e Magus

Few days back, thanks to surprisingly less traffic, I checked in early at the airport. Since I had time to kill and the domestic Delhi airport has nothing great to offer in terms of shopping / killing time, I too indulged in the favorite pastime of the nation, or maybe the world, I dare say - Mobile internet (social and search) What caught my attention was the OTA (Online Travel website) banner ad that kept following me. I knew it was because, I had searched for the flight details and fare on their website a few days back, and the cookies were re-targeting me, etc. Couple of thoughts crossed my mind Why were the OTA digital marketing team wasting their ad budget following a 'dead' prospect. I mean, they do not know that I've purchased the ticket from some other place (in my case, directly from the airline website). I had put my date of travel on their website, why didn't the re-targeting ads stop a day before my date of travel. From my ...

The problem with breaking a habit is that breaking a habit becomes the habit. No tongue twister here, it is just my observation for not writing a post/blog for a long time. My OneNote has a list of topics that I had noted down that I want to write and share, but somehow I just didn't find the right motivation to write. That for you is a long form of defining laziness ;) A 2 week business trip to Sydney at the start of the month had given me enough time to think and look around what is happening. I started to look at things with the filter of technology and digital. Here are few of my observations & trends, in no particular order Different people, same behaviour: When it comes to technology behaviour, even though it was 2 different continent, it was same everywhere. People spend most times checking their WhatsApp messages, or Facebooking through their phone. A large number of people were keen on getting their selfies taken against popular backdr...

The value of convenience is emphases on consumption rather than production of technology (Thomas F. Tierney) The other day, when I read the above passage in an article, it made me think that one of the oft-used word in the digital business model is - convenience. Be it the ecommerce, omni-channel, user experience, customer journey, all these hinge on, convenience. But what is convenience and can it be quantified. More importantly, is it for real Wikipedia defines convenience as, the state of being able to proceed with something without difficulty. Difficulty is directly related to the effort and by definition effort can be termed as the minimum usage of available resources for maximum benefit. As a consumer the finite available resource at his disposal are - Energy, money, and time. But as money is directly related to savings and cannot be considered convenience in the true sense, we shall focus on energy & time. The more you expend your limited resources, the less convenient...

After a long time, I attended a full NASSCOM conference (Yes, all of three days!!).  As good  events go, this event too was good, with a long line of illustrious industry  speakers (Ginni  Rometty) business leaders (Mukesh Ambani, Anand Mahendra)  to sportsperson (Anil  Kumble). The topic curiously was more introspective  rather than outward looking –  To reimagine and not reengineer While a variety of topics were discussed ( https://nilf2017.sched.com/ )  for me the key takeaways from the event were: Artificial Intelligence Virtual Reality HealthTech From IBM Watson to Startups creating NLP & Deep Learning based solutions for enterprise,  I'd noticed AI coming in all shapes and sizes. Some call it Machine Learning, some others Cognitive  Business. However, the idea that data will drive businesses is...

It is been a while that I wanted to write about digital marketing. Having attended various workshops and seminars on digital marketing, I realize that people were talking the same thing, using different words. The gist being that everyone was talking about digital marketing from a campaign perspective - Earned, Owned, Paid, Social Media. But Digital Marketing is much more than branding or campaign led... It is how we use the existing and emerging technology to create a positive impact on our business. My thoughts and trying to decode digital marketing The Digital Marketing overview is all about creating a seamless and effective Digital Experience (DX) for clients. The DX would address the business objectives through strategic initiatives that will address: - Speed/drive marketing objectives - Create positive impact on business objectives - Interact with the customers in a meaningful and insightful way - Future-proofing The 3 pillars that will drive DX are Cu...

Having been an entrepreneur for over past 2 years and consulting for various startups on their business and marketing strategies, I had gained a lot of real experiences about the startup ecosystem.. from ideation to fruition  We all know that startups thrive in places where there is: economic growth access to capital young and educated work-force favourable government policies But, where do people get ideas for startups? Ask any startup founder and they would say - personal experience, market trends, existing problem or questioning the status quo, etc to be the top reasons which ignites the idea spark in them. A careful analysis of the top categories of startups (mostly technology startups) shows us that startup ideas thrive in the ‘border areas’.  Business is nothing but a form of structure that delivers value to stakeholders. The structures are formed basis specific activities. Every sphere of activity has a boundary and with each different boundaries...

The simple premise of doppler effect is that the frequency and velocity of a wave varies depending on the distance between the source and receiver. Imagine, Social media as a huge lake and all the brands and people are floating on it. Each conversation is an action that starts a ripple and the same can be felt in the area of influence surrounding the source. The intensity of the wave changes depending on the distance between the source and observer or in this case the receiver. The frequency of the wave being higher when the distance between the sender and observer is near (or coming closer) and lower when the distance is far or receding. In a digital marketing scenario, when an user starts a conversation involving a brand, depending on the frequency of the conversation, we can judge whether the user is coming closer to the brand or receding away from it. Here we have to negate the type of conversation (positive, neutral, or negative). The following scenarios could be played ou...

P hysics has been one of my favourite subject since school days. Thanks to an uncle of mine who gifted me couple of Russian books (english translated) called Physics for Entertainment by Y. Perelman. Digital marketing is a passion that I’ve been pursuing in my professional life. We all know that the underlying aspect of any digital marketing is a combination of technology and principles of marketing. I see many instances where the laws of physics are very much in play when it comes to digital marketing User Experience (UX), as popularly defined, is improvement of accessibility, usability, and satisfaction of any design. In digital space, it is mostly defined by the designs of website or an application (including widgets, apps, games, etc) Path of least resistance, according to physics, is termed as the perceived pathway a forward motion object will take from a set of alternatives. The principle behind it is that the object will always take the path that has least resistance...

This is a Pulse post that I've written earlier in the day Maggi, the 2 minute wonder, from Nestle, has got its 15 minutes of fame...though for wrong reasons. I trust Nestle, as a company, and have faith that if the product did have toxic substance beyond permissible limits, it was by pure mischance.  This post is not in support of Maggi (or Nestle) nor it is to slander them for what happened. There are many more who are more competent than me to talk about it. In fact, as I write this post, Maggi is going for a huge PR exercise to minimise the damage and improve its image.  Being a digital marketer, I generally look at various opportunities and events from the prism of technology and marketing. Is there a value or customer need that the product can satisfy? Is there a marketing opportunity here? Can technology play a role in the same?, etc are few questions, I try to answer. This post is about a marketing idea that came out from watching th...

A simple relationship framework between people and technology

S tarting of the year is always a good time to talk about trends and how it will impact us. I don’t want to be left behind too :) Year end or Year beginning contents are usually highlights about what happened during the past year, or what is in store for the year ahead. I too have a lot of optimism about technology, devices, digital marketing, and all other  things that I’m interested in. This is a perfect setting for writing this topic. My Kid is right now playing with his toys, building blocks, while I’ve opened my iPad and started typing this blog. There are times when I’m busy with my iPhone/ iPad and he comes over asking me to spend few minutes playing with him. Most times, I oblige. But, there are instances when I deny him my time and continue working on my devices.. his reaction is palpable.It is usually “close your iPad/mobile” “play with me, please” kind of reaction.  This made me think, as we spend more time with our devices, there is a potential for a ch...

For past few days, I was busy tying up with a logistics fulfilment partner for my Ecom company www.celebstall.com .  I was also reading articles about how the drone technology will be used for commercial purposes. Google, Amazon, and many other players are working towards the last mile dash through drone delivery. In future, literarily, things will fall from the sky :) This made me wonder, can such a model exist in India? India is never far behind, when it comes to replicating success of any such initiatives, especially those undertaken by Ecommerce / technology companies. But replicating the delivery through drones will be tricky. Here are few random reasons why I think it will not work in India The drone might never reach its destination - wires, wrong address, stolen in mid air, bird attack, getting tangled in a kite thread No place to land…especially in the metros .. There are no open spaces (most houses open to the main road) & access to the apartment rooft...