasons, bad luck pal. You missed something in life.

There are two ads that are particularly notable in this area. One is by Tata Indicom which seeks to pull customers to its fold by offering superior network quality. Sadly it ends up irritating you so much that Tata Indicom is out of my considered set, though I am suffering from dissonance with my existing cellphone service provider. Take a look:

The other ad is by rival Vodafone. Not sure what you make out of it, but I don’t feel gravitated enough to give them a call. Like Tata Indicom, they too have a series built around them.

Sometimes you wonder if ads are made for being raved by the admakers themselves.

Note: All IPs pertaining to the ads belong to their respective owners.

I am not going to identify C since the flavour of the season is anonymity spurred by the deep throat who blogs as the Fake IPL Player.

Coming back to C now. C honestly believes that his big camera is actually part of his human anatomy. He cannot live without it for a moment. He also believes everyone is interested in his elevator pitch on his camera particularly on virtues of optical zoom.It is amazing how he does it. 

Of course, C loves photography. But that love does not translate onto his love for his subjects. That’s why when people smile in a frame or look towards the lens, he yells,”Waste. Photo should appear natural”. Essentially means people have to have the dull, infinite-focus mode or animated discussions, but should not be even side-glancing towards the lens. And somewhere he also nurses the film-maker syndrome deep within. Nothing wrong with that - only with the retakes. Imagine his subject standing in the center of the road median in the April sun with vehicles whizzing past him from both sides. Not just that, the subject, another friend who I would call K points his right hand towards the sky towards an imaginary aeroplane that C taught him to visualize.  C meanwhile has his telephoto connected and standing in a shadow and adjusting his lens manually while K comes with his choicest abuses asking him to hurry up.

Ocassionally C gets into trouble with his camera. Once, driving by the outskirts, he is believed to have  stopped his car at an idyllic location and got down from his car with the camera. He also fitted a massively long lens in the front and pointed it to a villageman who was heading towards him. He kept adjusting till the villageman was possibly ten yards away from him. Finally, the villageman notices this retraction and expansion of lens that C was constantly doing in the hope of getting the perfect frame. He grew suspicious in case C could be holding a weapon! He became suspicious of C’s intentions. He just threw a stone towards C and ran back to the direction he came from. C also folded up and scooted the next moment.

But why do you need a long telephoto lens to take the above picture when the subject is just ten yards away is another dimension. Sometimes C suffers from the delusions that he is Rajanikanth and needs no framework of logic to define his actions.

And car is part of an extension of his body connected from a different part of his body. That’s why C often steps out of his house and gets into the car and goes nowhere and comes back. I think I’ve already sounded you out that he does not needs precise human-moded activities such as starting a car. It is just that C starts missing the car so much so he gets inside sits for the moment looks around and comes back!

Never mind, C!

But, a car?! Read the text message that I received this morning -typos included and telephone numbers masked.

Get Ur NANO booking form, NANO booking loan and NANO car loan, from STATE BANK OF INDIA - GUINDY, PayRs 2999 & book NANO Standard. Call 9XXXXXXXXX/9YYYYYYYYYY

The professor of marketing may scoff at such supposedly unsegmented marketing via text message blitzkrieg. But think of it, such a mass text messaging has a fairly good chance of succeeding in a product like the Tata Nano. The car is different, and perhaps the conventional wisdom of marketing can be kept aside for the moment? These are not normal times anyways!!