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Few days back i had a discussion with my colleagues on what is their passion in life. A simple question for some, confusing for many. A lot of them had answers like – singing, working, travelling, meeting people, etc. Nothing wrong in that.  Some of them were able to define why – singing or travel is their passion, some could not. A very identifiable situation i must say. My next question was are they enjoying what they are doing today, and is it in line with their passion. Many said yes, some said no.  In a world where we have infinite choices to make, it is extremely important to know early on what are your passions and are your career choices in sync with your passions. Let me draw upon a small example from my own upbringing. I grew up in a town called Indore, and went on to pursue my Bachelors in Science (B.Sc.) purely because at that point – arts, commerce was not considered to be a brilliant mind’s first choice. To define that era – i was following a herd mentality. I studied/crammed things like “Bolzanowistras Theorem” (even Google had problems searching for this term) as preparation for my exams and somehow cleared my three years of torture by physics/mathematics.  Am I saying these were wasted years of my life – probably yes. Reason being I was not following my passion. I could have pursued something which was my passion, which I am/was good at.  Which brings me to the next question – Did I knew what was my passion ? I believe there are still many similar stories around all of us, where young minds don’t know what are their passions in life. They grow by getting into the rut early on, which kills the sapling of passion. I think our education system is good till primary level, but tends to compartmentalize things as we move to a secondary education system, and this works towards killing your passion. I sense as a society we have a big role to play in helping identify passion for people. There are career guidance course, but I haven’t heard about a passion identification course or a framework (course looks too commercialized term). I do not recall any such framework being actively promoted by any of the schools at a secondary stage. Reason I say secondary because till primary stage your fundamentals of education are a must. Its like a stem, which starts branching out around secondary education. If we know our passions well, we would be better off as a society and as a economy. We would probably have more innovations coming out of this nation. We would have a larger contribution towards driving change and not following rules. We must not forget creativity and innovation work well when mind is following your heart and not the other way. Your heart relates with your passion, your mind relates with your profession. As for me, I know that I started following my passion only around my post graduation days, and steered towards the world of communication & marketing. I still believe that there are many other passions like Travel and photography which I am not able to pursue now, but I am sure i will sooner than later.      

My blogging has reduced considerably, (Though I author 2 blogs) and it has been at the expense of twitter. Perhaps find it difficult to write/type long thought(s). Better to express it in 140 characters, or still better hyperlink something you strongly feel about. That brings me to a question bothering me for sometime. Isnt twitter pushing us to share somebody else’s work/pictures/blog/thoughts by simply hyperlinking, and leaving us to drift apart from original content/writings. Many of the tweets I follow are about a link or so from a third party. I am not saying it is wrong, or unethical, afterall digital world is all about sharing, but somewhere inspiration for sharing something original, self created seems to be on a downslide. Call it lack of energy, time, thoughts or whatever, but the trend clearly is to repost, share, retweet etc. Leaves you more of sharers than creators. I am glad I am creating this piece of original thought/observation and not sharing someone else thought. You, however are free to share/tweet/retweet though.

Time Flies. Time also asks you to take stock. What’s your scorecard. And no better way to take stock when you turn a new leaf in your life. When you turn one year older, or younger. Today I turned 38. Not too sure, whether I turned wiser, matured, experienced or just turned old. Could it be a time to stop a while, take stock of things I have accomplished, lost, learned, understood, or not understood. I call it my scorecard. Scorecard, where I score myself, I rate my successes, my failures, and throw my life book open. How I fared average in my school days and was clueless about what I wanted to become in life. Dreamt of joining defense and never cleared NDA/CDS. Appeared for engineering only to realize that I cannot even clear entrance not once but twice. Still cherish my school friend Samir Goel, who went on to become a Dr. (PhD) post pursuing his B.E., M.Tech, MS and a PHD and now working with Google. Proud that we still share strong vibes between us. My scorecard here was perhaps 6 on 10. My dad tried for getting me into donation engineering college, but for the greediness of college trustees, deal fell off. Still dont know should I thank trustees of that college, my dad, or god, I never became a engineer. What I however miss is Amit Saxena, whom I lost to engineering degree. Proud that I helped him somewhere in later years to get a job in Kodak and also helped him get married. Very proud that today he is in Australia and having a happy family life with Seema and 2 kids. My score here perhaps 7 on 10. My graduation days and my most fond remembrance of Abhijit Vakil, my friend, guide philosopher, who succumbed to Cancer at an early age leaving behind wife Sugandha & 2 kids. I still feel I missed communicating to him so many things, I wish I could in time. My score of relationship with Abhijit perhaps 7/10. My graduation days were the best days which somehow gave me exposure to SPICMACAY, Dr. Shailendra Pandit, how gave a sense of direction to life, how he introduced me to Email, and where I had my first Vodka shot with fruit punch. My close gang of Pankaj Kataria, Sanjeev kingar, how I miss the interactions and role each of them played in my life. My score for my college life – 7/10. My life changing years my Post Grad days. Perhaps days I miss the most. We had a group called FARAR (Farokh a.k.a. Dau, Ashish, Rama, Abu & Raja). What a group we were. Trips to hotel Mashal in Indore, listening to Hotel California in Farokh’s Maruti 800. This was a group which deserved a 9/10. My failed love affairs, evolving communication skills, interest to my advertising world, my first collage in my bedroom all pointing to something that I still do best, visually expressing my thoughts. Never learned that I can explore Photography as a possible career option. Still not able to gather courage to do that full time. Loved this era, played important step in my life. My score 10/10 My first job and coming together of three best sales/space marketing geniuses in Indore. Self, Manohar & Prasanna. We dared the market and delivered our stuff. Kudos to leadership of Uday Zokarkar & Parthasarathi Kharga. Sense of Discipline, evolving business communication, negotiations and breaking the ice. I owe it to Times of India. Moving to Bhopal, meeting friends like Satyen Purandere, Ravindra Chapekhar was amazing experience in my life. Miss my fiends Praveen Rao whom I learned the art of reading. Changing times and Aditi entered my life, where I married her and still enjoy her company as a caring wife. moving to Mumbai before a short stint at Delhi, My score here – 9/10. My job at Portland, having a lovely boss in form of Sanjay Shah, I admire for his patience. My score with Portland 9/10. Living life in Mumbai and how I fared – perhaps 7/10. Lovely senior colleagues like – Ravi kiran best thing to happen to me in Starcom. loved this ear. My score 10/10. More on my life, to be continued..

Having worked across media/agency setup in a growth role, one gets a clear sense of what a client needs – Quick turnaround, efficient servicing, cost effectiveness and control over the entire campaign. The fact that client knows agency will further outsource the work to a vendor does not make too much of a difference, because clients hardly could come across vendor brands who are resourceful, service inclined and have the macro understanding of the business challenges client expects partner agency to solve. Agencies on the other hand do a excellent job in branding themselves, getting a quick perspective of marketers macro level challenges, and identifying the right vendor pool to help them deliver what the client wants. This makes a lot of sense for agency business since they can have a multi city, multi market delivery capability without too much of capital investments in plant, machinery, etc. All they need to do is to have right people to assess right collaborations in delivering what the client wants. Net results agency job trains you well in areas like – importance of branding, need for multi city collaborations, and most important have a service oriented mindset. I find these traits a lot handy while serving in a organization which is relatively new to this philosophy. Being a leader in automotive decal space and having a massive but single location manufacturing setup presents both opportunities and constraints to us. While we take pride in our quality focused , design led solutions for emerging Retail/POP verticals, we often find it hard to scale up in a good business scenario (which thankfully is evident in last 5 months). Having faced a scenario when we had a capacity constraint owing to good business flow, we often realized that the best way to survive is to strike collaborations. This is a positive way to grow provided you are using a strong due diligence in collaborating with a right partner. Collaborative approach in identifying partners in markets where we do not have a manufacturing hub/investments helps us a big way in clocking growth. We centralize the designs, we centralize the process, and we outsource/decentralize the actual manufacturing. Often the cost angle also works well, since you know the cost inputs and can reasonably manage the client expectations provided you focus on delivering on time. I realize in retrospect this is quite close to a media agency model, difference being we have a larger control on the process and costs, client expectations and requirement. What would perhaps sweeten the deal is a strong brand which can create pull from clients as well as outsourced party. This again makes a story for why even manufacturing led sectors need a marketing strategy, a systematic approach for creating brands, and a strong PR for spreading a good word. I am enjoying the new found joy of how to meet these challenges in a new environment, and am confident that i should be able to document a case for how a strong vendor brand can help in attracting new business and collaborations.

It’s been a little over 20 days that I moved from the happening world of SMG (Starcom MediaVest Group) to even more happening world of Classic Stripes. Both organisations have so much to learn and so much to do. What sets them apart is the amount of learning which one has to go through while setting up a project. Service organisations teach you well in brushing up your macro level understanding of business and remain focus on service standards, manufacturing setups have so much to teach on areas like project planning, raw material considerations, demand forecasting and marketing the final product. It is a cultural change, one which I am simple enjoying. Also challenging is the fact that you have to get a right mix of flamboyance of a advertising agency and the process driven approach of a manufacturing setup. Can I complain that I have so much to learn ?

How about shifting base to a small serene place on this earth, where one would relax and enjoy life, then to rush into morning rush of traffic. Get into deadlines and timelines only to drown life in reams and reams of data and insights. I wish to set up a animal farm in a remote village where I could pursue my interactions with wild nature. Natural lifestyle, insulated from artificial things. Settle down spending some time with cubs and raising a pride. Read and write and connect with the outside world without ever getting into a rat race to prove something. Only thing to prove is that life is beautiful and can be enjoyed best when you live it the way it is meant to be lived – naturally.

I recall my college day when as a young voluntary member of SPIC-MACAY (Society for Promotion of Indian Classical Music And Culture Amongst Youth) I had the privilege of staying with late Ustad Bismillah Khan for three days at Indore. While there remains no doubt that he was a simpleton at heart, feet firmly on ground, and passionate for his art form Shehnai, what I remember today are few of his words of wisdom which came out of his experience and his learning of life. The story goes something like this : When called upon stage to say a few words about his art-form and make a speech, he just spoke as little as “shukriya, hum kya bolenge, hum se jyada to hamari shehnai bol jati hai” (what will I say, my instrument speaks more then me). Bade bhudo se sunte aa rahe hai, wahi aap ko sunate hai ( i am just passing on learning of my life to you). Bachpan se bus ek hi kaam kiya hai, aur abhi bhi karte aa rahe hai (I am just practicing one thing from childhood and still learning it). and then the words of wisdom which were : “ek sadhe sab sadhe, sab sadhe sab jai” (be in pursuit of only one thing, if you follow all you will loose all). How beautifully he summarized his success mantra. No jargon, no management science and no frills. Why I bring this topic today, because I am convinced that if we practice this in our professional lives, we may never fail. Very important to assess what we are good at and practice it, and not get lured by plethora of choices which life would offer. Two key words to highlight here ” Important to assess what we are good at and “persistence to follow it“. Today I recall these words of wisdom and find them so relevant to what I am doing.

I have developed a aversion to surfing most of the media portals. I think they are succumbing to everything but good reportage. Sample few of the stories : ” We are poised for a aggressive growth in 2010″, or “We had a fantastic 2009 and geared for a fantastic 2010” or “Our clients have shown faith in our work, and hence we are getting repeat business”, or even worst “Our list of clients goes on like blah blah blah blah…”. First up, do they have a editorial board ,which ratifies the claims made by such self promoting media junkies. Secondly why should they carry a story if it does not have any point of view from the editorial board. Is it a classified ad section or advertorial , or a media news portal. Last but importantly, I think even people using these portals as self glorification platforms should understand that they are contributing to overall deterioration of journalistic levels. Wake UP.

Had some experiences around me which were truly transforming. Trying to narrate em and take learning from em. Experience #1 I had to travel to bhubhaneswar on work today, and hence packed for the journey. I somehow have got used to Meru cabs for the sheer simplicity and convenience they promise to deliver. I called up Meru call center on Monday evening to book a can for Tuesday morning. To my surprise there was a hold time of 8 min. I put speaker phone on, while still busy with my packing, only to be welcomed by a male voice on Meru call center saying sorry we are booked from 7 in the morning till 12 in the noon. What it means is all 1400 cabs in Mumbai, or at least majority of em are on roads. What makes me feel then this is something short of a transformation, where you have to wait for cabs to. Experience #2 Failing to get a cab, I took a auto to airport. This was a amazing experience, which began with the quality of ride ,and ended with a quick question from the auto driver. He asked how much it costs going to Kolkata by flight. I looked at him truly amazed, why is this guy asking me this question. Without hesitation my auto driver responds, I plan to get my family to Mumbai, and if it is 5,000 rupees, it is o.k., I think I can afford it. I don’t know whether he was flaunting or not, but I think it was a transformational experience altogether. Whoever says India is under recession. Experience # 3 While on airport, I witnessed a flurry of scribes waiting to get soundbites on Jet airways pilot strike. It was a experience to be @ Mumbai airport at that time. Chaos is a small word to describe it, and as usual no clarity to consumers. We all @ airport felt like caught between a crossfire between India & Pakistan, and media playing George bush. No clarity on flight timings, no clarity on announcements, its your transformational experience to witness fight between two demons. Experience #4 I met one of the lesser developed tourism board in India. Amazed to see the resources these guys have and waste they do on managing them. If you ever plan to meet a secretary level bureaucrat, be ready to go through a experience of a lifetime. First is a gate pass to secretariat. Person at the counter is simply writing name in completely non readable writing, which is being duplicated by another human being just to release a gate pass. Then you enter the secretariat, only to realize that the papers you entered your name on ,will soon be shunted to these corridors in paper files biting dust. At least you should be happy you got a pass, so what if your gate pass entries will bite dust one fine day in these corridors. We were here with a vision to transform the government client. Experiment # 5 Long day @work, meeting with all key clients in ministry, time to catch up with some old colleagues.Got another perspective on OOH media. He predicts, telecom industry will cease to exist as single largest media spender on OOH by 2011. So true a observation. Imagine any market having at least 10-13 players, each grappling for space on best of the medium in OOH. Clear supply demand equation which is progressively moving towards from a low supply and high demand to a low demand, high supply equation. Imagine what would you do in a market where you have 8 key junctions and 14 telecom players. Initial transformation to one upmanship of spends ,and then zero spends. As I write this entry on my blog, I am sure I have many more transformational experiences in store for tomorrow, and how I look forward to them

I must have received 5 requests in recent past asking for recommendations from people I have met once, and worst never worked together. The question is why are people seeking recommendations so vigorously. Same thing gets repeated on FB. If we were just focusing on Linked in & FB- well read this from Bnet “Today Linked In year-on-year growth is up nearly 200 percent in the United States and it now has more than 35 million members—many of whom were formerly employed within the hard-hit financial sector. And it’s just one of the many sites to which recession-struck managers are flocking: Xing (based in Germany), with its 7 million members and special Lehman Brothers alumni section, and Meet the Boss (based in the United Kingdom), which restricts membership to C-level financial types, are also experiencing burgeoning membership levels.” What is triggering this trend. The economy, insecurity of young professional , or something else. Next question where will it lead us to, a new generation linkedin, or FB with strong moderation to separate frivolous job seekers, from serious professional networking.

I have come across three distinct cases in last 30 days which make me think that being Big often translates to being Bad (Sadly though). In “Go kiss the world” subroto Bagchi makes a valid comment – How big can you get before you get bad. There is a extremely thin line differentiating big from bad, and it is wise to take cognizance of this line, before the world starts terming you bad. My first experience is of a electronics retail store “CROMA”. My father in law recently bought a Samsung DVD player from CROMA, Malad. He received home delivery of DVD player and waited for a day for the demo. Demo team from CROMA came on promised day not to find A/V cord inside the packed DVD player box, and went back without Demo. After complaining to CROMA over phone, I personally went to pick up A/V cord and thought matter would resolve. Yesterday when I went to my father in laws house to check how is the experience, I was surprised to find that the piece delivered is not working properly. I checked the DVD player, and found it to have visible scratch marks, and handling abuses which are likely to happen with a used/demo piece. My belief that this was a demo piece was reinforced when I found a Casino Royale DVD inside a packed piece. By now I was sure I have been fooled by CROMA to pay for a new piece and receive a used/demo piece. The fact that no A/V cord being found in a new consignment and a DVD inside the tray only reinforced my belief. My tryst with bad experience didn’t end here. When I called up customer service no 022-61406363, at 18″00 hrs yesterday evening, and narrated my story, I was told that someone will call me back in 1 hr. This 1 hr. did not happen till I called up customer service again @ 11:33 hrs today. I never thought that Tata brand would stoop to such levels and would try to play with customer faith. Not to mention my recent purchases of a Nikon D60 SLR from CROMA Phoenix Mill, and my other purchases of a PSP etc from CROMA Malad, I am beginning to seriously doubt the quality factor in all CROMA deals. If I have to go through such a plight for claiming what is rightfully due to me, I am seriously doubting “we help you buy” positioning of CROMA. I am happy to see CROMA emerge as a BIG retail, but please don’t cross the fine line to turn BAD. Along with growing BIG comes tremendous responsibility of being good to your customers, I think as an service organization it is your first port of call, don’t ignore it. My second experience is of VODAFONE. A subscriber who i am loyal to for last 8 years. Without getting into detailing of ARPU which Orange/Hutch/Vodafone has got from me as a customer, I am surprised as to how callous they have been to customer sensitivities. I have a enterprise blackberry service from VODAFONE and my belief of being 24 x 7 in touch with my job, makes me a heavy user of blackberry services. I am not receiving any bills (soft/hard) copy for last two months. Complaints after complaint have yielded no results, and anonymous attendants from call center confirm that they will send the bill today vide email. One fine day they decide to disconnect your services, and do not acknowledge the fact that they have failed on their duty to send bill copy to me. No mention of countless problems like call drops, poor coverage etc, the service provider believes that they have grown big, and can discount such small issues of being bad to few customers. A very disturbing trend. Last example is of the city where I live. Mumbai has all the elements to make it big. Respected corporates, professional people, and countless opportunities. All things that make it big, also make it bad. Look at the infrastructure. Roads sink, traffic hurts, housing nonexistent, quality of life – Bad. Why a city which has grown to be big, has turned to be bad. Why we fail to detect the line which we should not cross and resist the lure of being big, but maintain being good. There are many other examples, each reinforcing my belief – why we have to choose between Big or Bad. Are there examples which justify organizations/cities being good and Big together.