The best tips on the internet to Get More Traffic to Your Blog

February 18th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

Well, I think this post has been in the waiting since a long time now. Most of the readers of the blog and some of my friends have pursued me to write this piece!!

Okay, so without any vague stuff, i would probably share the basic points every blogger must keep and take care of to increase the traffic!!

Increase TRAFFIC to your Blog

  1. Concentrate on the topic… write posts that need to be read right now.
  2. Talk like an expert (so you have to have enough knowledge about the subject you are writing about).
  3. If you can break news nothing better!!
  4. Start a topic which has not been started before by many (be amongst the first few) and let people discuss about it in their blogs/posts etc
  5. Share your expertise generously so people recognize it and depend on you
  6. Encourage your readers to help you manipulate the technorati top blog list.
  7. Don’t write about your wife, your boyfriend or your kids.
  8. Write long, definitive posts.
  9. Write neat things about fellow bloggers, daring them to respond (with links back to you) on their blog.
  10. Share linklove and expect some back.
  11. Include polls, meters and other eye candy.
  12. Tag your posts. Use del.ico.us.
  13. Coin a term or two
  14. Do email interviews with the well-known
  15. Answer your email.
  16. Use photos with right tags and names to them
  17. Encourage your readers to digg your posts. (and to use furl and reddit). Do it with every post.
  18. Post your photos on flickr.
  19. Share your blog posts links over Twitter
  20. Encourage your readers to subscribe by RSS.
  21. Include comments so your blog becomes a virtual water cooler that feeds itself.
  22. Assume that every day is the beginning, because you always have new readers.
  23. Highlight your best posts on your Squidoo lens.
  24. Refer to useful but little-known resources.
  25. Write about stuff that appeals to the majority of current blog readers–like gadgets and web 2.0.
  26. Write about Google.
  27. Have relevant ads that are even better than your content.
  28. Don’t include comments, people will cross post their responses.
  29. Write posts that each include dozens of trackbacks to dozens of blog posts so that people will notice you.
  30. Run no ads.
  31. Keep tweaking your template to make it include all the nice stuff that would make it easier for people to share and take you further!!
  32. Write about blogging.
  33. Digest the good ideas of other people, all day, every day.
  34. Invent a whole new kind of art or interaction.
  35. Post on weekdays, because there are more readers.
  36. Write about a whole gamut of different topics so you don’t bore your readers.
  37. Post on weekends, because there are fewer new posts.
  38. Don’t interrupt your writing with a lot of links.
  39. Dress your blog (fonts and design) as well as you would dress yourself for a meeting with a stranger.
  40. Don’t promote yourself and your business or your books or your projects at the expense of the reader’s attention
  41. Be patient
  42. Give credit to those that inspired, it makes your writing more useful
  43. Write about only one thing, in ever-deepening detail, so you become definitive
  44. Write about stuff that attracts a community. You will instantly find a large number of visitors there
  45. Don’t be boring.

Finally write stuff that people want to “Read and Share”

Tell me if you want more such stuff: Leave a comment or mail: paritosh@paritoshsharma.com

Viral Marketing – You’re fool if you think if your VIRAL creation is Marketing you!

February 18th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

Well, to start with, I was talking online with one of my friends who is pursuing her HR in Canada this morning. We generally talk about lots of stuff, and today she remarked ‘why be such a pessimist’? And well I realised yes, that’s it!

Being a Social Media Marketing Evangelist –

What do I do she asked, and I started giving her all the fundas and tips and tricks on all what goes on and is going on and what’s the way ahead: which I wrote in my previous post: what would Social Media be in 2009 and then it struck me are we going the right way?

What is Viral Marketing? How do you define the success of your Viral campaign? How do you creae that Oh! So awesome viral message which your followers would take forward?

I know these are common questions anyone can think of, but what I am stuck with is this: Does your Oh! so Viral Campaign really markets you out?

Well, and the next thing I did was to Google on the topic and what I found was this: a classic Seth Godin post, what is viral marketing, Seth raises a very crucial point here:

There are two kinds of Viral marketing:

Viral Marketing
Viral Marketing
  • The original classic sort in which the marketing is the product and which a self-amplifying cycle occurs. Hotmail, for example, or YouTube. The more people use them, the more people see them. The more people see them, the more people use them. The product or service must be something that improves once more people use it.
  • A second kind has evolved over the last few years, and that’s a marketing campaign that spreads but isn’t the product itself. Shepard Fairey’s poster of Barack Obama was everywhere, because people chose to spread it. It was viral (it spread) and it was marketing (because it made an argument–a visual one–for a candidate.

- text taken from Seth Godin’s blog: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/12/what-is-viral-m.html

And I was amazed to think how my thought process connected with Seth’s :)

Well, What I have been rattling my brains over is does your Viral campaign really achieves your marketing purpose?

And Seth does answer this question in a really effective manner: He says Virality is not a feature that you attach to your campaign.

The critical element of viral marketing is this: it’s built in. It was built into Hotmail and built into YouTube. The more people used the camera on their cell phones, the more the idea spread, the more people wanted a camera.

What do I feel?

Well, Viral Marketing is not  a value-added-service. In fact it is in-built. Its inside your offering. So the game changes here.

The Game changes here – for marketers

For all those marketers who have been selling over time and doing all the things possible to reach to the clients, trying to customize the offering according to the needs, and expecting WOMM (word of mouth marketing) to happen, the game has changed.

There have been a number of Un-successful attempts at Viral marketing. To tell you about an interesting one I saw a few days back is the “AdultDost.com” a Viral Marketing message for Tata Sky done by a media company. Well looking at the name doesnot it sound like an adult site? And YES! the message works!

You think it is, and you go there and well, the rest is “I went there, I liked it and I am blogging about it”

Its not about creating that message, It’s about: Creating a message that would be of value to the target market that you are creating the message for!

Go Viral…this new year.

Confessions of a DOT Com entrepreneur – Deep Kalra, at NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 37th session

February 18th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

“We won’t leave the room, till we answer all the doubts”
One of the success strategies shared by Mr. Deep Kalra, a man who made planning your journeys easier, faster and cheaper, and the process, a whole lot enjoyable, in the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0, 37th meet at New Delhi.

Mr. Deep Kalra, the founder, MakeMyTrip.com shared his learning’s, challenges faced, business models, entrepreneurship, the Internet, team, regrets, achievements and a turnaround story!

The session kick started with a welcome address by Mr. Ankur Lal, Founder and CEO Infozech Software. We had a gathering of around 33 people, which added to the diversity in experience and learning’s.

Deep started the session with an approach, expected of a seasoned entrepreneur. He divided the session into 3 buckets which contained a story which he started and towards the finish had motivated the participants.

  1. Detailed discussion about MakeMyTrip
  2. Challenges faced along the way
  3. Learning and Takeaways

“Everyone in the world after achieving a certain level of education and experience wants to be an entrepreneur, the reasons may be many”
- Deep Kalra

Deep started with his journey, wherein he discussed about his life as a learner (a student) who started as an economist and “tumbled into a B-school”. He shared his thoughts on the emergence of B-schools introducing the process of taking in laterals from the industry who bring along with them practical experience which helps while you understand the management concepts relating to your experiences.

An IIM-A graduate of the 1989 batch, Deep belongs to a batch of graduates who are today some of India’s most reckoned success stories.

With a career start with a reputed multi national bank in India, Deep got his first learning’s which impacted his life immensely. A confession he made “all this while earning handsomely and learning from immensely successful people, he was always clear that banking was not his defining career choice”. As with every entrepreneur, a strong urge to free himself from the straitjacket, Deep started his stint as an entrepreneur by representing a multinational company dealing into Bowling Alley equipments in India. He was convinced the concept would catch on and the product was sellable.

Soon came the first learning: The product was great, the money was there, but the market was not ready! Hence Deep shared a learning that however specialized a product or service you may have, a solid market research is without any doubts necessary.

An intelligent speaker, Deep had the audience in splits with his wits of presenting his experience doing business with Delhi Businessmen, who are smart!

A very important issue of “Peer pressure” was touched upon by Deep with extreme subtleness. He shared his version of how peer pressure affected him as:

“I was not affected by how much
my peers were making, but about the fact
that I was losing out on my own personal development”
- Deep Kalra

Filling the Vacuum!
Deep, in order to fill this vacuum in life went ahead and joined a multinational as the Head Business Development. Innovation was his motto and Deep proved with his grit and determination, which were properly backed by facts and figures, that the company could be a successful turnaround using the Internet as a tool, which at that time was not something that the Indian consumer would have been very comfortable with!

After a brief stint of 15 months, Deep found his calling!

Before everyone in the room, could hop onto the fast paced F1 that Deep’s interesting life was emerging out to be, he smartly put the brakes and shared a few crucial lessons, which acted as tickets for the participants to hop on for the ride ahead!

“Big companies won’t get on the internet, I realized
change was difficult for them to introduce within
the existing processes. The moment you become large the chips get scattered”
- Deep Kalra

Be Lean, Be Fit!
Vision is never static; in fact the corporate vision should always keep changing with the changing structures of the corporate, as per the market conditions.

Nimbleness and Change, is necessary to be incorporated into the business model.

“You slow down somewhere down the way”, said Deep while he was explaining the growth of a venture and of the entrepreneur.

1999 was the year Deep was struck – with an idea!
After extensive research into the market conditions, Deep was convinced about the idea of either an online Financial Stock trading business or something to do with travel. With a flexible vision and all the life’s learning’s, Deep’s vision took shape with a venture capital funding of $2million for a 70per cent stake in MakeMyTrip.

A lucrative offer, a good salary, a dream getting fulfilled, life could never have been better, was Deep’s first reaction. It was a Win-Win situation for him.

A smart team to be supported by, Deep started off with a website and a vision of defining the travel space in India by becoming the largest company in the travel space. The company was earning good with a sound bank balance, what better for an entrepreneur right?

WRONG said Deep!
A majority of their business was coming from the NRI market and in India; consumers were only lookers and not buyers! Hence the Indian operations were making not much sense as the market was just not mature for such a concept. Deep could have pumped in more money easily but he decided otherwise, and said to his top management “We won’t leave the room, till we answer all the doubts” to where we are wrong! The decision was not an easy one, but was taken and the India model was put on hold for sometime.

A dream gone sour?
With the markets not doing well and the DOT COM Bubble already creating ripples in the subcontinent, Deep was faced with a situation which few had ever imagined. The VC’s backed out and the additional $1million promised never came.

Deep and the team had two choices, either to shut down or else have faith in their concept and buy back the 70per cent equity stake and keep the ball rolling!

As they say “When you set out to do something with all your heart and passion, everything around you supports you”!

Deep got funds from Angels who really proved right to their title “Angles” and bought back the 70 per cent stake, with a team which was not the same as it was sometime back.

How easy is it to take a 100percent cut in your earnings and for the top management a 50percent cut in their salaries? Ask Deep and the team at MakeMyTrip, and they will tell you what sailing on the boat named faith and confidence is when you have nothing else.

The Build-Operate-transfer model was touched upon by Deep and he advised everyone on the “Lure of Lucre”!

You cant Do It Alone!
A team which takes Serious Equity, a prospective for you who is ready to take cuts into hard cash for ESOPS, is the best employee for you!

2004 was the year of reckoning and establishment for MakeMyTrip in India, when the market opened to new models of online travel.

TRY!
Deep was of the suggestion that an entrepreneur should at least TRY! It was this attitude which made him get into the online travel space in India, with a fact backing his belief, that an ordinary Indian gets onto the Internet to book 5000 tickets daily using his/her credit card, in the Indian railways!

Learning’s
- Challenges
“Bootstrapping was the best time during the venture, when we had put all our life’s savings”

– Scaling up
Scaling up is a big challenge for any emerging venture which is looking towards a strategic expansion

Nicely heated up debated sessions have been regular features at MakeMyTrip.

There’s no Hiding!

  1. Get good guys
  2. Share your wealth (ESOP’s)
  3. Hire guys who truly challenge you

“All your Yes-Men are truly useless. It’s about management by exception”

Failures
“The biggest regret and failure was that we outsourced our technology”

None of us knew how to build a web site!

The session drew to a close with an interactive platform for the participants to get their queries answered by Deep himself, which was of a big help.

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/07/14/confessions-of-a-dot-com-entrepreneur/

B-O-O-T & BOSS – A perspective on Business models

February 18th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

Lets build a model that would create a patentable process delivery model for us, said an entrepreneur talking to his partner. What emerged is today one of the Largest and the fastest growing Education and IT company in India, Educomp Solutions Ltd.

BOOT?
Build-Own-Operate-Transfer!
The model clearly defines a strategy which helps an emerging entrepreneur retain cleints for a fixed time period and also be more at ease with the clients, as the manufacturer/service provider Builds the system, Owns the system, Operates the system, and after the period of contract, Transfers the system rights to the client.
*system here refers to (service/product)

Intelligent huh?
YES! What better than a unique way of retaining your clients, have regular cash flows and in the process, maintain a long standing and stable partnership, sharing and growing.

Selling a computer when it costed a bomb few years back, to a school?
Well, that’s what you call the entrepreneurial spirit and the success of the BOOT model!
Shares Mr. Shantanu Prakash, who did the same when he started with Educomp.

Yahoo!! Re-iterating history!
At one of a recent blog postings, I went through Yahoo, coming up with a unique way of increasing their consumer base by introducing the BOSS (Build your own search service) which would show search results from yahoo search!

Another way of telling your clients, we’re with you for you always!

The young age entrepreneur is more evolved and has access to a wider information base than the previous times. Before taking the plunge into entrepreneurship, just to realise later…Ohh…i could have bettered here, I advice entrepreneurs to think and come up with innovative designs, models that can be replicated, in fact bettered.

What use would it be?
As they say its no use re-inventing the wheel, its always better to know you have the wheels, what you have to do now is design the the best technological marvel which would move on those wheels!

The success of such models could be replicated and improved upon by emerging entrepreneurs!

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE Blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/07/18/b-o-o-t-boss/

Startup’s your day – Proto.in @ Delhi – Paritosh Sharma’a view on Proto

February 18th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

No, there is no problem with the language; every entrepreneur would understand the above mentioned line!

Welcome to Proto.in, a premier Startup Community Event that has made a niche for itself by successfully putting together a pool of resources which is relevant to the emerging entrepreneur in leveraging the business or the idea.

Proto.in, provides an innovative platform to the entrepreneurs who could have their ideas displayed to the prospective VC’s, Angels and other prospects as prototypes! A working display makes an IMPACT!

The Mantra

Create, Contribute, Collaborate says Proto’s mantra which clearly reflects in their events, that help emerging entrepreneurs in increasing partnerships, network with the right people and put forth their ideas to like-minded and well connected audience!

Network – Hi! I am…

The day was a huge draw. An hour before the event started participants had started pouring in. Corporate, Investors, Partners, Entrepreneurs, Students, it was a collaboration of an unprecedented level.

It all started with a Hi, I am…and people networked along! Something that really struck me, was the inviting nature and a smile on the faces of people who are placed and ranked up there!

The event provided ample opportunities for entrepreneurs to network around and hit bulls eye!

The Delhi chapter (July ’08)
The Proto event kicked off at IIT Delhi, on Friday July 18th 2008 with Mr. Kiran Karnik (former President, NASSCOM) delivered the Keynote address, in which he stressed on “the Time is Right” for India!

The address was a perfect beginning to the event, with every aspect which could not be negotiated by a startup being addressed by Mr. Karnik. From service industry, to creating Intellectual Property to looking at the right places for the availability of funds, he gave the packed auditorium, insights into the whole concept of entrepreneurship!

It was the man and the experience speaking, and the combination couldn’t have been better to flare up the present “Ignited Minds”.

Adversity and Diversity

Sounds similar huh? Well, Mr. Karnik, gave a lesson which in these fast paced times we tend to overlook. Upon being asked a question on: “Are we focusing enough of Global ideas” Mr. Karnik replied every adversity brings with it an opportunity and the diverse Indian culture, that’s our strength!

Put on your seat belts, here we go…
The event was scheduled as follows:

8:30 Registrations open
9:00 Keynote Kiran Karnik
9:45 Building Services for India: The art of pricing Murugavel Janakiram,Bharatmatrimony.com
10:15 A the helm of a fast growing business Bhavin Turakhia, Directi
11:00 Refreshments and Networking
11:15 What do your customers want? Sameer guglani, Morpheus partners
12:00 The art of marketing your startup Mahesh murthy, Pinstorm and Kiruba Shankar F5ive technologies
12:45 Lunch
1:45 Building a brand that never dies Narayan, 20:20 media
2:30 Virality is part of the design: the core of viral marketing Amit ranjan, Slideshare
3:15 Refreshments and networking
3:30 Reconciling entrepreneurs and Investors Sanjay Anandram, Jumpstartup
4:15 Financing your itch:Running on bootstrapped cash Gaurav Bhatnagar, Tekriti Software
5:00 The dilemma of the creative class Shashank Ghosh(film director)
5:45 Freeconomics: How long can free be free? An open discussion
6:00 End of day one

The sessions drew a huge participation! The audiences were participating with intelligent questions which made the whole event more lively and interactive.

Murugavel Janakiram fromBharatMatrimony.com initiated the sessions which had audience in splits (when Janakiram confessed getting married through his own web site!) and awe of a self made man!

Bhavin Turakhia from Directi, was as different as “DIFFERENT” could be!

How would you see a man dressed in cool denims and spiked hair standing on a stage of a startup event? Wrong guy wrong place….well, everything is RIGHT but WRONG!

A young lad in late 20’s who comes across dressed cool in denim, and the moment he gets introduced; the first reaction from the audience goes “really”? Did he do that?

The concept of introducing business as a game and help in making sense of numbers to each and every “player in the team” (your employees) was interesting!

A logical conclusion to 7 steps that Bhavin shared clicked instantly with the audience. It was a good learning experience sharing Bhavin’s thought process.

The speakers that followed were equally interesting, sharing highly specific insights and point by point answering the questions from the army if audience.

The art of marketing your startup by Mahesh Murthy and Kiruba Shankar, was a big draw.

If you are outsourcing your essentialfunctions to a partner, its better thatI fund the third party partner than you,their business becomes a proven conceptif you believe in them
-         Mahesh Murthy

The sessions on Viral Marketing concept and reconciling investors and entrepreneurs were highly accepted and generated quite an interest and draw!

Day 1 drew to a close with an open session on Freeconomics which was well debated!

At NASSCOM EMERGE forum we strive to create more such platforms where entrepreneurs could interact and create a knowledge grid which is Glocal!

Link to the post at NASSCOM EMERGE blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/07/20/startups-your-day-protoin-delhi/

The fresh’err debate…fresher’s in the industry – a questionmark for us?

February 18th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

In one of the conferences I was scheduled to speak in, a gentleman shared his thoughts on a crucial topic, which in my belief, is affecting the industry as a whole, and not just emerging companies.

The question was: what should one expect of a fresher to the industry?

A number of answers came, hinting at what should be done and what lacks! Till that moment I was in the conference, but the speaker before me left everyone with a thought that everyone could relate to, but not many could suggest a solution to. After a long haul I feel its a concern worth sharing at the Emerge Forum!

What is lacking in our system are proper training and development methodologies, which could be implemented right from the first year, when a student enters college, till the time the student graduates out. The principle applies to all (management, engineering, IT etc.)

A unique industry-academia partnership, which has been tried before many a times on several occasions and platforms, but hasn’t been able to make an impact, as the corporate vision is again “nurturing” and “nurturing profits”!

Today such a question arises, because we all know the quality of majority of the graduates being pumped into the market each year. And again a majority of them still are either unemployable by industry standards or simply not upto the mark, which forces the corporate to invest into the individual intellectually again.

Expectations from the “fresher” should be:

  1. He/she should already be aware of the fact that college is over!
  2. Domain knowledge (which could be honed upon as per the requirements by the corporate)
  3. Understanding of hierarchy, work ethics of the organization
  4. How do they contribute to the company’s growth (which most corporate forget to share with the “employees” )

I strongly feel that, instead of investing into a “fresher” post recruitment, the industry should collaborate together, to hone the future prospective taskforce according to their own requirements.

  • The Startups/Emerging companies!

Situation becomes difficult to answer for a startup/emerging company, which could not afford highly experienced professionals nor can they take a chance of being happy employing everyone who comes cheap!

  • What do startups do?

Having these stalwarts from the industry as mentors could be one option. Moreover, any startup/emerging company/SME, looking to hire freshers could be highly instrumental in establishing such a training and development knowledge grid, which links the industry and the academia.

The emerging companies can use the “social networking” and “web 2.0?  tools in a unique and innovative manner, in knowing their candidate in and out before joining in.The step involves minimal costs and high level of innovation!

  • The power of community!

I feel startups and emerging companies can take innovation to new heights and in the process, create a platform which allows for the existence of a unique knowledge grid which aims at increasing the employability of the graduates from India.

As goes one of the major agenda’s of President Kalam’s Mission 2020.

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/07/28/the-fresherr-debate/

Ajay Jain at NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 (38th session)- on how to Use Online Professional Networking to get Ahead at Work! Linkedin the tool

February 18th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

“It is not about who you know or what you know, but who knows what you know”

Remarked Mr. Ajay Jain, a man who firmly kept the foundation for the discussion on the 38th Friday’s 2.0 session on “Using online professional networking to get ahead at work” at New delhi.Mr. Ajay Jain, the author of “Let’s Connect, (using LinkedIn to get ahead at work)” shared his learnings, his passion for writing and how NOT overlooking intricate things can make your day!

“Indians Build Relationships”

The concept of offline networking and relationship building, remarked Mr. Jain, is still a preferred mode of establishing new relationships in India. Citing the success of the various offline networking chapters across India, Mr. Jain provided an insight as to how the Indian business scene is still the traditional way.The same gave direction to further discussion, which Mr. Jain generated quite an interest with, by introducing LinkedIn as a highly efficient and properly guarded tool for professional networking.

“LinkedIn is like a Business Conference” How to use LinkedIn to your advantage?

Like the Ten commandments, Mr, Jain established 10 effective steps!

  • Your ever expanding Rolodex:Social contact building

All that comes your way….well no! LinkedIn gives an account only 3000 invites throughout the lifetime of your account, which makes sure that the professional ethic remains. - Have a LinkedIn-Thon @ office, if you have created a new account and are thinking as to how to grow your network! The idea that Mr. Jain shared with the community.

  • LinkedIN Answers: A global focus group

Mr. Jain highly recommended the feature of LinkedIn answers which has multiple benefits, both for the community as well as the person answering the question.The answers get rated and the same puts the answering person profile in the limelight, and after a certain top rated answers in a certain domain, the person is profiled as an expert in the domain.

  • Networking Plus: Meet people

Mr. Jain, shared an idea yet again, being a travel writer himself, he travels and meets a multitude of people all across. LinkedIN he said, could be highly instrumental in meeting people while you travel. You can send a message across to someone where you are traveling, to catch up at a certain place for a coffee!

  • Branding and Marketing: Yourself

The topic generated enough interest in the room, to get ahead professionally or to a platform, Mr. Jain, presented to the members, unique ways of leveraging the power of online networking to get ahead at work.

“Dress up your profile, like you do in real life”

Keep your profile updated and leave no chances for networking within the groups that you may have been linked to professionally in the past.In the summary section, be crisp and to the point!

  • Hiring People: Its not a job site

Though LinkedIN is not a Job Site, still said Mr. Jain, the feature of posting and searching for jobs is a high revenue generator.  As a recruiter as well as a prospect, LinkedIn could serve your purpose in an efficient and better manner, as the feature of writing an endorsement, provides a good background to be searching for the right candidate.

  • Finding a job: You Love!

A job you love! Well, LinkedIN could help you interact with your prospective future employer, the employees and may be your reporting manager. You could use it to your advantage in settling down pretty, with the Job you Love!

  • Vendors and Service Providers

Mr. Jain shared an interesting thought which could spell business opportunity for many a participants in the session. LinkedIN could help you find suitable vendors and service providers for your business needs.

  • Running Background checks: A boon for the recuiters

LinkedIN could be a great source of information about prospective employees for the recruiters. the process of background checks could not be fudged on the online platform, as the endorsements for a person come in true, by people whom they have worked together with. Such features make it easier for the future employer to check for the identity of the prospect and also take the authenticity of the employees, relative to the people who have endorsed them.

  • Entrepreneurs: Get investors and opinions

For Entrepreneurs,  which Mr. Jain, himself is, LinkedIn can prove to be a great source of doing market research and netowrk with prospective partners and investors. He again stressed on the Q&A feature, which could be used to one’s advantage and can prove to be a low cost and effective market research tool.

  • Selling and Brand Building: For your company

As an employee, you can be highly instrumental in selling your companies brand value to attract more clients and generate higher revenues. Also the same may act towards making the organization a “preferred employer”.

“The world of business is a small one, LinkedIn made it even smaller”

A few key points that Mr. Jain re-iterated were of Etiquette. He stressed that though online, LinkedIn, still becomes your professional identity. Thus its reflects you online and keeping the rules of the game as in the real world, would help you in gaining traction with the people you wish to network with!The session drew to a close, with the floor open to questions and quite an interesting and knowledge driven debate ensued. With member audience pitching in with answers and solutions.

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE Blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/08/11/using-online-professional-networking-to-get-ahead-at-work/

Re-branding and the corporate vision – A Branding perspective for the corporate

February 18th, 2009 § 3 comments § permalink

Corporate branding is the practice of using a company’s name as a product brand name. It is an attempt to leverage corporate brand equity to create product brand recognition”, says the definition!

Brand marketing is probably one of the most crucial things for a company trying to establish a brand in the market and work towards increasing the brand recall value.

Like economies of scale, the brand today represents economies of scope for the corporate. Accurate positioning and planning of products and services under the right brand banners, makes for quite a lot of difference in the manner consumers ‘perceive’ the companies’ offering.

Branding is not limited to just an attractive name or a logo, it today is an inclusive activity, which involves the internal clients (employees) as well as the external partners to the business.

  • Name
  • Logo
  • Client Servicing
  • Packaging
  • Advertising

etc. are some of the factors that make a successful brand, if each is looked upon with equal importance.

So much for branding, but with the times moving faster than ever expected, customer’s expectations changing with the drop of a hat, corporate’ has to realize the importance and power of re-branding!

The vision of a company should be flexible

- Deep Kalra (Founder MakeMyTrip.com, 37th Fridays 2.0)

With emerging technologies as WEB 2.0 and the mobile, creating an ever evolving brand becomes an absolute necessity.

Innovating not only in the development of a product or pitching of a service is necessary, but so is the right brand value attached to it, which provides the product/service a recall with the consumers.

The Corporate should look at constantly re-branding their offerings by reflecting similar “brand related sentiments” in their brand image. (Ex: may be a change in the logo)With newer markets evolving, creating brands in the web 2.0 space is as easy as it is to override and forget them.

Innovative brand positioning (read Focus advertising) creates a huge opportunity for innovative players who look towards capturing the market with their USP’s being clearly displayed, which would make them stand apart of the competitive clutter.

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE Blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/08/18/re-branding-and-the-corporate-vision/

Higher Employee Engagement Today Does Not Necessarily Reduce Attrition

February 18th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

Higher Employee Engagement Today Does Not Necessarily Reduce Attrition

What happens when you have a room full of HR pro’s from the industry? Well, sparks fly, literally but in the minds! Human Resource, one of the most crucial parts of any organisation today has evolved and how! A team of experienced human resource professionals came together on the 29th august at VYK, NASSCOM office, a revival of the NASSCOM HR Best Practices. Mr. Aadesh Goyal, Chairman, PeopleStrong HR services, graced the occasion, with his thought provoking address to the members present.

Known for his meticulous business ethics, Aadesh, from the very beginning of the session, had the participants engrossed in the discussion.A two-way discussion ensued, which had innovative contributions by the fraternity. With a strong hold into the HR industry, Aadesh started by discussing the basics, which essentially helped in breaking down the ‘myths’, and giving a new shape and direction to what works, and how as a HR professional you need to mould and create customized solutions for your organisation, in accordance with industry standards. A heady mix of “theory” in the form of an engrossing power point presentation and “practical experiences” which discussed in detail how various companies across the board approach the problem and the various successfully implemented solutions.  Some of the key words discussed in the forum which created the ground for the talk were:Employee engagement, Compensation, Right Staffing, Attrition, Quality, Layered process, Deferred compensation, Line managers. The key words, though initially scattered across the table, were intelligently put together by Aadesh.

What would you say if someone told you, “A 1% decrease in compensation in software business would increase profit by 0.6 percentage points”?

Well, Aadesh did just the same, and the participants consented!

The questions at this stage that came up were:

  • How do we create a nice compensation environment?

Even if as an organisation, we are not the best pay masters, still what is that we provide, which would be a major factor in attracting and retaining employees? See what impacts special events have on attrition!A one liner by Aadesh, powerful enough to have people thinking in the common direction. With a discussion over the same, newer ideas on Employee Engagement came to light!

  • What delivers consistent quality?

‘Quality’, a highly debatable topic was very subtly handled by Aadesh.With a simple example of “if you are a packaged drinking water manufacturing company, how do you maintain quality?” Well, answers by the participants threw light on the importance of the topic and various innovative solutions came to the fore. Examples of organizations like HCL, were put across, which boast of such high HR practices, that allow them to make sense of Employee Engagement in the real sense. With attrition being the basis of the discussion, quality again lead to addressing the issue with a highly effective and efficient methodology of keeping a check on quality, while addressing attrition!

“Look at the kind of different attrition engagement techniques for different types of employees” remarked Aadesh.

The common voice consented to the same! Effectively addressing your attrition concerns, controlling costs, Aadesh put forth the suggestion of employing different engagement techniques for the various set of employees.

“I would not put my best engagement techniques, to the bottom most performers in the team, instead utilize the same for the top 20-25 percent of best performers”

The role of line managers?Research shows, in a normal BPO set up a team lead spends 80 percent of his time in preparing reports on his system, fro his boss and the boss’s bosses. If the team lead does not spend his maximum available time with the team on floor in action, well he is not being effectively utilized. Thus the suggestion of having line managers creating and following proper dashboards, which suggest to the senior management, the quality, attrition and various other factors about the base level employees. A line manager is the best person, who knows his subordinates, hence he should have a major responsibility in catching attrition young and in time, thus allowing the management to take effective measures. The same was put together by Aadesh in a structured three (3) layered process. 

Deferred compensation, does it work?YES! Remarked Aadesh. Its just a matter of mindsets. The same action that you consider as stopping someone’s basic salary, can be more structured in a structured salary break up (ex: incentive based) and told to the employee before joining. Aadesh sees the same as an effective tool in addressing attrition concerns, by the organisation.

Shape up or ship out!Though as an organisation, none would like to enter the hire and fire mode, but measures have to be taken to effectively address the attrition concerns! Training and development was discussed in this part of the session! Shape up or ship out the bottom performers, remarked Aadesh. With an interesting case study which brought about a great deal of change in increasing the effectiveness of the human resources, Aadesh captured the brains of one and all present. An eye opener for some of the non IT professionals and others who did not belong to the mainstream HR. The session concluded with a quick point put forth by Pankaj Bansal, the CEO and Founder PeopleStrong which pointed out the still hanging gaps in the HR industry!

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE Blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/09/01/higher-employee-engagement-today-does-not-necessarily-reduce-attrition/

“On-Demand business in India” – (un)Conference session at NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Conclave

February 18th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

At the NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Conclave on 29th September, New Delhi, we will be putting forth an interactive session on “On-Demand business in India”.

The session would be led by Kishore from PK4 technologies and Arvind from Movico Technologies and this would be a unique mix of a segmented approach with the platform providing enough space for the participants to interact and seek clarifications and share experiences.

We invite the EMERGE community to share what value would they like to take away from the session. Your responses would help us in creating a more customized session with a high value proposition for the participants.

Companies, world over, are investing large sums of money to grow their top-line revenue while maintaining their focus on profit. They are being cautious about over heads, and when they do invest, they are looking at measurable returns, broken down in months and not in years.

Call it survival tactic in a rapidly changing business world, where change is driven by a whole new set of emerging business development tools as SaaS, which support the model of On-Demand Business and SOA.

With new business models such as SaaS, Cloud Computing in place, more and more companies are leveraging web technologies, thereby supporting enourmous economies of scale in deployment, management, and support for the application through the SDLC.

The session on the “On Demand business in India” would be structured on the SaaS model, which would have anchors introducing the key issues which would be presented to the audience, (acting as the multi tenant’s), thus we invite high interactivity and creativity.

We intend in creating high value propositions through all the sessions at the EMERGE OUT Conclave, which would be possible only through your inputs.

Looking forward to your suggestions.

Link to the post at the NASSCOM EMERGE Blog: http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2008/09/08/on-demand-business-in-india-unconference-session-at-nasscom-emergeout-conclave/

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