A Different Meaning of Asset

Years ago, when I was I think 2 or 3 years into working, I got a feeling I was getting bored in my job @ Lintas Delhi. So almost unwittingly I developed a yearly ritual of going to my boss and telling him that I wanted to quit the company.

I think it was Preet [Preet K S Bedi, who was initially my super boss as the office GM, then took me directly under him because I was a problem child], who told me, “How can you even think of leaving? You are an asset!”, in one of those yearly “I want to quit” discussions. My chest filled with pride and my ego swelled up. Wow, a 3 year old guy an asset to Lintas!

It took me a full year or so to suspect that what he perhaps meant was “how can YOU leave? You are a fixed asset, like a wall or a chair fixed to the wall!” I went and asked him and he smiled.

Jokes apart, as I start the first day of my 12th year @ SMG, I wonder what Preet had really meant and whether today’s young people suspect me of meaning something like that, when I talk to them.

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who do you think is the most successful director / producer in recent history to have launched a fresh face in Hindi films?

The Joy of Road Block of all kinds

The reactions to today’s brochurisation of TOI by Volkswagen have mostly been negative. Is it only a case of sour grapes? Why are marketing people so fascinated with size, noise and domination? Is it because Marketing is so full of men?

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Are people in Marketing and Communication Industry too egoistic and delusional for their own good?

Work in Progress.

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Social tools making us unsocial?

The other day, at a friend’s party, someone commented that so many people we know twitter about even the smallest ‘experiences’ and have therefore become ‘reporters’ that is it getting a bit uneasy to talk frankly even amongst friends, because you dont know who is sending a tweet at that very moment about what you just said, or how you behaved, when your guards were down. Put extremely, this means ‘we cannot trust friends to keep our innocent secrets confined to them any longer’.

Fascinating aspect of the social tools. If our friends stop being honest foe fear of being ’scooped’, would we eventually become un-social?

Getting attention 101

Today I was on a panel sponsored by Times Private Treaties at the IIJS [India International Jewellery Show]. It was titled CEO Roundtable: “Building a Vibrant Domestic Jewellery Business”. The panel discussed the role of branding in domestic jewellery business. Prasad Kapre, the moderator, made a comment after the discussion that the audience was not only thin, but lacked participation from people who need to think about branding the most – private jewellers with a family name.

Mr. Ashok Minawala said the title should have been something like ‘how to grow revenue of your family brand multifold’ , something like that. He said family businesses dont want to be told they dont have a brand. Period.

I liked it. Simple and powerful thinking.

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Why agencies?

Met the intelligent folks from e4m – Nawal, Amit and Noor – this morning. Told them what I have always felt about agency rankings. Why are agencies evregreen targets for perception surveys and size rankings? Sure, size is important, but then how is 2009 different from 1990?

Why are we clinging on to the measures of the exposure era, as if our lives depended on it? Will our narcisism and introvertedness ever end?

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Amongst the most important buttons every website has to have soon..

important icons of the future

Where did civility go?

The guy sitting next to me on the flight this Wednesday picked up my newspapers without even a simple ‘may I?’, tried solving the crossword, tore the papers with his clumsiness n put it non-chalantly in his own seat pocket…am I just mean or was he wrong?

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At the e4m event in Delhi on June 5th

Srini talked about SIP- Systematic Innovation Plan…Jacob said we must all get disciplined and Shruti argued in favour of going back to the basics..

I like it..

I told Anurag that the next time they have a debate on media accountability and ROI, they should have finance and procurement guys on the stage and marketing guys listening..

I also felt that it will be great to have young planners and buyers talking about serious topics on stage and oldies listening in the audience…why must we listen to experience all the time? Why not the audacity of ideas?

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