Greenpeace Design Awards 2009

Theme: ‘Be a Part of the Action’

More details here (via Twitter)

Defining Virgin territory

Sometimes you don't need to be a marketing guru to predict brand moves. So when I was confidently talking to my friend some weeks back that the Virgin Group would somehow manage to enter into the Mobile & VAS space in India (which was just announced), I had very little doubt and more conviction.

The Virgin brand
It's simple. Virgin is one of the smartest, savviest and most agile brands around the world, cutting through insane number of businesses and owning more than 300 brands. They believe in the potential of a market and get there eventually. From whatever I've observed about them (brand Virgin, Sir Richard Branson and the whole group), I'd say they have a simple credo: Any space is virgin (and they capitalize on it, pardon the pun!) if you really listen to customer needs, pain poins and create a vibrant brand to market the solution and create value for the customer even in a fiercely competitive environment. (And create passionate evangelists like me who don't get paid jack shit for talking about them!)

In fact I'm a big fan of Virgin and Branson's way of doing business - so I'm only too happy to see them spread across sectors in India. In case you haven't caught the drift, here's a quick summary of their India presence (to the best of my knowledge).

• Virgin Atlantic (airline) - connects Mumbai and Delhi to London
• Virgin Comics (comics) - Branson + Shekhar Kapur + Gotham Chopra + Sharad Devarajan
• Fever 104 FM (radio) - A joint venture between Virgin Radio and Hindustan Times
• The Mobile Store (retail) - Joint venture with Essar Group
• Virgin Mobile (mobile) - Proposed 50:50 venture with Tata Teleservices
• Virgin Galactic (space travel!) - A collaboration with Deluxe Travel and GD Goenka World Travel [Updated as of 16 Oct, 2007]

... and the list will go on. What I'm willing to put my pennies on? Virgin Hot Air Balloons! Please, oh please get them to locales like Ladakh/Kerala/Munnar or something! More about Virgin here.

Everyone's a-hiring!

Time and again I feel like I'm a job exchange bureau! And there's never been a better time for new media jobs. So if you're looking for one right now, click thru these links. Besides these, I have a friend who's looking for Sr./Jr. Graphics folks and Art Directors to work in Dubai. Drop me a mail if you're interested on that: [myfirstname]@gmail.com

Here's some more cool jobs in the market in companies I admire...

JAM Magazine (Mumbai)

• Flash Animators
• Senior Ad Sales Exec.
• Part Time Cartoonist
• Senior Graphic Designer
• Web Programmer (ASP)
• Full Time Writer
• Assistant Editor
• Exec. - DB & Mktg Support
  

Indiagames (Mumbai)

• Accounts Executive / Assistant Manager / Manager
• Senior Programmer
• 3D Brew Programmer
• 3D J2ME Programmer
• Mobile Platform Product / Systems Manager
  

Opera Software (Chandigarh)

• Web Opener India (MarCom)
• Software Tester India

plaNETsurf (Bangalore)

• Project Lead
• Programmers
• Web Designers
• Copy Editors/Feature Writers, Copy Writers
• Flash Scripting Specialist

Communicate2 (Mumbai/Dubai)

• Perl Developers (6 posts)
• PHP Developers (8 posts)
• Web Designer (8 posts)
• Graphic Designer (2 posts)
• Admin (2 posts)
• (Google AdWords) PPC Professionals *NEW
  
• Customer Relationship Manager (4 posts)

LevelUp Games India (Mumbai)

• Web Developer
• Executive Assistant to Managing Director
• Business Development Executives (Mumbai)
• Asst. Manager – Sales Operations

BCWebWise (Mumbai)

• Web Developer
• Flash ActionScript Programmer

Rediff (Mumbai)

• Senior Internet Application Developer
• Senior Desktop Application Developer
• Product Manager
• Manager - Advertising Sales
• Manager - Business Operations
• Business Managers/Assistant Managers

More.... Microsoft India | Google India | AgencyFAQs Listings

A Mockery Of Journalism

JAM Magazine was my first job and how I loved it! It was not about the money, not about the 'job', but more about the religion of free journalism where we could express our views, design the pages, work on the website. So when the Editor of the magazine, Rashmi Bansal is being maligned on her blog by (seemingly) IIPM 'students' and 'alumni', naturally I should talk about it. So here goes.

JAM is known for its brash, irreverent attitude and brutal honesty. So JAM decided to do what it does best - talk to people associated with the institute (students, ex-students, prospects who considered joining it, management, etc.) and then analyze and publish the findings. So far, so good.

This is the article that was published in JAM

Now comes the interesting part! Some supertechie folks (no prizes for guessing who they could be) decided to flame Rashmi's blog with fake comments and atrocious profanities, which even Harry Potter could tell that they have been 'seeded'. (Yeah, OK even Ron).

Take a look at her blog and the comments.
If you're a blogger, please add in your thoughts on the issue as well.

UPDATE

Here's what essentially happened. JAM published the article a couple of months back. On August 5, Gaurav Sabnis, blogged:
"A few weeks back, I linked to a story carried by JAM magazine which examined the tall claims made by IIPM in its newspaper ads. Some days later I linked to the blog of someone claiming to be an ex-IIPM-ite. The main purpose behind these posts on my blog was to make a few people aware of how these massively embellished ads may be painting an exaggerated picture of their institute's worth."

That's where it all began. The Blog Wars!

Gaurav Sabnis has now quit his job at IBM so that his employer is not maligned by IIPM's legal threats to the tune of Rs. 125 Crores and pressure tactics. Kudos to you, Gaurav. For having the balls to stand for yourself and not allowing your company to be disturbed by threats. I agree with Gaurav that he's not trying to malign IIPM or it's genuine students, but simply asking people to educate themselves about the institution they are about to join or getting their kids to join. Is your prospective university/institution really worth what it claims? That, ladies and gentlemen, is the question.

The entire issue with on the dot updates is being covered brilliantly by Desipundit

Everyone's a director!

I had never tried the Windows Movie Maker earlier, but while I was touring across the country for Microsoft Tech.Ed 2005, it was my best and most easily available option for editing video clips we took from the event.

Surprisingly, it was so easy and cool to use it, and gave me all the features I need - text on video, credits, transitions - everything! I landed up finishing the edit job in 20 minutes flat :) The end result was lots of fun and people loved the video I finally inserted in the credits roll. Will try and upload it for all to see.

The Video Web has arrived!

Google Video is opening up video uploads to the public! So you could create your own video and sign up as a content provider to host your videos. You may even charge users for downloading! Sounds pretty interesting, and I've queued up a little home video taken an year back or so. Talking of videos and sharing, Nick's buddies Zach and Jakob run Vimeo - a video sharing community, much like the Flickr! of videos. Go on, give it a shot!

Yahoo! preps up to do a Gig

Yahoo! is getting all aggressive to take on the Google guys. Triggered response mechanism? Well, looks it! Let's see what we have... Google becomes search leader ; Yahoo! wakes up, shakes up it's search Google acquires Picasa ; Yahoo! acquires Flickr! Google launches Gmail with 1 Gig; Yahoo! ups their storage to 250 Megs, and now readying to do the Gig Google acquires Pyra Labs' Blogger ; Yahoo! braces up Yahoo! 360° The one thing I love about Yahoo! which Google *still* doesn't have? My Yahoo!