Category: Blog

Got this in email. Found it funny and here it is.

I just realized that if you have your Yahoo Messenger status as “Frustated”, all the friends who have’nt sent you a message in a decade would respond and talk to you.

I was online for an hour with no status message and no one was talking to me. I change it to frustated and suddenly I am flashed with 12 people. And as I am talking to these 12 people (yes its a feat), I am writing this … 🙂

Case
Think (lol !!!) that you are a marketing executive for a women’s only magazine. Like every other magazine your company has advertised everywhere but no results.

The Problem
Try to find out new ways to reach your target segment in this internet age when ladies are more content on watching saas-bahu conspiracies and internet savvy.

The Answer
Place a rack full of your magazines in the waiting rooms at gynecologist (female specialists) and pediatrician (child specialist).

Why this post?
I went to a relative’s clinic. She happens to be a gynecologist. She was busy with a lady and I was asked to wait and guess what do I see? A branded company rack full of a women’s only magazine with all the issues lined up neatly. I went WOW then and there.

On asking more questions, I was told that they have placed that rack there for free (including 12 issues of the magazine). What more, to drive the sales, they placed a registration form and a drop box for completed forms. I was further told that the company reprentative would come once every two days to put the magazines in order and collect the forms. Everything that a marketing professor would teach. You reach the cusomter. You create a want. You provide a method to fulfill the want.

I also saw one of the numerous Prof. Sanjay Bakshi‘s mental models at work. The drop box for the filled up forms was transparent and a fairly large cube (2 feet per size) and it had some 15 forms in there. I asked the helper if ladies actually filled in those forms. I was told that yes ladies fill up the forms but all the forms in the box were not genuine. I was told that the company people filled some 20 forms at random and dropped in the box. Social Proofing at work. Other ladies would see these great magazines. They would further see that some women have went ahead and applied for subscription. Here is a product that they like and here is a list of people who also like the product. They are not incorrect in loving the magazine and they would also fill in the forms. Pretty Neat. Another mental model in application.

Links in this post
http://www.sanjbak.com
http://www.uncommon-knowledge.co.uk/social/social-proof.html

I can think of a few situations that really make placements – placements.

One, Social Proof – if the other guy is applying to 10 companies, I should also apply to atleast 10. If the other guy is getting x amount as salary, I would not settle for anything less than 2 times x.

Two Excessive Self Regard – if the other person does not get this job, may be he wasnt upto the mark, may be I am a better student, may be I shall apply.

Three Availability Bias – this company is offering a better profile, this company is a better recruiter, the package is good here, so on and so forth.

Four Envy/Jealousy – Even if I dont get this job, I shall spoil the chances of the other person getting it. Its either me or no one. I shall not let him get it, I hate him, he wasnt good to me !

The SaurabhGarg weBLOG ! goes on Movable Type.

I finally got hold of MT and uplaoded it on my webserver. Thanks to kAgE for uploading the MT setup.

I cant use FTP from my hostel. It sucks but with friends like kAgE, its never an issue. I now have something new to do !!! 😀

SaurabhGarg.com > OneHelluva Page is my new project. I talk about people who have been struck by lightening and zapped me … !

Got these in an email …

Life is sexually transmitted.

Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.

Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, “I think I’ll squeeze these dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out?”

Who was the first person to say, “See that chicken there? I’m gonna eat the next thing that comes outta its butt.”

Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?

Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but don’t point to their crotch when they ask where the bathroom is?

Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They’re both dogs!

If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that Acme crap, why didn’t he just buy dinner?

Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog’s face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him on a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?

Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?

Why doesn’t glue stick to the inside of the bottle?

When you press Alt + Tab on a computer running Windows Xp operating syste, you get a list of all the programs running on the computer.

If the number of programs running is large, using Alt + Tab could be cubersome and hard. I recently came across a tool called PowerToys for Windows Xp released by Microsoft that makes the lives pretty cool and esay.

With PowerToys Alt Tabreplacement tool, the Alt + Tab becomes something like this…

The text on the website says…

Alt-Tab Replacement
With this PowerToy, in addition to seeing the icon of the application window you are switching to, you will also see a preview of the page. This helps particularly when multiple sessions of an application are open.

PowerToys Alt + Tab Replacement Tool can be downloaded from this link. I have been using this for about a month now and I face no problems at all of any sort.

To design or not to design is the BIG question in front of me right now. I bought saurabhgarg.com about three months ago and I haven’t really made a website.

I have a couple of choices in front of me right now. I can design it from scratch; display all my creativity to the entire world and boast of the excellent design. On the other hand I can use some ready made template, customize it and save on a lot of time.

I would now proceed to do a decision tree analysis. Assuming that I design it myself, following things are bound to happen…

1. No CMS. I would have lots of static web pages. Updating each of them would be a huge task. But again even if I go for a template, I still don’t have the expertise to make even a simple CMS. The template thing would also have static pages.
2. Time. I right now have nothing to do at all. And with all the travel coming up in the later half of February, I would not get time to design and update it.
3. Effort. I hate to work! and I can’t even imagine putting that much thought into the work. Although working is fun for me, I still hate doing small things such as editing HTML etc. I enjoy working on Photoshop and other editing software but I believe that they lack the power to keep me busy.

If I decide upon a template, following things would happen

1. Plagiarism. Even though I would have a nice, good looking website, it would be work of someone else and I would certainly be using it without giving credits or royalty. I do not want to do this. I guess this reason alone is more than enough punishment to not to use a template.

So the decision has been reached, I would create my own design, go the hard way and hopefully try to complete the website soon.

AND BY THE WAY THIS IS MY 150th POST !!!!

When I landed at my dream institute, I had twinkle in my eyes, high hopes and aspirations about the entire concept of going to a B School, I knew I have arrived.

But it all changed during the time I have spent here. Its been just over an year and I have figured out that B School education is atleast not for people like me.

Most people that I have encountered (not only at my B School but also from other BSchools and I estimate this number to be well above 500) do NOT have even a vauge idea where they want to end in life or a question as simple as why did they decide to pursue management education.

I found out (I don’t have any marketing surveys, data and analysis generated using SPSS or Excel) that the single most importnat reason for choosing management career was because of the image attached with B Schools. It is viewed as an extension to education. Its like a transition – complete secondary, move into higher secondary, complete that goto college for graduate and once you are done with graduate educatoin, next in line is – you guessed it right ! post graduate programme in management.

As I understand and infer from a few books that I have been able to read so far, management education is mostly about people skills. The onus is on preparing managers rather than say Chartered Accountants (equivalent to CPA in US) or HR professionals who would go by the books all the time. I think management education should be about only one thing – PEOPLE. Its the single most important thing that can make or break any organization.

The business education atleast in Indian context is a paid vacation. Either you ewre working or fresh out of college, you need a break from dull routines and what do you do? Join a business school.

Trust me, I have seen people dropping like house of cards after those numerous booze parties, hitting each other knowingly what they were doing, copying in examinations, blatantly plagiarising from the web or the library books for not so techies. We have done it all. The only stone we left unturned – management education.

ORIGIANALLY POSTED ON August 1, 2005
REPOSTED FROM ABOUT2EVOLVE TO SEPTEMBERTHE22ND

While reading the newspaper today, I came across The Turning Torso. It is a skyscraper in Sewdan is the second highest residential building in Europe.

I found The Turning Torso one of the most goodlooking skyscrapers I have ever seen. The pics that I have seen so far are awesome and I can’t imagine the view when I get to see it for real.

The tower is modeled on Santiago Calatrava’s design Twisting Tower. They say it is inspired from the human body.

The tower is roughly divided into 9 five story cubes. As the tower rises in height, with each subsequent cube, the tower twists around the axis and the ninth cube is rotated by 90 degrees with respect to the first tower. The first two cubes would have meeting and office spaces and the rest seven cubes would be resedential with 149 deluxe apartments. I sure would want to have an apartment there. The tower officially opened on 27th August 2005 and infact they are offering people a trip to the tower for five days… Wish I was in Sweden…

Detailed information about the architect, design and history is available at the links mentioned

I off late have started taking a lot of interest in large structures, buildings, artefacts and similar stuff.

This started as a post about The Turning Torso and I am afraid it would end with the Calatrava and praises for him. The work he has been able to conceptualize inspire people. Atleast I am having second thoughts about my choice of career and I thought about quitting everything and get into designing and sculpting.

Following are few links about The Turning Torso and Calatrava
http://www.turningtorso.com (Official Turning Tower Website)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turning_Torso
http://www.bizzbook.com/map/turningtorso.html
http://www.pbase.com/mistermattias/torso
Real Time Turning Torso Webcam View

http://www.calatrava.com (Official Calatrava Website)
Calatrava.info (Unofficial Calatrava Website)
Calatrava Designs

ORIGIANALLY POSTED ON August 29, 2005
REPOSTED FROM ABOUT2EVOLVE TO SEPTEMBERTHE22ND

How many times it has happened that I would listen to the song and praise the singer, the musicians, the composer, the video and everything about the song. I dont recall being curious to the lyricist of the song ever !

My recent favorite is Maine Dil Sey Kaha, from the movie Rog. This song has been performed by KK. One of the things I like about this song is the meaningful lyrics. I could connect to each and every being used. I probably never admitted but I think this song personifies me.

Anyways coming to the track, this song has been penned down by someone called Nilesh Mishra. I got curious and searched for other songs and was I surprised to see his work… He has written almost all my recent favorites. I think Nilesh is second only to Lucky Ali whe it comes to putting emotions to words.

Followig is the list of songs written by Nilesh Mishra …
Jism – Jaadu Hai Nasha Hai
Krishna Cottage
Rog – Maine Dil Sey Kaha

I hope to see more good work from him in times to come. I now have a reason to try out every new song 😉

ORIGIANALLY POSTED ON Sunday, October 24, 2005
REPOSTED FROM ABOUT2EVOLVE TO SEPTEMBERTHE22ND