Category: Thoughts

Indian IT programmers – where are thou hiding?

Disclaimer: I would be slaughtering a lot of sacred cows in this text. Please avoid reading if you cant stand negative opinions.

About 5 months ago, I got this wonderful idea that could have potentially changed the way we used the Internet. It was something really useful and it did not rely on advertising as its revenue option. I spoke to quite a few people about it and everyone was excited about it. In everyone’s opinion it was bound to be a hit.

But there was a hitch. I could not find enough coders to help me create that application. I thought finding coders would be easy. Day in and day out we hear about the greatness of Indian techies. Media, Professionals and even politicians had no doubts on the coding prowess of us Indians. It was looking like a cake walk.

Confident of finding these coders fast, I tried everything from colleges to IT training institutes (NIITs, Aptechs of the world), mailing lists, online and offline networking events, referrals, outsourcing but I could not find enough people who could work with me. I was ready to pay any kind of salary or project fees or even stake in the business idea. And I did not want to develop a complex application like a new operating system. It was a really small application that would have taken a team of 3 coders about a month to complete in PHP.

Initially I thought I am unlucky that I cant find talent. When I spoke to other people trying to start their own IT companies, I was surprised to know that they also faced the same problem. They could not find enough quality programmers.

Coming to real issue, what happened to all those lakhs of students that passout from thousands of engineering colleges spread across hundreds of locations in our country? What about those uncountable number people working with giants like Infosys, TCS, Wirpo? Where do these companies find talent from? Do they go to a different planet to hire them? Or do they compromise on the quality of intake?

I distinctly remember that when I passed out from my college, every engineer was being recruited for software profiles irrespective of fact that his specialization was chemical engineering, metallurgical engineering, mechanical engineering or even biological engineering. They were sent to special training facilities generally located at Goa, Kerala and other holiday places. And in three months, they came back tanned and ready to take coding assignments of any kind.

We might argue that Indian IT companies have the intellectual capital to pull off anything. And we offer a cost advantage compared to rest of the world. Companies started outsourcing their things to hubs like Bangalore and Hyderabad (btw Bangalored is now officially a word) I have only one question. If we dint have the cost advantage, would we still remain competitive in the global market?

I am not saying that everything that we do in India is a waste. In my humble opinion bulk of work done in India is sub-standard. We do not innovate on anything. We just copy things done by others and make it cheap and hope for people to buy it. I keep on hearing interesting things happening in Indian IT space and how the new generation of Indians are reshaping the economy. How all the PE funds and VC firms are bullish on Indian IT. How every engineer and a management graduate wants to open his own firm. I am not doubting the intellect of Indians for a single second. What I am questioning is that we don’t really hone the talent well in the country. Much of our talent goes for a toss …

We take pride in saying that half the Microsoft staff is Indian, half the IBM staff is Indian but do e realize that all those people left our country to go settle in other countries and contribute to their economies?

Try thinking hard, can we come up with a list of 10 great software innovations in India? Is the future bright?

Related to this is my earlier post on Perils of Indian Education System.

PlaygroundOnline.com > Review

Playground Online
PlaygroundOnline.com is yet another entrant in the Indian e-commerce space. It retails sports related media and equipment. They currently offer books, CDs, equipments, apparel etc. This is probably first of its kind online store in India. I took PGO for a spin and here is my feedback.

What I like about PGO?
First and foremost, although they want to sell things online but they have put a lot of focus on customer friendliness and costumer interaction. Things like polls, news, forums can make this website a default place for sports enthusiasts. These initiatives help build a strong and loyal community and eventually garner sales.

The range of products on PGO is really wide. From a t-shirt worth Rs. 280 to a bicycle worth Rs. 46000 (obviously for a professional), PGO had a lot of things for offer. I could not check if this range is comprehensive but everything I could think of was either there or they were accounted for and being worked upon. This is a good thing for an e-commerce business. I can think of people visiting PGO to find out more about sporting goods and then buying it offline. Challenge will be to convert these information scouts into customers.

Design
The website interface is impressive for an Indian startup and they have used a good mix of traditional style web design and Web 2 functionality. They still need to work on few things though. Like for example when you are trying to signup, the errors are reported in a pop-up box. This should ideally be a Web 2 pop-up where errors are notified the moment they are encountered. I should never get a Windows pop-up.

Team
PGO has been started by a team of 4 people with average work experience of 15 years. Experience of 60 man-years could be a good thing and a bad thing at the same time. With experience comes rigidity; you might start shooting down ideas even before you give them enough time to fruit. You start living on assumptions. You are scared of breaking out of the mold.

And with experience one develops the knack of running businesses. The team is experienced enough to know what is to be done to make the business run efficiently. Looking at the website and they have used their experience well.

What I like about their team is the fact that all 4 co-founders have different and diverse backgrounds. From client relationships to technology to marketing to customer insights, they have it all. The roles could thus be clear and they can concentrate on larger things.

Competition
They don’t seem to have one large competitor right now. However they compete with bookstores (fabmall, om books etc), apparel stores (rediff, sify) and obviously with traditional retail stores. The business model is new in India and looks lucrative. There should be many more players in the market soon.

Payment Options
One of the key reasons why e-commerce is still in nascent stages is lack of adequate payment options. Credit cards penetration is still low in India. People are still skeptic of using their cards online. And finally they are not really convinced about credibility of these websites.

At PGO, there are limited payment options currently but they have mentioned that they are working on more methods. I would love to see them implement a cash-on-delivery method. COD gives an online merchant immediate access to people who dont have cards and people with cards who are scared of using the cards online.

What more can PGO do?
Comparison between brands and products. When buying a product, people love to understand the features, benefits and differences. I don’t see a link for comparing two items. If they can somehow implement a comparison, it would be great.

User community. All the ecommerce websites have been adding users to forums. If PGO is really convinced about sports as a leisure or a lifestyle activity in India, create special interest groups of people with similar interests. Give them things like competitions to participate in, platforms to talk about their interests etc. Basically in one word, give something more than a typical forum or a social network.

Final thoughts
PGO has done a good job with their store. The only thing that might let them down is the very acceptance of the business model. If I was a VC with money, I would have invested in the business, obvisouly after talking to the owners and looking at the projected cash flow statements.

And finally, since we are talking about ecommerce, lets try to see what can be sold successfully over the Internet? Something that is standardized. Something that you are confident would be similar irrespective of place you bought it from. Something like an airplace ticket. Something like a computer. Something like a book. Sporting equipment – I am not sure. Lessons for other players? Make the products standardized, eliminate shopping pains and have in place an awesome customer service.

Questions to ponder on?
Are sporting goods similar to airline tickets? Books?

Leo Burnett Speech – When to take my name off the door

Raj recommended this speech to us. And it is worth the time.

Somewhere along the line, after I’m finally off the premises, you – or your successors – may want to take my name off the premises, too.

You may want to call yourselves “Twain, Rogers, Sawyer and Finn, Inc.”.. or “Ajax Advertising” or something.

That will certainly be ok with me – if it’s good for you.

But let me tell you when I might demand that you take my name off the door.

That will be the day when you spend more time trying to make money and less time making advertising – our kind of advertising.

When you forget that the sheer fun of ad making and the lift you get out of it – the creative climate of the place – should be as important as money to the very special breed of writers and artists and business professionals who compose this company of ours – and make it tick.

When you lose that restless feeling that nothing you do is ever quite good enough.

When you lose your itch to the job well for it’s sake – regardless of the client, or money, or the effort it takes.

When you lose your passion for thoroughness … you hatred of loose ends.

When you stop reaching the manner, the overtones, the marriage of words and pictures that proudest the fresh, the memorable and the believable effect.

When you stop rededicating yourselves every day to the idea that better advertising is what the Leo Burnett Company is about.

When you are no longer that Thoreau called “a corporation with a conscience” – which means to me, a corporation of conscientious men and women.

When you begin to compromise your integrity – which has always been the heart’s blood – the very guts of this agency.

When you stoop to convenient expediency an rationalize yourselves into acts of opportunism – for the sake of a fast buck.

When you show the slightest sign of crudeness, inappropriateness or smart –aleckness – and you lose that subtle sense of the fitness of things.

When your main interest becomes a matter of size just to be big – rather that good, hard, wonderful work.

When you outlook narrows down to the number of windows – from zero to five – in the walls of your office.

When you lose your humility and become big-short wisenheimers…. a little bit too big for your boots.

When the apples come down to being just apples for eating (or for polishing) – no longer part of our tone or personality.

When you disprove of something, and start tearing the hell out of the man who did it rather than the work itself.

When you stop building on strong and vital ideas, and start a routine production line.

When you start believing that, in the interest of efficiency, a creative spirit and the urge to create can be delegated and administrated, and forget that they can only be nurtured, stimulated, and inspired.

When you starting giving lip service to this being a “creative agency” and stop really being one.

Finally, when you lose your respect for the lonely man – the men at his typewriter or his drawing board or behind his camera or just scribbling notes with one of our big pencils – or working all night on a media plan. When you forget that the lonely man – and thank God for him – has made the agency we now have – possible. When you forget he’s the man who, because he is reaching harder, sometimes actually gets hold of for a moment – one of those hot, unreachable stars.

THAT, boys and girls, is when I shall insist you take my name off the door. And by golly, it will be taken off the door. Even if have to materialize long enough some night to rub it out myself – on every one of our floors. And before I DE-materialize again, I will paint out that star-reaching symbol too. And burn all the stationary. Perhaps tear up a few ads in passing.

And throw every goddamned apple down the elevator shafts.

You just won’t know the place, the next morning. You’ll have to find another name.

Text from: CIAdvertising

President and Vice-President of India

I randomly asked 10 friends who is President of India. Dont be surprised with the results … Only 2 out of 10 knew who Mrs. Patil is. And for all the readers who don’t know the answer, it’s Mrs. Pratibha Devisingh Patil.

Then I asked the same set of people who is our Vice President. And guess what.. no one knew. They had no clue at all. When I told them it’s Mr. Haimd Ansari, they were as confused as a kid in a nude bar.

India Shining?

What seems to be the problem?
One is that I asked people who are my age (25 +- 2 years). These people are so-called future of India and would drive the economy and country in the years to come. Most of these people are more bothered about the kind of money they can make rather than the kind of difference they would make to the country.

Second is that media – the driver of intellect and thought in India is really pathetic. Media in India is a business. With profit motives. As I have said earlier too, gone are the days when media would want to educate, inform and evoke thoughts from the citizens rather than pursuing profits generated by advertisements, sensationalizing news and paddling

How has this shift happened? Why are people less concerned about the state of affairs? Why are we becoming yet another society where politics is left to people without jobs, oldies, influentials and other larger than life people?

Thoughts anyone?

Links
http://presidentofindia.nic.in/
http://vicepresidentofindia.nic.in/

IBNLive.com > News or Sleaze?

I have wanted to join theatre for quite some time. I entered a query on Google and was directed to homepage of Mumbai Theatre Guide. And right on the top was this ad from Google Adsesne.

The copy read

Watch the hot pics of Indian Women in the world on IBNLive.com Now!

Is the biggest and the best media house in India trying to sell it website by paddling pictures of Indian Women?

Imagine. IBNLive.com is the internet presence of IBN7 – part of TV18 group and a news channel that goes with the punch line “Khabar har kimat par“. I used to think TV18 is an awesome company. I am in awe of Rajdeep Sardesai and Raghav Bhal. I know competition on internet is huge but these small cheap tricks to get more visitors on a website will not take them very far. Are they winning medals for journalism by showing hot pics of Indian Women? Are they creating personal fortunes and big companies by selling soft porn?

Coming on to the other side of the issue, do these women know that their pics are being advertised? That their personal lives are being used by IBN to promote their website? If they don’t, isn’t this breach of their personal privacy? If they do know, doesn’t this amount to crime? Paddling soft porn? Ms. Sushma Swaraj are you listening/reading?

Can someone forward this to TV18 group? And specifically to Mr. Bhal and Mr. Sardesai?

Perils of Indian Education System

I was reading The Man Who Knew Infinity and I came across this interesting line on the status of education system devised by British when they were ruling India.

It was designed, after all, to churn out bright, well-rounded young men who could help their British masters run the country, not the “restless and ambitious spirits”

Think more on it and you would realize the perils of Indian education system.

Like a lot of other things, we have inherited the education system from the British. They enforced a school, college and university system of education on masses of India.

Indian society always had manpower in abundance. Jobs were hard to find. Money rested with a fraction of a fraction of people. For a commoner, education and degree was the fastest way to economic freedom and stability. People made sure they get that coveted degree and get a stable job. A degree became something revered.

Perhaps, no where in the world you have university examinations where you are made to read Psychology, English, History, Geography and others, if you want to become a computer programmer. There are umpteen more examples like that. All the courses are made mandatory and you have to take them in order to get a university degree. You can not choose, mix and match these courses. You cannot decide what you want t o do in life. You have to live is the way others thing you should.

If we had something called the credit system where you could pick courses that you want to read, India would have lot more evolved people (for example schooling and college in USA). With Indian system, the entire focus of students and teachers and parents is on getting maximum grades. It is very likely that a student crams a text book and tops the examination and gets all the accolades. He might not even know how to reach his home from a remote corner of the country. And, on the other hand, a truly smart student has to bear the brunt of not performing in these text-book examinations. He might be the next Ambani, Bose, Gates or Jobs but he will be discouraged to take the road less travelled.

I used to be an academic topper till about 10th standard. I really believed in and wanted to excel at examinations. I would do everything from cramming text books to fill water bottles for teachers to make notes to cheat and to everything imaginable to get good marks in exams. And it was not only me. All my friends and their friends and their friends wanted to excel. By hook or by crook. If i came second, parents would not congratulate me. They would ask why I wasn’t first. If I got 97, they asked me what happened to other three marks.

This made my knowledge and understanding of the world bookish. I would always go by the book and would never think of an alternate way to do things. My creativity was constrained in a box. Every time I thought of a novel way of doing things, I was stopped by teachers. I was told to adhere to what teacher thinks is the best solution. I could not innovate or improvise. We should take cues from other education systems that are more hands on. Where students are required to innovate and improvise if they have to get grades.

Coming back to the text, this kind of a bookish education is good for developing people who can serve. This system would produce copy-cats. Not innovators. Followers. Not Leaders.

Someone has to change the education system. The onus can come from the industry. Currently if you are to recruit someone, you look for credentials in terms of education and pedigree of the institution. If you start recruiting someone who is good with logic and has no formal degree and encourage that, a lot of fresh ideas can be brewed. Except for my employer, I have never come across a company that prides itself in hiring dropouts. In fact in my case, for recruiting me, they made an exception. They hired me even though I am a MBA from one of the best institutes in the country and had never flunked or dropped out.

With more and more people taking the alternate route now, I am very hopeful that we would break away from the mandatory courses and llot less lives would be wasted because of our education system.

Dilbert Vs XKCD: Which is more popular and why?

Apurba Sen asked the following question on LinkedIn.

Why “Dilbert” is becoming less popular comic strip?

During 2007 Alexa trend showed Scott Adam’s comic strip “Dilbert” ” lost steadily to other comic strips viz XKCD, Explosm & Penny – arcade.

Any reason why ? What makes XKCD more popular than Dilbert?

I have been reading both Dilbert and XKCD for quite some time now. Here is my answer.

Here is an answer from a die-hard Dilbert and a devout XKCD fan. Dont really follow Explosm.

I think the answer lies in the way you measure popularity.

A lot of people might not go to the websites to read the comics. They subscribe with feed readers and emails. Further Dilbert is syndicated on comics.com and host of other publications. Reach for Dilbert is thus huge without a lot of people logging on to Dilbert.com.

Further, Both comics are for different people.

Most MBAs (including me) can relate to what Dilbert says. Most MBAs are also working in managerial roles and a diverse range of companies. May be they are short of time to logon to the website? I am not implying that managers work 😉

XKCD is about geekdom and its difficult for anyone non-geek to understand what is going on. Geeks love to spend time on the internet and hence more clicks. And geeks are more likely to have all kinds of tool bars (read Alexa) installed on their comps.

In recent years, trend has been moving towards non-conventional careers and more and more people are opting for self-employment and entrepreneurship rather than a MBA. And maybe this is a reason for growing popularity of XKCD?

Regards,
SG

Any thoughts?

Google and Publicis to share Resources and Talent

Adage.com has this interesting article about Publicis and Google. According to adage, Google and Publicis have agreed on talent sharing to design and develop new product and services. Talent sharing has been done in the past as well but there is more to this sharing than any other partnership.

In an interview to adage.com, Publicis CEO Mr. Levy said
1. “For a few months or a year, people from Publicis Groupe will be working at Google, and people from Google will be working at some of our companies”
2. “We’re bringing Google our knowledge of advertising communications, consumers and client needs. They’re bringing us knowledge of technology and the world of the web.”
3. “Google might develop partnerships with other agencies, and Publicis is free to work with other groups, such as Yahoo or MSN.”

Publicis is into advertising and communication and Google is in technology and web. How can these two companies benefit from talking to each other?

If you look deeper into the core businesses, Publicis is effectively into communication of benefits of existing brands and still deeper, creating the need for a new brand. Google on the other hand is in the business of providing information to users and enabling transactions between users and brands.

If Publicis was to get into a relted business, they would logically get into Google’s domain and if Google integrated backwards, it would go into Publicis’ territory.

More and more companies are willing to share information to design new products. Interesting times ahead.

The future of Indian Web 2.0 brands – will they make money?

Anurag from DGM India posted an interesting piece about Web 2.0 brands on his blog.

I replied

Hi Anurag,

I would like to digress a bit.

I think its not technology at the core, rather as we move to open standards and free availability of source codes, technology would become more of an enabler (or means) rather than being at the core.

Yes, I agree that people with deep pockets do put tons of money behind these ideas and algorithms and it is very difficult for a small player to complete with them.

And you hit the nail on the head when you said that Indian companies don’t have the mind-set to compete with offerings that are purely tech led.

Finally, talking about local search, online classifieds etc, I think they have a long way to go before they truly become effective. Currently the users that they have are mostly biased and same users are creating content everyone on the web. It will be effective when Internet becomes mass and people participate rather than just read.

Thanks,
SG

Any opinions?

Where to divert the energy?

It’s been more than 25 years now that I have been living. I have nothing to show for my achievements. It’s not because I aint got no brains that I have not achieved anything so far. It’s the pursuit of greatness in every small thing that has prevented me from that very greatness.

I want to be good at too many things at the same time and I end up as average in all of them.

Probably a way forward could be division of time in the ratio 80: 20. I shall spend 80% of my time on one thing and the other 20% on things that are not important.

I have to decide what this chunk would be. Currently I want to do programming, design, entrepreneurship, stocks, photography, web, travel, writing, communications projects, advertisements, the list is endless.

I have been telling people that I want to meet other great people. Spend time with them and learn from them. I can relate to what Newton said about giants and their shoulders. I want to learn from other people who actually think and get into the habit of thinking on things. Right now we don’t think. We think that we think but in reality we don’t really think. We are reacting to things around us.

Past-Present-Future of e-commerce in India

Mitul asked this question on LinkedIn. I am posting my answer.

Past-Present-Future of e-commerce in India.

E-commerce in India is at a very nascent stage compared to western world. However, if compared to last year, transactions have grown by over 1000% (or more) and my assumption is that the future is going to be even more exciting.

Railways & Airlines have played a major role in this. What is the next big thing that will take e-commerce to the next level?

My Answer

Hi Mitul,

I think the next wave is going to be commodity products. Something like Books. Things that you don’t mind buying from any store, you would buy them online if the website gave you a discount. Other things that would fall under this category are computers (Dell), Stationary (OfficeTiger, Office 1 superstore) etc.

Fashion as mentioned by Heber might not work in India as we still want to touch and feel these products. In fact even when we go to a store, we spend hours deciding on the right fit and look. Its something innate to Indians. (am not sure about other cultures).

If I come across more, will update this.

–
SG

I further updated the answer …

Hi Mitul,

I dont know what would build the future. It’s just that I put myself in customers shoes and figure out what would I want to buy online.

Talking about mobile phones, one reason why I dont think it would work is that we as Indians want to touch and feel a product a before we buy. With an online model am not sure if I can touch and feel a product.

Second we buy things from a trusted service provider rather than any random person. Websites are still not trusted parties for most Indians. I would pay a premium to buy something from a trusted shop and might leave the 5% discount that online sales get me.

Third a mobile phone is still 5000 bucks and this is above average amount for an average Indian. Spending this much means that stakes involved are high (might not be able to buy it some time soon in case it is faulty). Thus we go the extra step in making sure that decision is correct in the first place.

Hope this helps.
Warm Regards,

SG

Anyone wants to share their opinions .. ?