Some question I will like you to answer?

These post is not a write up but a question ( which I supposedly have mastered :P, so will like to hear from you as what you have to say?

There it goes:

1.What are the necessary skill set a Media Marketing professional should possess? Having a work experience (not in the same field) will be an added benefit?

2.What are the skill sets required to be a good Media Planner?

3.Today the industry is very competitive and our is the top notch institute in Media and Communication. But what we should do constantly learn and hone our skill sets so that we become future ready?

4.I am interested in creatives in advertising agency, but I don't know how to go about searching for jobs? Do we have any other alternative beyond agency for creative? Kindly throw some light.

5.I want to become Account Planner but I have got to know that 'real' account planning function does not exist beyond couple of top rated agencies. Is the similar profile of work exists in any other business where similar skill set can be utilised?

I hope I get some answers :)

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog”

This I wrote for the competition in SP Jain,Mumbai...still waiting for the result:

Whenever there is a conflict between two parties then we look at what is the ‘size’ of each other and we that premise we make an assumption as to who might be a winner. Size plays a huge role…size provides the momentum and power. The huge deficiency which follows the size is that, bigger it is, it restricts agility. In order to really get going and make a real winner we should have a lean and mean body. In order to really win the war it is the nimbleness which will play a huge role in getting the right kind of movement which is desirable. Understanding the importance of being ‘fit’ is also plays a huge role in succeeding as that will determine whether in the prolonged fight we give it up or we fight, the longer the fight continues it is testing the character, determination and the stamina.

Size of the dog if big, a win will be either by bullying or may be by injuring, this is a case of lack of courage on the weaker dogs. There may be another dog who will accept the challenge and will make him first tired as he will not able to match the agility factor, thus it becomes important to understand your strengths and weakness and then to play around with them, rather than being fearful of the strengths of your ‘stronger’ opponent. The mind is before the matter and if we understand the dynamics of the ‘power play’ then the equation changes totally. With this understanding the ‘weaker’ dog will fight in the territory where the ‘strong’ dog is unfamiliar conditions and then go for the kill strategically. Here the fight will go on depending upon the endurance of the ‘strong’ dog who will try to make some very aggressive moves and does things in overconfidence and goes overboard because of his false and pseudo confidence in himself, which brings his demise as the ‘weak’ dog rather than fighting does lot of ducking and thus tactically saves energy and then goes for attack when his opponent is slightly ‘off balance’ or ‘tired’ takes him by surprise and gives a real jolt to his opponent.

This is more of an analogy and we can see how two entities humans and organisation fits almost perfectly. Re reading this will give you a better taste on ‘size of the dog’ and on ‘the size of the fight’.

Random musing on 'My Hobby'!

I have plenty of hobbies. I am extremely active and take great pleasure in learning different activities. I am into sports and play TT, Badminton, Basketball and Cricket. I am a huge fan of sports and drop of a hat I am ready for a game!
I have a huge interest in reading and my genre is humor and short stories specifically but over a period of time I have dwelled into other areas. The areas which I have started reading more on are marketing, advertising, psychology, consumer behavior, digital and technology and autobiography. Over a period of time I have got to expose some very good writers through shelfari.
I have a huge interest in meeting people and I love meeting people and there is nothing which gives me more pleasure than this. I met lot of people through ‘meets’, thorough ‘Blogger Meets’, ‘Coffee Meets’ and ‘Twitter Meets’ and many more. This has helped me to meet some very interesting people who are from different field and have provided insights into how they work and their KRA’s.
After coming to campus also I have learned and participated in some very interesting activities. I have learned swimming after coming here in the campus, which I have never touch based.
My first rendezvous with acting also took place here with the help of Ranji David who has conducted a workshop for us in which I participated and gave me tremendous insights into my personality. Post this I participated in a competition at SITM (Sym B Guru, a competition based on Best Manager), where I am supposed to act impromptu to do a street theater, which was fun and exhilarating and an unbeatable experience.

When I will be god d@#$n regular?

The answer to this question is, I will be regular from mid of july, till then, honestly you should give this blog a miss!

Who killed the newspaper, I have not, yet!

I read this article and I thought I will share it with you, it was published in 2006. After you read then I will like to present my point of view.

''Who killed the newspaper? "

A GOOD newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself," mused Arthur Miller in 1961. A decade later, two reporters from the Washington Post wrote a series of articles that brought down President Nixon and the status of print journalism soared. At their best, newspapers hold governments and companies to account. They usually set the news agenda for the rest of the media. But in the rich world newspapers are now an endangered species. The business of selling words to readers and selling readers to advertisers, which has sustained their role in society, is falling apart). Of all the "old" media, newspapers have the most to lose from the internet. Circulation has been falling in America, western Europe, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand for decades (elsewhere, sales are rising). But in the past few years the web has hastened the decline. In his book "The Vanishing Newspaper", Philip Meyer calculates that the first quarter of 2043 will be the moment when newsprint dies in America as the last exhausted reader tosses aside the last crumpled edition. That sort of extrapolation would have produced a harrumph from a Beaverbrook or a Hearst, but even the most cynical news baron could not dismiss the way that ever more young people are getting their news online. Britons aged between 15 and 24 say they spend almost 30% less time reading national newspapers once they start using the web. Up to a podcast, Lord Copper? Advertising is following readers out of the door. The rush is almost unseemly, largely because the internet is a seductive medium that supposedly matches buyers with sellers and proves to advertisers that their money is well spent. Classified ads, in particular, are quickly shifting online. Rupert Murdoch, the Beaverbrook of our age, once described them as the industry's rivers of gold--but, as he said last year, "Sometimes rivers dry up." In Switzerland and the Netherlands newspapers have lost half their classified advertising to the internet. Newspapers have not yet started to shut down in large numbers, but it is only a matter of time. Over the next few decades half the rich world's general papers may fold. Jobs are already disappearing. According to the Newspaper Association of America, the number of people employed in the industry fell by 18% between 1990 and 2004. Tumbling shares of listed newspaper firms have prompted fury from investors. In 2005 a group of shareholders in Knight Ridder, the owner of several big American dailies, got the firm to sell its papers and thus end a 114-year history. This year Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, attacked the New York Times Company, the most august journalistic institution of all, because its share price had fallen by nearly half in four years. Having ignored reality for years, newspapers are at last doing something. In order to cut costs, they are already spending less on journalism. Many are also trying to attract younger readers by shifting the mix of their stories towards entertainment, lifestyle and subjects that may seem more relevant to people's daily lives than international affairs and politics are. They are trying to create new businesses on- and offline. And they are investing in free daily papers, which do not use up any of their meagre editorial resources on uncovering political corruption or corporate fraud. So far, this fit of activity looks unlikely to save many of them. Even if it does, it bodes ill for the public role of the Fourth Estate. Getting away with murder In future, as newspapers fade and change, will politicians therefore burgle their opponents' offices with impunity, and corporate villains whoop as they trample over their victims? Journalism schools and think-tanks, especially in America, are worried about the effect of a crumbling Fourth Estate. Are today's news organisations "up to the task of sustaining the informed citizenry on which democracy depends?" asked a recent report about newspapers from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, a charitable research foundation. Nobody should relish the demise of once-great titles. But the decline of newspapers will not be as harmful to society as some fear. Democracy, remember, has already survived the huge television-led decline in circulation since the 1950s. It has survived as readers have shunned papers and papers have shunned what was in stuffier times thought of as serious news. And it will surely survive the decline to come. That is partly because a few titles that invest in the kind of investigative stories which often benefit society the most are in a good position to survive, as long as their owners do a competent job of adjusting to changing circumstances. Publications like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal should be able to put up the price of their journalism to compensate for advertising revenues lost to the internet--especially as they cater to a more global readership. As with many industries, it is those in the middle--neither highbrow, nor entertainingly populist--that are likeliest to fall by the wayside. The usefulness of the press goes much wider than investigating abuses or even spreading general news; it lies in holding governments to account--trying them in the court of public opinion. The internet has expanded this court. Anyone looking for information has never been better equipped. People no longer have to trust a handful of national papers or, worse, their local city paper. News-aggregation sites such as Google News draw together sources from around the world. The website of Britain's Guardian now has nearly half as many readers in America as it does at home. In addition, a new force of "citizen" journalists and bloggers is itching to hold politicians to account. The web has opened the closed world of professional editors and reporters to anyone with a keyboard and an internet connection. Several companies have been chastened by amateur postings--of flames erupting from Dell's laptops or of cable-TV repairmen asleep on the sofa. Each blogger is capable of bias and slander, but, taken as a group, bloggers offer the searcher after truth boundless material to chew over. Of course, the internet panders to closed minds; but so has much of the press. For hard-news reporting--as opposed to comment--the results of net journalism have admittedly been limited. Most bloggers operate from their armchairs, not the frontline, and citizen journalists tend to stick to local matters. But it is still early days. New online models will spring up as papers retreat. One non-profit group, NewAssignment.Net, plans to combine the work of amateurs and professionals to produce investigative stories on the internet. Aptly, $10,000 of cash for the project has come from Craig Newmark, of Craigslist, a group of free classified-advertisement websites that has probably done more than anything to destroy newspapers' income. In future, argues Carnegie, some high-quality journalism will also be backed by non-profit organisations. Already, a few respected news organisations sustain themselves that way--including the Guardian, the Christian Science Monitor and National Public Radio. An elite group of serious newspapers available everywhere online, independent journalism backed by charities, thousands of fired-up bloggers and well-informed citizen journalists: there is every sign that Arthur Miller's national conversation will be louder than ever.

Article courtesy of the Economist, 26/08/2006.

This article has led me to think, what has been my contribution to its death, not much, I can assure you. But it is a concern none the less that readership in certain category has fallen. Whether this trend will continue? I think readership will fall significantly and this is one trend I dont see falling.

Delhi Bloggers Meet

Now I have attended quite a few meets and those who know me will agree, that, there is more to meets than meets the eye ;-).
Meets are great way to meet people about whom you have just read or heard. This is a great way also to get to know about those about whom you neither have heard nor met(you might eventually in future, the upcoming stars).
This was my first Delhi Bloggers Meet(DBM) was very interesting. There was two fold agenda, one, was to the discussion on various issues and how blogging can have an impact. There was quite a lot of takeaways, Tech is number one category as far as blogging is concern or blogging beecoming a serious threat to mainstream media(is it?)
Second, was about Blogathon.in which is initiated by some Bangalorean Bloggers. Check out the site for more details.
By an large an interesting gathering and most importantly, a reason to kickstart my blog again.

Introductory Post

This is a longstanding request from lot of folks. That I should have a blog where I can share my views, ideas, perspective etc.( does it mean the same!) I had a blog which I started after a long deliberation and procrastination. But it died a natural death after some time, as I was so lazy to post anything.
You ask the reason, very simple typing is not such a pleasurable activity for me! I can speak for quite some time but typeing hmmm not my cup of tea. So I wonder how come so may people Blog regularly which I don't understand. I am on my journey on understanding what could be other than the obvious reasons( viz, like to share info. and knowledge with people, Gives me popularity) for people blogging.
As you readers might understand, that, this blog is all the incidents which I cant make head or tail of will blog and seek to find and answer for it. Therefore this blog will survive as long I see things from that perspective and as long as you try to participate.
Wait for my next post. By the way, why we use 'Can't make head or tail of it'!