CLA – 922

Thank you, RaJ!

Post 6 of #sg100peopleToThank. More about this series is here.

Thank you, Raj

I consider myself a destiny’s child. Good things happen to me, without me asking for them. Of course, there are times when it takes time for those things to happen, but they do happen. And at times when I am totally unprepared for those. Case in point? ~~Raj~~ RaJ Kurup, founder of Creativeland Asia, an advertising agency.

So this is back in 2007. I had put in my papers at GE and I had no clue what to do (not that I know now but back then I was even more clueless). I had seen some great ads (this, this and this) and back then I thought making ads would be something that could be exciting. I went to a placement consultant and asked her to get me interviews with some. She got me two – one with Raj and the other with Law & Kenneth. From what I recall, both accepted me and Raj offered me more money. Plus he was cooler for sure. That chance meeting with him and the decision to join him as one of his first employees turned out to be among the best decisions of my life.

In the two years I spent with him, I learnt EVERYTHING I know about the business of communication. Each day was fun, exciting, nerve-wracking, full of learning and more. There was this constant amazement. I was on the steepest learning curve of my life. Apart from his brilliance, Raj had assembled this team of great people, each a master of their craft. Each interaction with the team at CLA was enriching. Each day I left the office a better person, richer with knowledge and more aware of the world. And I tap-danced to the office most days.

I spent exactly two years with him and I quit him to go back to Delhi and start something of my own. It’s ironic that Raj was himself responsible for feeding me with all the ambition that made me want to have more than what Raj paid me and quit working for him.

Of course, with time, life moved on. But at each workplace I have been to since I have merely applied things that Raj and team taught me. Raj gave me the best foundation that I could expect to get and I merely built on top of that. Gravity allowed me to learn from practical experience. Social Wavelength added another dimension to what I knew. VISCOMM / C4E gave me, as Redbull will say, wings. But all of it started with interactions with Raj and CLA.

If not for Raj, I wouldn’t be doing what I am doing right now. Life would have taken a different trajectory for sure – I don’t know for good or bad.

As I end this, I think I was extremely lucky to have met Raj at a time when I needed someone to take an active interest in me and help me grow as an individual. Raj did exactly that. I am thankful and indebted to him for this. In fact, each day I try to pay it forward by trying to find some young people that I can mentor. Are you one? Lemme know and let’s talk 🙂

Lastly, I think the greatest compliment that I can give Raj (or anyone else for that matter is), if I could turn back time, I would not quit Raj.

Thank you, Raj. Good luck with everything you do.

Others posts in this series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

PS: Lately Raj hasn’t been in the news for the right reasons. I am not sure how to comment on it but the respect I have for his work ethic and ambition remain intact.

I feel Purple

Image Credits: Jerome B

The mood I am in, if someone asked me to describe it, I would say, I feel Purple. Dont ask me why. Though Purple is the color of creativity or ideas or something to that effect (a reason why CLA logo is purple), I am far far away from all such constructive pursuits.

I feel someone has sucked all the energy and vigor from me. Though I am suffering from fever, cold and cough and even a task like breathing is taking a lot of effort. So much so that I am wondering how cool would it be if we could recharge the batteries and then not bother about breathing, eating, peeing etc. In short, I really hate it when I am unwell.

I have noticed that in last few years, I get unwell at regular intervals. I have always prided in my immune system. I had stomach made of steel and I could eat anywhere and anything and still digest it. I dint have to wear any warm clothes even in peak winters. I could tolerate any extremes. But for last few years, I think after I went to MDI, my systems got fucked. Not that I do drugs or booze. I dont even smoke. But then something went wrong and I am now sick often. I need to do something about it.

Apart from that this is unrelated but I have been listen to Jo Bhi Main from Rockstar on a loop since morning. Hear it. Absolute bliss.

2009: the year that was…

I am at Delhi airport. Waiting to take the flight to Mumbai. Like most thing in my life, there is no agenda for this trip to Mumbai. And like all other things, this trip was planned at the last minute. There are no specifics, no reasons why I wanted to see Mumbai. Only a vague sense of reason and some amount of gut feel. In fact, think of it, most things I do, I do because of these two.

Anyways the idea of the post is recap things that I did in 2009. Mumbai is a different and longish rant. Lets keep it pending for some other time.

So, here is a quick and dirty list of things I did and things I did not in 2009.. In no particular order.

I resigned from my job (July). Second resignation in three years post MBA. GE Money and now Creativeland Asia. Both for different reasons. Both times, trying to chase hope and dream big.
I did Vipassana (Sep). This is the first time I was quiet for 9 days on the trot. Last time I was this quite, it would have been the time when I was still a toddler and hadnt learnt talking. I am told I took 2 years to start talking. No wonder I am catching up on the lost time by all the talking that I do.
I finally took the Mensa test and got the membership (June).
I applied for TED fellowship and I did not get it. I knew and still know that I deserve it as much as rest of the 100 fellows who got it. But as they say, life aint no fair. Shall keep trying.
I started a company with Kunal (Aug). 10 years after we started working together and dreaming about owning businesses. This one is nothing to write home about but our pipeline is full.
I finally started teaching full time (Aug). Although what I teach is inconsequential but it still is addressing a batch of students none the less. And I now know that I enjoy teaching. Need to think more and take this forward.
I started writing a book. A piece of fiction. But left it midway for reasons that I dont know myself. I dont even know where those chapters are.
I realized that I could be wrong. And more importantly, I realized that its ok to be wrong. As long as you tried.
I discovered that I love advertising, media, entertainment, design and technology businesses. Of course I am an outsider, young, incompetent, inexperienced, “un”talented, dreamer, naive et al. Along with these disadvantages and more, I do have all the advantages that outsiders have. I can look at things from unbiased perspective. I can slaughter the sacred cows. I can dare. I can change. I can improve. I am the new.
I moved back to Delhi. Though I do miss Mumbai and all the fun I had in Mumbai. Is it the people that I miss? Or the place? I shall never know. It sucks how friends drift apart with passage of time.
I got my Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 5S (April). I have been thinking of buying it for about 15 years (not exaggerating). And its one of the best decisions that I have made in my life.
I learnt how to fold a paper into a crane (April), juggle three balls at the same time, drive a car, be diplomatic and live with a bald head.
I started watching movies (Dec). Of all the ones that I saw in 2009, the Shawshank Redemption impressed me most.
Met tons and tons of people. I got their contacts from Twitter, Facebook, MDIJFK, friends, family etc. Most have been helpful. Wish they could actually DO rather than just talking.
Discovered the world of Poker (Sep). I am not good as it as yet but I am practicing. Plan to be a part of WPT some day.

And few insignificant numbers (I do love numbers, especially when they are useless).

147 – number of blogposts in 2009 till date. At the rate, I should end the year with 150.
6 – number of years I have been blogging now.
27 – my age
1722 – time on my laptop. My flight takes off at 1820. I need to board at 1740.
2 – number of bags I am carrying.
3 – number of tabs I have open on my Google Chrome.
126, 415 – number of chips I have on Zynga Poker. And that is what I am going to do till my flight is announced.

See you in Mumbai.

P.S.: Now that I am reviewing the post, I should have done this in a chronological order with months adding to the structure.

Presentation1.ppt

For my work, I have to make a lot of presentations. And lazy me takes the first shortcut available and calls all my presentations with the default word – Presentation1.ppt.

Today I was asked to hunt for a file and I keyed in .ppt on the search bar. I got a list of some 20 presentation1.ppts. No points for guessing how happy I was with the search results. I did not get the work done and now I am renaming all those files to something that is more searchable.

The key lesson here is that search plays an important role in the way we humans work. More than search, retrival plays even more critical role. It is so easy to stuff a closet with million things and it is equally difficult to retrieve one particular thing from that heap of million things. No wonder Google has done so well as a company. It makes the entire process of retrival so easy and intuitive. Google for me is more of a retrival compay rather than search.

And this leads me to my lesson # 1 for the day. Any business that I get into will have to have a minimal search cost. I define the search cost as the amount of effort on part of end user to identify a service provider (as one of the alternatives to fulfill the demand). And by virtue of this definition, lesser the search cost, easier it is for the end user to find your service.

In fact advertising is a way to reduce the search cost for consumers. Your product might be the best in the world but the customers will never be able to find it if the search cost is too high. The good news is that there are ways to reduce or eliminate this search cost. Case in point, Bisleri. Bisleri by virtue of age has now replaced “mineral water” in vocabulary of Indians. Search cost for Bisleri is hence zero.

Now this concept of search cost can be extended to any business activity. Take for example hiring. You are a growing company. You want to attract and eventually hire the best talent. There are two problems now. One, you dont know where to look for good talent. And two, even though you might find awesome talent, the talent might not know about you. He hasnt heard about you and in all likelihood he would join one of the better known brands.

Think about the Internet. On Internet, a lot of things are noise and a very very few are actually signals. Search cost for anyone on Internet is very high. All of us use feed readers, aggregators, social bookmarking etc. to discover content. Discovery is getting more and more difficult as more and more spam blogs are being published.

How do you then reduce this search cost? How do you make yourself as the default choice for any customer? Is advertising the only way? Is this the core function of advertising?

Any thoughts?