People leave organisations for a change of job. I am among those lucky few who got to keep my organisation and change my job.

From feature writing and calling myself, rather pompously, the mind of the strategist, I  now see myself as ‘newsense’ value for the organisation. In the last few months have been trying to breka news in marketing, advertising, consumer goods, durables and apparel.

That explains my disappearance from the blog scene for some months. In NEWS you work with a gun on your head. Either you get the news, or the competition gets it.  

In the current scenario companies are flooded with choice to get their news published. 

A lil bit of gossip. A CEO told me recently, “I can give you news if you commit me a front page coverage”. Another company in the media business always send a press release, a day after it’s shared “exclusively” with one paper. Bad decisions all of these.

But in a scenario when everything is measured in terms of an ROI, corporates are possibly measuring their performance with an “editorial ROI”. But this is one investment that could backfire badly. Think about it…and do share your views!

Hold on! Wasn’t I supposed to sneak back into the blogs scene? Would reserve explosive writing for a later date.

After forgetting my password once and nearly twice, am finally back… two months after making resolutions to Govind, our web ed.

Feels nice to start again… on a medium that helped me get in touch with long lost friends, before Orkut became an Indian name. At least for the “net-challenged” like us.

keep the faith!

Last week was special. Two respected men, both in their 70s, were in Mumbai. Age has nothing to do with the awe they evoke, but Philip Kotler (marketing’s messiah) and John Naisbitt (the acclaimed futurist), have it in them to turn black-suited business executives into star-struck children. At question time, a bespectacled delegate at the seminar told Kotler, “Sir, it’s a dream come true to see you here today.” Read the rest of this entry »

I believe in miracles. In a Mumbai public bus, yesterday, I saw a lady standing with a five-year-old in her arms. None of the passengers offered her a seat, though somebody offered half a seat to her child. The kid did not take up the offer. I gave her my seat and moved away from the crowd to the front. A gentleman got off. In a flash I had got back a seat. Good deeds beget good deeds. But what about bad deeds? Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I was speaking to a senior executive from Wipro, a top-notch, information technology services company in India. I couldn’t help but ask him, despite their IT prowess, why don’t Indian companies have enough patents? Despite the fact that the top 10 patent holders across the world are IT companies. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s about 20 hours since Italy walked into the quarter-finals of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. But they could be the most undeserving teams to reach the final eight. Did Italy’s Fabio Grosso deliberately trip over Australian defender, Lucas Neill, to earn that match-saving penalty? If Grosso could keep the ball away from the sliding defender, he could have as well jumped over him. The debate could go on. But after last night, pizza or pasta do not taste as good. Read the rest of this entry »

Are Blogs liberating? On our way back home the other day, we had a lively debate. The participants : Bijoy, the “boss-man” of Motoring and Open Sky, his man-everyday, Srini,  and the man who points North, our Compass Editor, Niraj. Read the rest of this entry »

IMD, headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, ranks second among B-schools offering executive education according to the Financial Times list in 2006. Read the rest of this entry »