Design Critic #7 & 8

Here comes the final 2 in the lot... Seriously which one are you ;)

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

Design Critic #5 & 6

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

Design Critic #3 & 4

The next 2 design critics are here...

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

Design Critic #1 & 2

According to us, there are 8 types of design critics... presenting the first two today... others are on the way!

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

iGate – Entrance Gate or Exit Gate?

Brand in News: iGate

Executive Stepping down: Sean Narayanan, The  Chief Delivery Officer at iGate

Executive who is shaking up things: Ashok Vemuri, CEO at iGate

Press Story: Narayanan had differences with the CEO, Ashok Vemuri’s operational and management style.

Background: Narayanan joined iGate in 2006 and helped create an integrated delivery organization. Prior to joining iGate, Narayanan was VP and global practice head of IT infrastructure services at Cognizant.

The Big Irony: Narayanan's resignation comes within months of his receiving fresh stock awards and retention sops from the Nasdaq-listed , $1-billion IT services firm. In July, iGate approved retention bonuses for five top executives, including Narayanan , under which each would get $1,50,000 on June 30, 2014, and $1,00,000 on December 31, 2014, provided they were still employed in the company on the applicable payment date.

My Take: Another case that shows ‘money’ is not the end-of-all things when you in the top layer of management. You look for other intangibles like respect, pride, prestige and satisfaction. 

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

"ABEL, YOU'RE FIRED."

Brand under boil: AOL

Scene: Cafeteria at Patch’s headquarters in Manhattan

Patch Who: AOL's local news subsidiary

CEO under lens: Tim Armstrong

What really happened in the cafeteria, filled with employees to hear Tim’s ‘I want to deliver a News’ kind of speech.

News reports say that an employee was trying to take a photo of his CEO. (I have no idea why he did that when his CEO was blowing warm and hot)

Armstrong interrupted himself to say, "Abel, put that camera down right now."

Then, without taking a breath, he said, "Abel, you're fired."

The silence that followed this shocking incident was deafening not just to the employees at Patch but to the entire workforce!

It is good that CEOs are transparent... but a transparent and public firing!????! I am finding it tough to understand his over-the-top action even if he was in an irritable mood.

Catch the full story at: http://www.businessinsider.in/THE-COST-OF-WINNING-Tim-Armstrong-Patch-And-The-Struggle-To-Save-AOL/articleshow/25355140.cms#!

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

CHUGS, MUGS, BEER BELLY & A NEW FONT

Kinglish – Kingfisher claims that it is the world’s first crowd sourced font. The unique tag is that it was created by people populating the most happening watering holes in the pub city of Bengaluru. Kingfisher with enthused spirit invited the chillers and drinkers to spill some beer and create a new font. The beer induced parlance was then taken to the design studio. Hundreds of expressions for each letter were examined, instagramed, tweeted, shared, and curved until the perfect alphabet screamed BEER from every angle.

KINGLISH, the world’s first crowd sourced font found its place in history as it was launched as the official font of the Kingfisher Premium The Great Indian Octoberfest – 2013 and the unofficial dialect of the beer guzzlers around the world. See Video

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

Assault on Google!

Assault on Google - new, large banner ads are being tested by Google in the US market, apparently breaking a 2005 promise by the company.

“There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or Web search results pages... There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever.” said Marissa Mayer, who was then the vice president for search at Google.

Well, she said this in 2005 and we are in 2013. If we have to believe what Synrgy says and Search Engine Land reports (The banner ads were first noted online last Wednesday on the Twitter account of Synrgy, a digital marketing start-up, and first reported by Search Engine Land.) my first crazy reaction was... so what?

Now, Marissa is the chief executive of its rival Yahoo! And more importantly Google is battling a slowing desktop search business and falling ad prices. So what comes first to Google – bottomline or your 8-year old promise!?!?

All said and done, I wonder why Google is not coming forthright about its intentions on featuring these ads... if there is a change in stance, just say it Google.

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

Overnight Success in Business

Doodling a business idea for some time now... make sure you are ready for the jump before you actually jump... here is a quick test:

1    1)  You like chaos, challenges and setbacks

2    2)  You like corner place, command and easy cheques

If you have selected 1), I think you should continue reading...

You should be ready to forgo vacations and do more work than a 9-6 job offer. You will be forced to change your role from a strategist to a clerical admin without changing your seat.

And on the softer side if you embrace your start-up with all your time and energy, be ready to miss the hugs and kisses from your home partner.

And on the harder side reality can suck... your sales presentations face repeated rejections and your potential buyers turn you down. Every nerve will be strained and tested as if you need to prove to them that you are still in and want to succeed. You better hang on!

And the toughest part is that you need to do this not just for days or weeks or months... buddy it could be for years... if things work out well... it will be less than 8 years!

Forgive me for yet another motherhood statement: “Achieving 'overnight success in business' takes a few long years!!”

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

Boxed Customer Delight – Do online shopping sites getting it right?

For every consumer ad on TV today there is almost one promoting a website business. Take sites like flipkart, jabong, fashionandyou, myntra, snapdeal, inkfruit, yebhi, caratlane and others have got just 2 big asset to showcase: 1) their own website where transactions happen 2) Packaging of the product their customer order for. Luckily they do not have multiple other customer touchpoints to spend their time, money and focus. On the other hand, unluckily, they have only these 2 touchpoints to attract, entice and retain their customers. While website is an ever-changing tech piece and  it is a stubborn marketing piece yet to reveal all of customers’ sales-push buttons... but most players are figuring it out really good to get this property working and helping trickle-sales to a flow. But how are they faring when it comes to the second asset of theirs – packaging?

This asset is special because this is the one customer touches, feels and experiences. To an extent we can say, if they bungle this up on the last mile of the 2 miles;), they will lose customers. No wonder that most of these sites are working with design experts (Indian and international names like Michael Foley) to make the final delivery of the boxed customer delight to be pure awesomeness!! Most of them are reluctantly jumping into customized packaging ideas like red based packaging for a wedding gift wrapper.  Are they succeeding in Package Branding? Time will tell... but they are extending the branding space and have put more focus on areas like costume branding of the delivery person and delivery vehicle branding. Looks like they are hungry for more sales-driving branding ideas!

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

How racist our brain is !?!

We always believed that a right-brain person is a creative thinker where colours have a field day, while a left-brain person is a boring accountant splitting things in black and white!  This is a myth says science now!

Scientists at the University of Utah have debunked the myth with an analysis of more than 1,000 brains. They found no evidence that people preferentially use their left or right brain. All of the study participants — and no doubt the scientists — were using their entire brain equally, throughout the course of the experiment. (source: http://www.livescience.com)

So... one good feeling I get out of this is the proof that our brain is not racist!

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

Super Optimist or Stupidest Pessimist

Anyone can be a super optimist. Anyone can be a stupidest pessimist. But the toughest thing to be is just being 'human'! I think people who belong to this mid-category usually come up with creative work that packs more energy than the extreme bloats and hollows of the world. Mark my word, it is pure luck to meet a handful of such remarkable characters before you catch the last bus to heaven!!

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

Hey Start-up... What's your carrot?

The moment you become ready to dirty your hands in the muddy pool of business is the moment you stop worrying about dirtying your wrist watch and shoes. The best way to start is to 'start'. 

Tell me what energizes you to be on your own... is it one of these or something else.. pl do share:

1. Simple, I can take my own decisions!

2. I know better than what my boss at work knows!

3. Work flexibility - I can plan breaks, vacations and holidays better!

4. I can spend more time with wife, kids and pets!

5. I get to hire people I want to work with!

6. Because I like to face risks head on!

7. Money, money, money, money. And Money!!

8. Just want to see if I can click in Business!

9. I want to be the next Steve Jobs. I want to follow my passion..

10. I am tired of waiting for things to happen!

11. I want to do something for the society!

12. I don't want to be another sheep. I am the shepherd.

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

Who cuts the oxygen to your Ideas?

Wonder why great ideas are always booed away and shoed away?
Because it creates fear in the minds of people around you - peers and managers! They don't want your idea to challenge their pay cheque or authority or cosy zone.

In most corporates, most of the ideas are rejected for selfish reasons!

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

Post - The Last Emperor

Today is World Post Day! One of the most visible faces amongst community workers is Post Man! From 1700s - the era of messengers, who travelled large distances on foot or horseback to today’s swank mail vans, they delivered smile, laughter, fun, money and sadness. But now whenever I see the vanishing post boxes or fading postal services, it reminds me of Bernardo Bertolucci’s classic movie – The Last Emperor. Only future will reveal how long post can fight the grand entry of emails and smart phones...  but their stamp of red will never be forgotten!

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

Cocktail of Sleep, Dream & Innovation

It is very interesting to note that great ideas most often revolve around sleep. It comes when we are in half sleep or in dreams during sleep or during abrupt wake up or strikes you when you are fresh up from a good night sleep.

I’ve been reading up on life of Otto Loewi and a real incident in his research life gave needed support to my crazy assumption...  Let me transport you back to 1903, then many experts thought nerve impulses were transmitted electrically, like telegraph signals. Otto Loewi (1873-1961), a German-born pharmacologist, barely 20 years in age thought otherwise... he bet on chemical transmission.

He went about his work and after 17 long years, he had a rocking dream... let us hear it in his words:

"The night before Easter Sunday of that year I awoke, turned on the light, and jotted down a few notes on a tiny slip of paper. Then I fell asleep again. It occurred to me at 6 o'clock in the morning that during the night I had written down something most important, but I was unable to decipher the scribble.

The next night, at 3 o'clock, the idea returned. It was the design of an experiment to determine whether or not the hypothesis of chemical transmission that I had uttered 17 years ago was correct. I got up immediately, went to the laboratory, and performed a single experiment on a frog's heart according to the nocturnal design."

Then Dr. Otto Loewi took 10 more years to satisfy all his critics by doing and proving. And that dream at 3AM gave Loewi a Nobel Prize for medicine in 1936.

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

Creative Autopsy

The Creative Autopsy is a simple improvement technique we use after a creative or a design is done. Most often I find that the ‘Creative Autopsy’ shreds our work into bits and demands us to pull our socks up and re-energize us to build a new idea – a brand new one!

What actually we do is: keep the design aside on the monitor and in the mind and ask ourselves these 3 slicing questions:

1.    What exactly looks and communicates good in it?

2.    What design goals we failed to attain?

3.    Is there a scope for improvement... and where?

This screeching dissection of your work puts fantasy, ego and realities into perspective. I personally believe that ‘Creative Autopsy’ wakes up the dead and boring designer in us and urges us to create fresher and livelier design.

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

Are you on a treadmill 9 to 6?

Writing and responding to emails - it is like you are on a treadmill that refuses to stop!;) The more you mail, the more it spits back at you with a vengeance! The more you fill forms online or offline, the more is your inbox crammed and spammed with no mercy. Why should we always lean forward and try to be busily over-working - if you can relate to this and do feel the pinch - try the reverse – lean backwards and have a huge bin (digital and physical) and dump mails, to-do lists, lunch and meetings! Buddy non-stop running on a treadmill is expensive – electricity charges can scare you (I am not going to bother you about other tiny consequences like your health). 

So my dumb advice is do less, achieve more!! Create uninterrupted time during work and then WORK!

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

You won't mix Whiskey & Brandy. Why mix Drinking and Driving?

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : satish@pollenwebcreatives.com