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Category Archives: Noteworthy

Yours Truly Profiled in Mid-Day Story on How Online and Offline Relationships Have Merged

Monday, June 30th, 2008

Quick Summary: I was recently profiled in Indian daily Mid-Day for a story on how online and offline relationships have merged for young people in India.

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I was recently profiled in a Mid Day story on how online and offline relationships have merged for some of us.

Ever since I started blogging three years back, my blog has been at the core of my social life. I have met some of the most fascinating people I know through my blog, or, in the last year, through Twitter. Some of my closest friends, including my last three girlfriends, are bloggers and some of my most important professional connections were made online.

The other day, I was talking to my girlfriend about how the center of gravity of my social life has further shifted online since I started my off-consumption experiment.

“Sometimes, I ask myself: what would I have done without my blog this year?”, I said.

“The question you should ask yourself is: who would you have been without your blog?”, she reminded me gently.

Also filed in Personal Development, Press | Tagged Keith Ferrazi, Media, Mid-Day, Networking, Never Eat Alone, Newspaper, Off-Consumption, Social Media, Twitter | Permalink | Comments (6)

How to be Remarkable? Own an Ideasliver!

Friday, June 27th, 2008

Quick Summary: Here’s my answer to the quintessential personal branding question — “how to be remarkable?” — own an ideasliver!

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An “ideasliver” is an idea that is so narrow that it is invisible to everyone but you, but so deep that it can change the world.

Every “next big thing” starts as an “ideasliver” — the web, web 2.0, blogging, micro-blogging, social networking, rss, crowdsourcing — name it.

I have one or two ideaslivers of my own. Social Media Outsourcing may be one. The idea that “the social web is not flat” may be another.

Here are my first thoughts on the idea of an ideasliver in a presentation. Do read, comment, download and forward.

| View | Upload your own

Also filed in How To Be Remarkable, Ideasliver | Tagged Idea, Ideasliver, Presentation, Remarkable | Permalink | Comments (6)

Yours Truly Quoted in Deccan Chronicle’s Story on Online Advertising in India

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

Quick Summary: I was quoted recently in Indian newspaper Deccan Chronicle’s story on online advertising in India.

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I was quoted recently in a Deccan Chronicle story on online advertising in India, along with advertising legends Alyque Padamsee and Piyush Pandey and fellow blogger Chandrachoodan.

Basically, we all agreed that online advertising will become the core of the Indian marketers’ marketing budget in the next few years. I also pointed out that the internet works best when marketers use it to reach one person at a time. So, search advertising for generating leads and social media initiatives for building community engagement are both great, but not plain-vanilla banner ads.

Deccan Chronicle's Story on Online Advertising in India

Here is the complete text of the story –

Consumer Caught in the Net
Online or web advertising is the next big thing in the sphere of advertising
Ashlin Mathew
Sunday, June 15, 2008

The Online pie is getting bigger and better. Of course with almost every youngster choosing to buy tickets or shop online or even home in on the optimum brand through the Internet, even conservatives are willing to put their thumb into it.

Also filed in Internet, Marketing, Press, Social Media | Tagged Alyque Padamsee, Deccan Chronicle, India, Online-Advertising, Piyush Pandey, Search Advertising, Social Media | Permalink | Comments (3)

The Unthinkable Future of Marketing

Saturday, June 21st, 2008

Quick Summary: Read my list of the ten unthinkable futures of marketing, scenarios that seem too far-fetched to be true today, but may seem obvious in retrospect tomorrow.

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Yes you read it right. This is not a post about the future of marketing. This is a post about the ten unthinkable futures of marketing.

Unthinkable futures are probabilities we tend to dismiss without thinking, scenarios that seem too far-fetched to be true today, but may seem obvious in retrospect tomorrow.

Inspired by the unthinkable futures game between Kevin Kelly and Brian Eno from fifteen years back, here’s my own list of the ten unthinkable futures of marketing —

1. No products will have price tags anymore. People will pick up products from the mall, or order them online and have them delivered home, and pay only what they want to pay.

(Update: I was aware of the numerous examples of authors and musicians giving away their books and music for free, but I discovered two examples of restaurants giving away food for free, and allowing the patrons to decide what they want to pay for it.)

Also filed in Marketing, Trendspotting | Tagged Brand, Brian Eno, Free, Kevin Kelly, Marketing, Meme, New Marketing, Tribe, Unthinkable Futures | Permalink | Comments (19)

Yours Truly Quoted in Indian Newspaper DNA’s Story on Blogging as a Change Agent

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Quick Summary: I was quoted yesterday in Indian newspaper DNA in a story on whether blogging in India is mature enough to act as a change agent.

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I was quoted copiously in Indian daily DNA in a story on whether blogging in India is mature enough to act as a change agent.

A good approach to answer this question is to compare social media usage in India with social media usage in China –

Social media usage in Metro India and Metro China is driven by very different consumer behavior. In Metro China, Creators, Critics and Joiners all play an important role, whereas in India, Joiners are the predominant drivers of social media usage.

Social media usage in India and China also have significant differences in terms of the topics that drive conversation. Richard Edelman has written an interesting introduction to the Chinese blogosphere –

Social media in China has two constant themes: the rich/poor divide and nationalism… The best Chinese bloggers are… incredibly impressive, committed to change, convinced that they were part of a new China where individual expression and frank speaking will win.

Also filed in Desi Blogging, Flat or Not, Press, Social Media | Tagged Activism, Authenticity, Blogging, Blogosphere, Blogs, Brands, Chinese Blogosphere, Daily News and Analysis, DNA, Indian Blogosphere, Interview, Newspaper, Reputation, Social Media | Permalink | Comments (4)

The Social Web is Not Flat (Part 2): The Social Technographics Profile of Metro India

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

Quick Summary: I use data from various sources to estimate the social technographics profile for Metro India and compare it to Forrester Research’s social technographics profiles for Metro China.

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In my previous post, I had compared the social technographics profiles for USA/ Europe with Japan/ Metro China to kick off my series on why the social web is not flat.

The Forrester Research Social Technographics Ladder classifies consumers into six overlapping levels based on their of participation in social media –

Basically, Creators create the user generated content, Critics and Collectors help disseminate it and Spectators consume it. Joiners are a special species, specific to social networking sites, who play all the other four roles in that context.

I ended the post by wishing that this data was also available for India, or at least Metro India –

However, given the low penetration of internet, even in Metro India, I suspect that the Creators will be in low single digits, Critics/ Collectors in high single digits, and Joiners/ Spectators in low double digits.

Also filed in Desi Web 2.0, Flat or Not, Internet, Social Media, Trendspotting | Tagged Collectors, Creators, Critics, Forrester-Research, Inactives, Joiners, Metro China, Metro India, Social Media, Social Networking Sites, Social technographics Ladder, Social Technographics Profile Tool, Social Web, Social-Technographics, Spectators | Permalink | Comments (7)

The Social Web is Not Flat (Part I): Forrester Research Social Technographics Profiles

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

Quick Summary: I use data from Forrester Research to compare the social technographics profiles for USA/ Europe with Japan/ Metro China to kick off my series on how the social web is not flat.

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Forrester Research analysts Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff have played an important role in increasing our understanding of the social media space over the last year, both through their book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies (website) and their Social Technographics Study.

The Forrester Research Social Technographics Study classifies consumers into a ladder with six overlapping levels based on their of participation in social media. The six levels in the Social Technographics Ladder are –

1. Creators, who publish blogs, maintain websites, or upload self-created photos, podcasts or videos on social sites (like Flickr or YouTube).

2. Critics, who post ratings and reviews of products and services on user review sites (like Amazon), comment on someone else’s blogs or contribute to online forums or wikis (like Wikipedia).

Also filed in Flat or Not, Internet, Social Media, Trendspotting | Tagged Charlene Li, Collectors, Creators, Critics, Europe, Forrester-Research, Groundswell, Inactives, Japan, Joiners, Josh Bernoff, Metro China, Metro India, Social Media, Social Media Strategy, Social Networking Sites, Social technographics Ladder, Social Technographics Profile Tool, Social Web, Social-Technographics, Spectators, USA | Permalink | Comments (6)

The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption Gets Its First Interview In Indian Daily Hindustan Times

Monday, April 14th, 2008

Quick Summary: Check out my interview in Indian daily Hindustan Times for ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’, my year-long book-as-a-blog experiment in why we choose to consume or not.

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‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’ is my year-long blog-as-a-book experiment in why we choose to consume, or not.

If you haven’t yet subscribed to ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’, you should subscribe to it now, for free, in a feed reader, or by e-mail.

Yesterday, my first interview for ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’ was published in Indian daily Hindustan Times.

The interview was published on the front page of the Delhi edition –

HT Delhi 130408 Gaurav Mishra Off Consumption

– and the city section in the Mumbai edition –

HT Mumbai 130408 Gaurav Mishra Off Consumption

One interesting thing I learned yesterday is that different editions of a newspaper may publish different versions of a story.

The Mumbai Edition published the full story — see text below — complete with my rules and URL.

The Delhi Edition published a much shorter version of the story — also available online — but it was on the front page and I’m not complaining at all.

Also filed in 30 by 30, Marketing, Press | Tagged Hindustan-Times, HT, Interview, Media, Newspaper, Off-Consumption, Press, The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption | Permalink | Comments (7)

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