Pay for three, get two.

Marketing messages and ads in general usually try to insult your intelligence. There are washing detergents with magical molecules like ultrons and dirt-punchers which clean and bleach new white shirts into white shirts. There are hair models who have digital enhanced hair which would put Lara Croft and the Tombraider animation gang to shame.There are fairness cream ads (a uniquely Indian proposition) and pimple removal cream ads with women, who after using the cream, get a) married, b) become beauty queens and now with the market research teams capturing the changing aspirations of a nation, c) become wildly successful careerwomen.
IF this is not insulting to women, I am not sure what is. 

You are always saving more and more and getting much more free for improved products, while spending more and getting less. There is always an asterisk at the end of price points.
I write these posts over a couple of days. The CWG 2010 inauguration telecast just got over on TV - I regret not going there. It was great and filled me with pride. To see the entire stadium get up when the Indian team walked in made me well up a little bit. I should have bought more tickets. Instead, I bought only 2 and my father and sister ended up going. They tell me that it was even better inside the stadium. Everyone was happy and the crowd was judicious in their behaviour - cheering Manmohan Singh and Sheila Dixit and booing Kalmadi and ignoring Prince Charles and his wife.


*What if more marketing budgets could be allocated to product research or better distribution arrangements, which would either increase company profitability at the same prices, or maybe even pass some benefits to the consumer.I think that there is a bit of game theory going on here as well. If Firm A is advertising, firm B also has to advertise else is loses out, even if the products are similar. Thats positive ROI at a firm level but it might mean a less than optimal ROI at a market level. At the same time, if I advertise my cola, I am sure I help all the other colas in the market. Therefore, my behaviour and decisions affect the others and there is a global maximum (or two) and local maximums. Hmm.

Post post

Regular writing has definitely been impacted since December. I am not sure why.
Theoretically, I do even less work at home than I ever did - if that was possible. But seriously, everything is taken care of. Every day, I am home by 8pm (at the latest) and then go to  sleep after 11:30. I am reasonably busy during this time but have nothing to show for it.

This is an often repeated problem I have.

I have spent chunks of my life without earning a bullet point for my CV. In 2001, due to some kind of calculating or administrative error, I was invited to apply for the Aditya Birla Scholarships. This scholarship is given to 20 students every year from the country - 10 from IIMs and 10 from IITs. I remember the exact moment I realised that the scholarship was not even a very long shot. It happened like this - We had a session where the last years scholarship winners were to guide us with filling the form. There was a bio-data + achievements form to be filled along with a statement of purpose. I had no achievements to speak of (except for the admission and scholarship invitation I guess). I wanted to ask them how bad would it be if I did not have national or international level achievement to speak of (I did not have any state or district level achievements as well, but the form did not ask for those). Thankfully, the seniors did not let me ask this question. Instead, Magic Mittal asked the seniors if he could add additional sheets given if he ran out of space. They answered yes. A few heads nodded in that room. That was the moment.

IIMA did not give you a lot of time for introspection. Both years zoomed by - the first learning the tools of the trade and the second in using substances to forget the first. However, that moment stayed on with me. I always wonder about it - how did everyone else manage to have a few sheets of achievements while I had nothing to show for the 22 years spent in getting there.

I was a geek quite early on.

I used to tinker (and break) electronic toys. I built an audio amplifier (no innovation here - used a circuit board from a hobby kit which came with instructions). The amplifier's loudness depended upon the potential difference it was given - which was related to the number of batteries given. The reverse side of the carrom board at home had a wooden frame which could fit batteries in. I used to play video games with the audio routed through these speakers.

I built a paddle ship which did not work (I had not discovered torque) and tried to build an aeroplane which would use diwali rockets in multiple stages. Like some of ISRO's older rockets, the project never took off due to lack of funding and political (read parental) interference.

I had also built a small dam in the garden. I would flood the entire garden and then run all the water through a paddle linked to a small motor which would act as a dynamo and generate electricity at a low AC voltage. I never thought much about hydel power as I had to empty a drum of water to light a bulb.
There were rumours that a particular pond had a turtle and I wanted to build a periscope to investigate it. However, a periscope was too easy and I was too lazy.

I also managed to get a video game at home on which I played Mario and Contra. I played Mario quite well. A few people used to sit and watch me play whenever they could. My cousins used to hate me for it as they did not get to play if I started a game. Anyway, that was quite a waste of time I guess. 

All this happened between 1988 and 1991.

I joined DPS Mathura Road in 1991 and lost the means to do much of this - no garden to flood, no carpenter to command etc.

From 1991 onwards I avoided any and all competitions. I tried to get into the students council in school but was not good enough. I did not attend or win any quizzes or make my presence felt at a city/district/state/national/international level with any dance, drama, debate, elocution, poetry, piano or even sports (I did run quite fast at school level but that was that). I was asked to apply for the post of a house captain by a housemistress - had I been asked by the correct housemistress, I would not have avoided her for the rest of my time in school .

Energy counts more than talent when it comes to achieving something in life (There is little of either this side of the post)
Hats off to the ones with the energy - they shall inherit the earth (along with the meek).

2008

2008 was a blur. Too many things happened -

- Coming back and setting up
- Trying again and hoping and then giving up and hoping for the best
- Hiring and firing, winning and losing
- Working hard and hardly working
- Setting up processes and then rubbishing them (I would not know a good process even if one hit me on the head)
- Driving around and then being driven
- Meeting tonnes of new people a few times
- Meeting fewer and fewer people more and more (aka, nt=c) (I love it when life can be expressed as an equation)
- Partying and then deciding that I am too old and fat for it
- Gaining weight and gaining more weight...
- Shaving my head
- Spending tonnes of time with my parents and sister (after about 16 years)
- Trying to get married
- Trying to figure out if relinquishing control is ok
- Getting used to Delhi
- Getting used to Gurgaon!
- Getting back the nonchalance which is required to read the papers every day
- Writing more, reading more, reading less nonsense
- Looking back at life in London, not regretting moving back!
- Loving it

12 months, 10 trips, lots of friends, countless conversations and memorable moments - I hope and pray that 2009 is as eventful as 2008.

A good day

Today was a good day overall. Good days for me mean two things -
- things falling into place
- being able to realise it
Most of the day was part 1 from above and this blog is a way of cementing part 2.
So what were the things which went right today -

1. Woke up somewhat late, but was able to leave early by getting ready quickly, less traffic on the way to work, was able to sleep during the ride into work and reached office by 10
   
2. Did a lot of work - finished some long pending work, called up potential clients, tackled a few small issues for the team and for one of my clients
   
3. Billable work started for a new client (thanks to a 15 page NDA, I can not tell you which one) - From the time you meet a client, getting to the getting paid bit is a long way. It involves meeting them over and over again, making them understand how we might be able to help them, draft a contract, negotiate over points, get a signoff from them, wait for them to get a signoff from their bosses, start billing, raise an invoice, chase up with accounts and finally opening a letter to see a cheque inside. Start to finish can take anywhere between a few weeks (god bless such clients) and a year! however, once billing starts with a new client (as in, the meter on how much work we do for a client project starts) usually means a lot of pain is over.
   
4. Emails from old colleagues is always nice. I spent almost 4 years of my life at a new place - and a large fraction of the total number of people I knew in London was due to my work place. Now that I am in Delhi again, it is nice to get emails from them.
   
5. Chit chat with friends all day - AR was sending mails at the rate of 5 an hour which is always fun
   
6. At about 6, thanks to facebook, I was part of a plan to go to a nice lounge/bar with two friends. I had been thinking that my social life was testing new lows this week and this plan hit the spot. What I also liked about the plan was that it started early and had the potential to end early and seemed harmless enough. I panicked for a bit at the fact that I had signed up for a singles night, but then realised that this was Delhi and such a plan would mean 15 men and 2 women. Since I was going in with two women, I already was on talking terms with them and my worries of having no one to talk to were put to rest. There was surprisingly less traffic and I was a few minutes early to pick up my friends. Thankfully, they were ready to go and we were at the place on time.
   
7. So the singles night out turned out as expected - 3w + 8m. What was nice was that even the men, except for Pappu (about whom I will soon), were nice people, and they were ok to hang out with. All of them had interesting jobs, interesting lives and were also great for conversation. Soon, the group had managed to locate common friends and acquaintances and the drinks were flowing.
   
8. It is always nice to spend time with YS. I have known her for so long now and she is the same - chilled out, no hangups, great sense of humour, lots of stories to swap and a common list of people about whom I can bitch about to her.
   
9. SS as well is really nice. She can hold her own, no matter the audience. Like she spoke for a bit to Pappu, who had also come for the singles night. He was the kind of guy who gives Delhi a bad name. Rich and showing it, somewhere between little and no class (depends upon how charitable you are feeling), no respect for anyone, loud mouthed. Of course, very rich, with a few acres of prime land in his name with a few factories sitting on them.
   
10. Post-Pappu (he left quite soon) and post-dinner, on the way back, we realised how much we all felt about Pappu (Especially SS, who politely bore the brunt of his attack) and we talked about him for quite a while. Such cut and dried real life caricatures are very useful in making friends and getting to know people - you get to know what the others noticed about him, which gives you an insight into how they think and what they are made of...
    
11. Finally, as I dropped my fabulous company and was driving back alone, I was happy to note that there were no police checks, which can be a pain after three glasses of wine.
    
12. As I came back home and switched on the TV, Forrest Gump was on. It was the part where Gump walks out after getting decorated with the medal of honour and walks in to an anti war demo. he is asked to give a speech at the end of which he says his name and gets to meet his all time love Jenny again. I like this movie a lot.
    

As I write this (late night and then early next morning), I am thankful to the powers to be...
I think that as most of us are busy climbing mountains, it is good to sit back every once in a while to enjoy the view. You might not be at the highest point yet, but you are high enough to get a good view most of the time.

Monsoon Beddings

Delhi has been a refreshing surprise early in the summer. After a couple of weeks of ever increasing heat, there were almost two weeks of rains. Even though the rains meant a complete breakdown in traffic, I was still happier because of the drop in temperature...

I added Google analytics tracking on this blog. I wanted to note some of the interesting facts it revealed:
- I have had visitors searching for "ecommerce authors in india" as well as "Personal yoga teacher vasant kunj" visit this blog. Google might have a hand to play in this, see this.
- They an average of 2 pages on this blog.
- About 1 in 5 are regular visitors, while the rest are searching for yoga teachers and the like (see above)

I wonder how dangerous is it to have data like this with Google. But then I guess, if the big G really wanted this data, they could just buy a few of these companies to have a look-see.

Do no evil, as they used to say ... wonder if they really stick to it now.
What about automatic matching on keywords in adwords? Or the content network with only a button to control it for a few years!