abhi ek presentation diya
'most entertaining presentation' award mila :P
Tejaswi
haan? send it over plzplz
Alok
slides pe jokes nahi hai
:P
Tejaswi
ohhh nice ... it must have been even better then :)
i still remember ur last one abt gore
Sent at 12:26 AM on Friday
Alok
gore ??
oh al gore :P
that was just one joke
today i told them a story
i had an apple custom made of paper
that fell on newton's head

Got a idea ? Story-telling. Custom made templates in ppts which make story-telling very easy

Yet another interesting business idea

New Relic is looking to capitalize on the growing number of Ruby on Rails application deployments, having recently raised $3.5M from Benchmark Capital for their Rails Performance Management (RPM) product. RPM is a combination of installed software and cloud services that helps developers understand performance problems in their RoR applications. A Rails developer first installs a standard plugin that continuously sends performance data to New Relic’s servers. He or she can then use an RPM dashboard to identify the specific points in their code that are causing bottlenecks. Several brand name Rails developers are already using a beta version of the RPM service, including Rails core developer Rick Olson. While the company is reluctant to disclose its current enterprise-size clients, they are obviously going after the several billion-dollar-plus businesses already using Rails in production.

Random Notes from a tech-crunch reader

-tejaswi

A) Start a company - you are one amongst a few hundreds (counting for a single week). Make decent revenue- you are on the way. Micheal Arrington decides to talk about you- You are being noticed, time to get cautious. He is not a smooth guy, never goes easy on your product. Micheal Arrington talks about you twice - Man o man ! you are pretty awesome.. or everyone in the silicon valley wish you would just disappear to a quieter Ohio or Texas. Google decides to acquire you - you are a dude. You reject the offer- you are a fool or the next Google. Cant say.

Aa) If you wish to be one of any of the above the least you can do is to start reading Tech-Crunch , Tech-Meme every hour. Keep reading. According to my wild wild guess, there is a 70% chance that your idea is already out in the market, making millions for those 'crazy nuts' who came up with it first.

E) What is the 'in-thing' ? - Mash-ups, widgets and Aggregators. I am really excited about them. Twitter + Facebook + Flickr + Maps + Video + Newsfeeds + Friendfeeds and whatever you think can fit in. Social Networking. Open APIs. Ads. Effective Cost-cutting. Feed-Burners. Information repositories like Googledocs, Docstoc, Flickr, Video. Help businesses carry out better business.

Ee) What really works ? - Wont tell you.

U) What doesn't work ? - Lots.

Uu) Future of Research ? - Human Computer interaction and Information Science (the former is a part of the latter?) , Semantic Web, NLP (?), Smaller and Portable devices, Connectivity. (Should add more to this list)

Ae) In how many possible ways can Google maps be used ? If you come up with less than 10 ways, wake up to the web!

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Why Social Applications Will Thrive In A Recession

by Josh Bernoff

Is a recession coming? Don't ask me -- I'm not an economist, and even the economists don't really know. But if it's anything like the last recession, advertising will plummet and experimental media will crater. (In the 2001 recession, US advertising dropped 9% and Internet advertising plummeted 27%, according to Veronis Suhler Stevenson.)

But do not panic. Things are different this time.

Here's what smart marketers should know:

• It's not a tech bubble. The last recession was caused by the dot-com bubble and the terrorist attacks. There was a lot of ignorant money out there chasing illusory opportunity, and companies had overinvested in technology. This time, the precipitating event is a housing bubble, and technology spending is not irrational.

• Awareness ads will lose effectiveness. Advertising (or as we often call it, "shouting") is mostly about generating awareness and reinforcing brands. In a recession, ordinary consumers like you and me aren't as willing to spend. Sure, we'll be aware of the product, but that doesn't make so much difference when you're worried about your future. Advertising is expensive and is a lot easier to cut than headcount. Many are predicting ad spending will hold up; I'm not so sure.

• But social applications are about consideration, not awareness. Blogs, word of mouth, social networks . . . they're about people connecting with other people. You may resist advertising if your finances are tight, but if your bud tells you that new movie is really worth seeing or that the Gap has the cutest new tops, that's more persuasive than advertising. Basically, in a recession, the consideration phase is more important than awareness -- and that's where advertising flops and social applications succeed.

• It's cheap. Social applications can be nearly free (think blogs, Ning.com, facebook pages) and even more sophisticated communities are typically $30K to $200K -- a lot cheaper than a significant sized ad campaign. After our last post, all the responses were positive. One interactive marketer from a highly cyclical company told us this:

"Budgets are tight in light of the economic conditions as you surmise, but [the budget for social applications] has not been impacted. We are still keen to move forward with our trial and have support….at this point anyway. Interactive in general has been more protected than other comms areas and saw an increase."

• It's measurable. If your social application doesn't have a measurable output, you'd better get one. But if it does -- if it generates leads, or conversions, or buzz, or something useful -- then you can prove it's working. beinggirl.com is four times as effective as TV ads, Procter & Gamble told us. That won't get cut in a recession.

These same arguments apply to some other forms of online marketing, including search ads and email marketing. Those are going to be good investments in a recession. If you're smart, you'll position yourself now with proof your apps are working. Then when the ad dollars get tight, you'll be in good shape.

Click here to see what we wrote for our clients (we've made this piece of research free for everyone).

Also on this topic, see also David Armano's post on 10 ways digital can help you thrive in a recession. And an earlier Paul LaMonica post (CNN Money) featuring my old colleague Jim Nail.

Finally: I'm anticipating this topic might get some currency around the blogosphere and the mediasphere . . . if you want to follow the reactions, tune in to my twitter feed at twitter.com/jbernoff

JP - Of shoes and money …. and information

I’ve spent the best part of three decades immersed in large organisations: watching and observing them, working for them, working in them. With very few exceptions, I have found the following to be true of large organisations:

• We stress the importance of human resources, human talent, human capital
• We stress the importance of teamwork and collaboration
• We stress the importance of openness and transparency
• We stress the importance of trust

And then, mysteriously, we somehow manage to create an environment where we jealously guard information; where we seek to create and extend power as a result of this jealous guarding; where we then exploit this power in all kinds of ways, some less abhorrent than others (but all abhorrent, at least to me).

Given all the other values that are stressed, I’ve often wondered why this happens. And in a Sunday night frame of mind, I’d like to postulate one possible reason:

Let me try and explain it by using one of my favourite Peter Drucker quotations:

People make shoes, not money.

People aren’t interested in medical records, they’re interested in getting well, and staying well. People aren’t interested in bills and receipts, they’re interested in knowing that they did what they said they will do, or that they received what they expected to receive. People aren’t interested in financial statements, they’re interested in what they can do as a result of the security that income and savings and insurance and pensions. People aren’t interested in TV or radio schedules, they’re interested in watching things and listening to things. People aren’t interested in share prices and market movements, they’re interested in the things they can do as a result of performing their jobs well. It’s not the information that matters, but what we can do as a result.

People make shoes, not money.

Of course information has value in the sense that it lets you do things as a result of your having information. And not do things as a result of your not having information. But this value is not something we can impute to information per se.

It’s a bit like saying a car key has value by itself. Sure, it lets you drive the car. And if you didn’t have the key then driving the car becomes somewhat more difficult.

But by itself it’s nothing. It’s just a key.

Take a television schedule. Not much use without something to watch television with (even if it’s a Mac rather than a telly). Or take a telephone directory, not much use unless you have a telephone (even if it is a camera or game console pretending to be a phone).

[This is also why IT systems by themselves have no value; value is derived from adoption, from usage. If we don’t understand this, we’ll never answer the age-old question of the “business value of IT”].

I know I’m making a big deal out of this, but there’s a reason. Humour me on this.

Once we impute value to information, we create a reason for people to have secrets. To hide things.

And then it’s a downward spiral. Does it make sense to hide things from your customer? Does it make sense to have asymmetric information within the firm? Once we start acting as if information has value by and of itself, it is only a matter of time before people start using this information to gain personal advantage within the firm.

And once this happens, we can forget about all the nice things we say organisations stand for: openness, transparency, teamwork, collaboration, respect for the individual. Trust. We can forget about all of it, because we allow the very basis of this to be corrupted.

Take a completely different perspective on all this. Privacy. Why does someone worry about who has access to his medical records? Not because the records themselves have value. But because someone can misuse them. Because, for example, someone can refuse to insure, or raise premiums for, some hitherto undeclared medical condition. Or even worse, for some future projected medical condition, projected as a result of discovered habits.

It’s not about the information, it’s about what you do with it.

When we had no language, we may have had information, but I wouldn’t know how we knew that we had information.

Once we had oral language, we had information. Much of it was passed from generation to generation without fear or favour. Then, somewhere along the line, people figured out that hoarding information gave them some form of power. And out of that came caste systems and class systems. And a few wars.

It was all about power. Not value.

When we moved from oral to written language, we still had information. But now we could store some of it, and share some of it. But people figured out, if only there was a way to control who could read and write, then the power would remain.

Along came the printing press. Same story. If only there was a way to control who could print and distribute, the power would remain.

Minor skirmishes have been fought on this topic for the last 150 years or so, covering the post and telegraph, radio, film, television, vinyl, tapes, CDs, the lot. If only we could control the copying process and the distribution process, the power would remain.

Well, the genie’s out of the bottle. The horse has bolted. Choose your cliche. Because that’s all there is, cliche.

As reproduction, transmission and storage costs continue their drive towards zero, it’s going to get even worse. Information is an extreme nonrival good, needing artificial intervention to sustain its value. And every artificial scarcity will be met with an artificial abundance. Piracy. Cracking. Whatever you want to call it.

Ideas are free, and will continue to be free. So will information. Or, as Doc Searls keeps reminding me, in the words of our mutual friend Don Marti, information wants to be $5.99.

Information will continue to have value, but that value will tend towards the cost of collecting, processing, storing and retrieving that information. And while there is a cost, the price may still be zero, as ways are found to defray the cost with attention in one form or another.

There is something magical happening. We’ve had language for a very long time. We’ve had the capacity to read and write for a very long time. The costs of reproduction and transmission and storage have dropped remarkably, and that changes many things.

But there is a bigger change. A change brought about by the digital world. Now we can archive and retrieve information, search and find it. This has never happened before. And it is huge.

So.

Information is changing. And it is becoming more valuable to us all by becoming less valuable to any one of us.

Let us bear that in mind as we move on. We should concentrate on providing good service and good product, concentrate on providing that service honestly and diligently. And the money will flow. Not by hoarding information, but by freeing it up. Collaborating with each other, within the firm, with our customers, with our partners, with our markets. Even with our competitors. [Actually we do that already, but in a closed way. It’s called a cartel.]

[Incidentally, the working title for this post was one possible response to the question “but how do we make money if we don’t hoard information?”…..monetise this! But it sounded rude and so I dropped it.]