I’m back after almost 3 weeks

I’m blogging after almost 3 weeks. I have lot of things to share about whats been happening with me or this blog and why this sudden change of things around “Interactive Marketing Blog“.

First of all, due to a sudden mishap I met with a car accident which kept me away from blogging (I’m not getting into nitty gritty of it). Secondly, after much dilly-dallying I have shifted over to my own domain which will stay as my name goes. So please if you have been reading my blog at http://managementchords.blogspot.com then please change your bookmarks to make it easier for us to keep in touch. One of the main reasons I shifted over my own domain is the lack of freedom in Blogger which I think most of us know.

Some of the fallouts of shifting over to new domain was to let go off my hundreds of comments which you folks have posted. Sooner or later I’ll figure something out to republish it here. So if you folks have some nifty suggestion on this, please mail me at sampad.s[at]gmail.com or just post a comment.

Finally, rest of the things around me & this blog has been rounded off to make your time spent here in this site more worth it.

Nonetheless, Thank you for all your support via Twitter, FriendFeed, Emails & Phone calls.

Special Thanks:

Abhishek Shah, Santosh P, Daksh Sharma and few others for helping me in setting up this site.

THANK YOU

Get More Juice on Google's SMS Channels

Google India has just introduced a new product called Google SMS Channels that lets you subscribe to news alerts, blog updates and other kinds of information like horoscopes, jokes, stocks or even cricket scores via SMS text messages. (Courtesy: Blogoscoped)

So, if you're based in India, and don't have the time to visit my blog on the net, or to read the posts on the email newsletter, then you can now subscribe to it via SMS, using Google's SMS channels in India and get some Interactive Marketing Blog's juice in your mobile handset.

CLICK HERE to subscribe.

More Info: Google SMS Channels, which seems to have lot in common with SMS Gupshup, is free both for content publishers as well as mobile phone users who subscribe to text updates via SMS.

Families or friends can create private SMS groups on Google SMS channels and stay in touch via SMS without paying any fees to their mobile carrier. (Courtesy: Digital Inspiration)

Singularity, Human Intelligence & Google

The concept of singularity dates back as long as the evolution of computers go if not more than that. But what excited me about the whole Singularity concept is Kevin Kelly. He is a genius and pioneer of Web (and I'm just being modest). In his recent post on his blog, he wrote this:

......a smarter than human artificial intelligence will bring about yet smarter intelligence, which in turn will rapidly solve related scientific problems (including how to make yet smarter intelligence), expanding intelligence until all technical problems are quickly solved, so that society's overall progress makes it impossible for us to imagine what lies beyond the Singularity's birth. Oh, and it is due to happen no later than 2045. I agree with parts of that. There appears to be nothing in the composition of the universe, or our minds, that would prevent us from making a machine as smart as us, and probably (but not as surely) smarter than us. My current bet is that this smarter-than-us intelligence will not be created by Apple, or IBM, or two unknown guys in a garage, but by Google;

Continuing with the same, I want to share few couple of points on Kevin's take on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Human Intelligence and Google of course.

1. The question posed on Kevin's "Thinkism" by Yihong Ding is something which we tend to overlook at times i.e. the evolution of human brain potential with advancement of technology. If we keep both AI and human brain in X-Y axis, then we just can't keep one as constant and other as variable since chances of advancement in evolution will definitely show duality. So haven't we turn out to be more smarter than we were before?

Hypothesis: “Singularity” is that machine intelligence which may be improved rapidly while human intelligence keeps at the same level. However, the reality might not simply be this way. When we improve machines by artificial intelligence, why can’t machines improve us on human intelligence as well? Because of the machines we invented, we can think better and think further beyond the limit of our single brains. We may have collective human brains to think just like machines collaborate their computational power.

2. My second point is ImindI:This new startup company more or less shows what lies in the future. I call it close & personal web. The Web will know everything about us like what we like, what we don't like etc. We can call it as "Our mind on the Web". Read this post, it will provide more insights what I'm talking about.

3. The third point is of course Google- the one point stop for most Web visionaries. It has defined web 1.0, defining web 2.0 and more necessary will define web 3.0, but thats not all. The last & final frontier for Google to embed itself into our lives is "How much is the limit". People will feel strangled for privacy but the question that will be asked in the future is the trade-off between privacy or convenience. I guess we already know the answer, so I don't want to make it obvious here. So Google, even according to Kevin will emerge sooner or later as the World Wide Computer on the internet. And it is very possible that this other intelligence beyond ours would emerge on or long before 2045.

Related articles

• Kelly to Kurzweil: You're a total Thinkist
• A Few Predictions for the Near Future
• What we talk about when we talk about singularity
• What ever happened to artificial intelligence?
• Google: Artificial Intelligence Activity

Lousy Customer Service

Click on the inset picture

There are many things which can make a customer go mad. One of them is lousy customer service. But this inset picture says it all. Just when an unassuming customer is entering a retail shop, he sees this.

Quote-unquote: Management is not responsible for any loss of hand baggage deposited with security.

My question is: Who is then? Isn't security a part of your team? TRUST is one factor which takes a lifetime to build and here it is broken at the very instant when a customer is entering the retail shop.

Image courtesy: Siddhartha Reddy (Twitter handler)

Related articles

• The Benefits Of Customer Service Training
• Surprise Your Customers
• Customer service is an important component of e-commerce
• The Pope is coming

Blog Info: HP Blog Printing Shutdown

This is a part of the mail I got on 9th September, 2008 for one of my widgets on right hand sidebar which helps users to print posts by just clicking it. It seems that now you can't! If you can't read what the mail reads (Screenshot of the mail above), then this is the literature portion:

Following up on our email dated Aug. 15, 2008, this is a reminder that HP Blog Printing will be discontinued on Sept. 15, 2008 and the print dialogue that is invoked when a blog reader clicks on your blog will no longer be active.

In order to ensure that your blog readers are not negatively affected by this change, please follow the step-by-step instructions outlined in the links below to remove HP Blog Printing from your site....

So apparently, today as in 15th September, 2008 is the late date you can avail this useful widget. Gosh, I so wish that they wouldn't shutdown the widget since lot of users like it.

Read more on Launch of this Widget from Mashable.

Tag Cloud of my Blog

Click here to see the bigger picture

I've been trying out a new 'Tag Generator' called Wordle. It selectively picks up the most used word as keyword and it seems I spoke most about Media, Marketing, Technology, Digital Marketing, Online Business, Brand and India mostly in this blog.

So if you're a blogger, then check if your area of interest that gets reflected in your blog. Non-Bloggers too can have fun seeing what their favorite blogs talk mostly about...

Excuse me Mr. Marketer...

...if this is the state of Marketing then "Sex Sells, not Marketing". Or this is the reason that marketing jargon like Market Penetration, Below the Line, Positioning etc seems to be derived straight from it.

Whatever the case is, Marketers, please use this as an example of over-the-top, gratuitous use of sex to sell...(Picture Courtesy: From 5 Blogs Before Lunch)

'Yours Truly' featured in AdAge Power 150

This is the 2nd in the 'Yours Truly' series in this blog. This time around, my blog featured in the ADAGE POWER 150 list which showcases the best that there is from the Marketing, Advertising & Media blogs and bloggers from around the world.

From now on, I'll keep the Power 150 widget on the right bar of 'Networks & Affiliations' tab which will keep updating the rank status of this blog.

Apart from the usual excitement on being featured in the much elite list of bloggers, I'm quite aware that this levies more responsiblity on blogging front. Though for the past week or so, posting has reduced due some other engagements but it also shows that I'm quite aware of it. And whenever and wherever possible I'll keep blogging.

Till then, keep coming on if you've missed any previous posts and please comment/criticize/appreciate if you feel like you need to.

Guess!

Click for the inset picture

In the inset picture, I have pasted the screenshot of my blog's visitors from different countries in the past one year from 26th August, 2007 to 26th August, 2008.

So can you guess how many countries have they visited from?

Please comment in the section below. Correct answers to the extent of ± 5 would be much appreciated.

How should we use Twitter: Classification & their Impact on us

Today an interesting conversation (here, here & here too) with Asfaq led me to brood over one simple question. How should Twitter be used? Now simple it is but its implications are manifold. To pen down some of my thoughts on “How we Tweet?” led me to another sort of thinking, i.e. does our tweeting ways or techniques of posting those short, succinct, terse messages (tweets) impact the way we think/perceive ideas/notions or stuff like that? I believe they do. I’ll take this post into two ways. First, will try to understand broadly how all those zillion of tweets posted per day around the world can be classified into and then how are they can impact the way we think/perceive about various things around us.

Firstly, those terse messages which we all have coined as Tweets can be broadly classified as:

1. Question/Enquiry Tweet: This category of tweets fall majorly into What, Where, When, How and all the other statements which ends with a question mark. These kinds of tweets generally take advantage of the collaborative framework of Twitter.

2. Share Tweet: This type of tweets are classified as sharing information in the form of links (mostly short & terse url), events & news or anything & everything which a person feels can be shared. This is the bread & butter for those ever-hungry bloggers looking for some extra bit of attention into their blog through some visitors.

3. Me Tweets: This category of tweets, I feel is the most significant yet abhorred ones for many since it creates clutter or noise in Twitter. This type of Tweet talks only about specific ones like I’m sleeping, I’m drinking coffee/beer, my girlfriend/boyfriend left me blah blah blah. Come one, not too many people want to listen to you. For this, I remember one very apt line: “…If you want to be boring, talk yourself; if you want to be interesting, talk everything other than yourself…” But as I said, this type helped Twitter survive because they have given us space where we can voice our opinions & life par se. So lastly no complaints there at least.

Lastly, how can those terse messages impact our thinking/perception:

A small incident happened today in the morning while I was on twitter. Moksh Juneja posted a small tweet on Airtel = Vodafone goof up which caught Twitter’s attention big time and people started forming their own opinion about Airtel & Vodafone.

I’m not saying that it’s wrong but the point I want to make is that all the money spent by companies on the brand building and portraying images about themselves get slapped every now and then since consumers are no fool nowadays. Information and connectivity is dirt cheap if not free. So holding back is not the solution anymore. You (companies) can’t hold back conversations anymore and consumers will make an impression about you and in turn influence others too. So the questions remains what are you doing about it? Get into the new system or die watching it out!

P.S. I always take business examples since it’s an easy fix to keep score.

Read More Twitter Post:

• Video: Twitter Simplified
• Fail Whale
• Revenue Models for Twitter
• Swainism #2: Random Thoughts on Twitter, Networking & Life
• My first Twitter Meetup at Mumbai

My First Twitter Meetup at Mumbai on 09.08.08

This is one random blog post about the event where most people (mostly geeks, early adopters and people like me) meet, wine-n-dine and share their experiences about anything and everything which can excite the crowd starting from business, technology, trends and so on & so forth. (This is what I think!)

Long back, Gaurav posted this message about First Mumbai Twitter meet last year but then I was not able to make it since I was in Hyderabad. So this time around I will possibly make it to the meet. Below are the details of the event:


Event: Mumbai Twitter Meetup

When: 9th August, 2008 at 8 p.m.

Where: White, The Modern Italian Café at Goregaon (West)

How to Register: Register at this Facebook Event Page

Contact: 912228735646

Other Information: Guests are allowed to bring friends to this event.

Interesting Information: This is a sponsored meet by Alootechie.com

Keep watching this space. Will keep on posting more on my experiences from the Twitter Meet and my filtered learnings.

Musings from my saved Mobile Drafts

I've a random habit of typing down every thought, notion, idea..in total everything and anything I found interesting around me in my mobile phone in form of drafts.

Sharing here are some of the thoughts/ideas I got in the last week:

1. CHANGE is sacrosanct w.r.t. Bad customer service & Company's old school marketing philosophy of not giving away your product.

2. Needs, Wants & Habits of Urbanites: I'm trying to understand the Urban Mall/Snack-food Culture by devoting some amount of time (as of now mostly in the weekends) and study their need, want and habit pattern. In the process, I've got some interesting pointers. Will post on it later.

3. Can customer service be the new media department?: Haven't thought about it indepth but just wanted to ask you, is it possible or not? Read here from PR 2.0 since I found this post almost in tune with my thinking.

Please comment on these thoughts or you have some new idea on which we can work, feel free to write to me at sampad[dot]s[at]gmail[dot]com.

Swainism #2: Random thoughts on Twitter, Networking & Life

No particular topic in my mind but will try to pen down my thoughts (in random order). In the process will try to build some logic and some direction to my thoughts.

1. Observed a pattern in my internet usage (mostly from the way I open daily websites). This pattern is from my morning chore of opening my computer and logging into internet.

Come to my office by 8:40 am >> Sit down in my comfy chair >> Turn on the fan though AC is on >> Turn on the computer >> Open my office mail >> Then Gmail >> Google Reader >> Twitter Search (Summize) >> Twitter >> Tinyurl & so on and so forth.

2. Been on a networking spree via web as my focal point especially through LinkedIn, Twitter (Less on FrienFeed), Facebook (much less through Orkut), My Blog, My Mobile and through many more social networking tools available online.

3. Started using Flickr a lot nowadays. One of the reasons is that I started drawing a lot of models to make my blog posts more interesting (See my Flickr a/c). Also that makes me feel I’m intelligent…Psst!

4. Met Saurabh Garg (one Twitter Friend) last week. We had a great, insightful conversation on internet. Start-ups, business models etc. Key takeaway was: Internet usage can be broadly defined in 3 ways: Personal (like emails), Entertainment (like Perez Hilton) & Information. Now that is easy but thinking internet only from this model makes things easier and isn’t successful business more about making things easier (for you & your customers). E.g. Google for Search, Apple for innovation and Microsoft for “Blue Monster”.

5. Finally, last week was interesting. Another “Google Killer” got launched called CUIL but didn’t meet expectations. Found this site: http://www.trueknowledge.com/ (Read my tweet). Also this one via GapingVoid on business/brands using twitter to get the word out. You’ll be surprised to find some.

So at the end of my musings, one thing comes out to be very prominent. Twitter, Twitter & Twitter…The things I did last week to my daily winding up is mostly around twitter. So henceforth I proclaim that “Sampad Swain is a Twitter-Addict”. Ahem!

Any comments/thoughts/criticism on my self proclaimed addiction…

Screenshot of the Day (Yours Truly Quoted)

Ever since, I saw Gauravonomics posting "Yours Truly..." blog posts, I wanted to put something like that in my blog too (Apologies Gaurav for zero creativity and complete fame-freak).

So talking about it, first of all prelude to this post ....I adored/loved Wikinomics since it made me see internet, demographics,technology, culture or for that matter human race in a whole new way. It won't be wrong if I say that it helped me evolve as a far better Marketer than I was before.

So going back to my respect for this book, this time around, "YOURS TRULY" was quoted in Wikinomics blog post about one of his recent posts on certain Wikinomics theory which he tweaked to certain extent. (View Inset picture)

Click here for bigger Flickr Pic.

First year of blogging completed

Today, technically speaking I completed one year of blogging. Learnt so much and yet so much to learn.

Would take this oppurtunity to thank all my readers who have been reading my blog and commented, criticized and even appreciated me in the process. Believe me, it has a great journey all the way and I hope to continue blogging in the years to come.

THANKS A TON :-)

Community-led Business Model Monetization for Twitter

A VERY interesting & innovative approach by Len Kendall to solving Twitter's service woes (See the inset picture above). Could this be the future of "Community-led business model monetization?" (via Joseph Jaffe). After my last post on Twitter, I feel initiatives like these, though may not turn out to be money churners but surely is hinting towards a broader trend in the near future.

Fail Whale

Again today, the same state of much loved or rather irritatingly loved micro-blogging site Twitter. This screenshot image called "Fail Whale" has become more or less synonymous with Twitter.

Quickly something has to be done or else people will find newer places to hang out. Though they bought out Summize (a Twitter search tool), but recently I'm seeing some tweets being missed and confirmed too.

So one request to all twitter guys : Please don't kill Twitter, at least for our sake and quickly monetize it so that you can save it at least from the clutch of budding competitors and industry behemoths.

237 Interesting Conversations

Though I’m late at sharing something but as they say it’s never too late. So I’m posting it now. We are inching close to the August release of The Age of Conversation 2008. What’s interesting are two things which caught my attention: One is that 237 authors will be sharing their stories and insights which itself is an eye-opener (Oh it’s for a noble cause too) and secondly 3 Indian authors figure in the list. Check it out for yourself and correct me if I’m wrong @ sampad.s[at]gmail.com

So here is the long and quite impressive list of linklove & 237 conversations as Greg Verdino would say in alphabetical order:

Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem

So enjoy reading!

Less Blogging this Week

This week will be more of packing and travelling since I'll be moving to Mumbai to join my new employer "Godrej". So this has direct repurcussions on my blogging. That means blogging will be dry this week. But promise to come back next week, pronto!

Oh, by the way, my joining is on 5th june and I also promise to post certain inputs from whatever on the track experience I'll gather. So that means, new & interesting posts for sure.

So hope you have made yourself comfortable in my blog site and to my blogging topics and style. And please keep your criticism and appreciation flow through your comments.

And last but not least, need all your wishes and best of luck for this new journey :-)

Price of being a Spectator

There are primarily 3 kinds of marketing moves that decides your future standing.

1. Marketing steps which are taken only after your competitors have taken which somehow makes you feel that it provides you the cushioning.
2. Marketing moves which make things happen; makes you remarkable.
3. Marketing steps which are taken only after wondering what happened.

Now in a dynamic world, the saying is true – “It’s not the big who swallow the small but the fast who swallow the slow”. That’s why timing of your marketing campaign is so important.

Now the question is - You want to wait till it’s done or you want to be a doer than a mere spectator! The choice is yours...