How do I choose a mobile phone?

With the wide variety of mobile phones available in the market today, deciding on which one to buy is a predicament.

Here's my tuppaise worth:
1. Your profile = your phone's profile.
If you are a college student, you probably need the entertainment features, if you're a business user, you might need email access anywhere.

2. Your budget.
Needs no explanation. Just ask - do you really need to show off a gold brick in your pocket?

3. Features.
Some features have become so common that they risk becoming the standard. While some favor 'get as many features as I can', some others prefer 'why would I ever need that feature' approach.

4. Compare.
The web is perhaps the best thing that happened for buyers. In India, MyMobile is an established reference magazine for the latest Indian market rates for mobiles. In fact their monthly report is so successful that it has become an essential tool in the trade. They had recently put up their database on their website as a drag and drop compare phones feature. Do check out this link [My Guide] before you head out to the nearest store - will save you some time making your choice.
Bottom-line: There are no hard and fast rules: to each his own!

Railways as a research/ marketing point

Considering the number of posts related to the railways on my blog, you might think I'm a railways stooge. Though not a stooge (most of my posts have been negative); yes, I'm fascinated by railways. The reason why railways fascinate me (the Indian Railways, that is) is that it is perhaps the biggest classrooms in public interactions. No other institution has so many people 'touch points'.

No other institution moves as many people 24/7. Of all the infrastructure categories, the railway has a very important role to play. Thousands of people queue and jostle, look at or search at kiosks, ferry their luggage, congregate with their families, buy snacks and tea, make plans for their future, think about their next day at work or sulk over a bad event, smartly dressed businessmen, excited children, coolies, vendors, people in ragged clothes, old people, crying infants, touring foreigners.

(Image courtesy: http://www.romanvirdi.com/delhi)

The railway stations especially, present an unimaginable variety of people and situations. I guess it must be every marketeers and ethnographers favorite playground. I'm sure someone could start a profitable research and observation deck on major railway stations in the country - dedicated research points where all kinds of surveys and observations get done and perhaps even the participants could be rewarded with say a 'sachet' product sample.

On a more personal level, apart from having been a frequent rail traveler, its the Railroad Tycoon game that taught me its importance (compared to today's games, this must be vintage stuff ;) ). I had the opportunity of developing a mobile game named Truck Tycoon on similar lines. It was wonderful to see small towns developing into trade hubs, residential centers and industrial locations once they were connected by the rail/road! It makes all the difference.


Also, sitting in the train or at the station gives you time to contemplate on the simpler things in life and ample time to type in a blog post or two ;)

Indian Railways - The Emergency Hammer again

Its the emergency hammers again. I think I'm addicted to this now. These are the other posts on my rendezvous with the emergency systems on Indian Railways:
- Jan Shatabdi Trivandrum Ernakulam - the invisible emergency hammer.
- Indian Railways - The Emergency Hammer returns.

This time it was on the Chengannur Thriuvananthapuram A/C Chair Car on the 'Parasuram express'.









1. Again there is a glass pane (which says its toughened glass) which needs to be broken before you get access to a chain which you're supposed to pull. This pull is somehow supposed to cause the emergency window to open (I guess its supposed to pull out the rubber beading and this would in turn free the big window glass). How do you break this small glass pane in the first place- should an emergency hammer have been installed near it? Or can the glass be broken with bare hands. A good answer might be - during an emergency, we'll find out!
2. Now, suppose you've learnt karate and with one chop you can smash the small glass. Whoever told you life is easy? This time they've bolted the chain with a steel strip over it in an unthoughtful improvisation. This metal strip is supposed to hide the curtain rails. Unfortunately, the cosmetics have effectively short circuited the core functionality of being an emergency window.

I seriously hope, with its cash surplus, the Indian Railways goes for a complete design overhaul. A hazaar things need to be made better, the chalta hai attitude must change. Or maybe Kaizen could do it well - continual little steps that could gradually make a big difference. Though unintentional, the continual neglect of passenger safety makes me a worried traveler, despite its relatively (compared to its scale of operations) good safety records.

The future of commerce in India - the Mobile way? Part II

Back in August 2006, based on the flurry of activities in the m-commerce ecosphere, I had speculated through my journal whether most 'commerce' in India would soon be transacted in a mobile way.

Very recently I came across another pioneer in this sphere. Its a vibrant venture named simply 'eko', which sounds like an echo and an eco (as in ecology) put together. Despite its jovial name, Eko means serious business!

To put it in its own words: "This initiative aims to increase the reach of lending organizations to low income people and also democratize financial services for this customer segment in urban as well as rural areas."

Eko addresses a lot of gaps that the other players had failed to, brings in a lot of innovation into taking banking (lots of interesting IP, that cannot be disclosed at the moment) to the masses and relies on a network of dedicated people and mobile technology to achieve this.

Watch out this space for more on this in times ahead.

Mobile Development Report - A Review

Reports come in various shades, shapes and sizes. Mostly, reports are seen as means to fill up shelf spaces, attempting to make one look more informed than one might really be. At times, reports are sources to be quoted in a B-Plan or used smartly to justify certain viewpoints. Usually, reports are the result of painstaking research carried out by domain veterans. But the fact remains that not all good researchers are good story-tellers and that leaves behind somewhat unwieldy (not to mention costly) paperweights that might be full of unnavigable facts and figures.

There was one report however, that captivated me more than most others out there. I found a link to this report through Jan Chipchase's blog while trying to find out what exactly it was that the Indian mobile consumer at the so called bottom of the pyramid wanted?


The Mobile Development Report (note: its a 15+ MB download, 114 pages pdf), released over a year ago, commissioned by Nokia and beautifully executed and presented by Dr. Aditya Dev Sood and his team at CKS (Center for Knowledge Societies)

The report aims at finding out exactly what the next billion people waiting to be connected through the mobile network want. In other words, it seeks to find what developmental role the mobile can play in the Indian rural context.

The report first examines and explains the diversity India is known for and derives its justifications for a classification. Eminently readable, the article is full of graphics and images that provide a peek into the ecosystem. After laying a solid foundation for even the uninitialized to understand the social fabric, the report then proceeds towards listing out the following opportunities for mobile development:
1. Transportation
2. Micro-commerce
3. Financial services
4. Healthcare services
5. Governance
6. Education
7. Infotainment

The really interesting part of this report is the case studies section. It allows the reader to view first hand the life of people who would benefit and how they might benefit through the mobile revolution.

We had the opportunity of personally meeting Dr. Aditya Dev Sood at our studio last year - an enigmatic personality with a lot of energy and a mystic glow in his eyes. This report perhaps reflects some of that youthfulness and charm from him and his team at CKS.

A must read for
a. anyone seriously planning to be a stakeholder in the rural/ semi-urban mobile ecosystem.
b. anyone starting on writing a report with an intention that people would actually read it.
c. anyone who wants a peek at the real vibrant India, the next billion waiting to be connected to the rest of the world and each other.

Games Brains Play, Neural Drives and the future of communications

Back in 2006, I had mentioned that the future of communications would increasingly move towards a closer neural interface - I called it B2BC Brain To Brain Communication. I think good progress is being made in this direction.

I was trying to study further on what physical experience B2BC might result in; and thats when I thought of 'Déjà vu'. Déjà vu is a French word meaning 'already seen'. It occurred to me that future communication might be almost like a deja vu or out-of-the-body kindof experience - sounds a bit scary to me now (just as air travel might have sounded before the Wright Brothers ;) ).

Also, a lot of external information may need to be integrated with that already stored in the brain. For instance; say in a B2BC session, your new bank manager contacts in. The 'network' meanwhile would search for further details on the caller - say a holographic image of him, his name and location and feed that to your short-term memory center. So (if and) when you 'take' the B2BC call, you already 'know' and can visualize the caller. That would also require intricate knowledge on how the brain stores its information.

While delving further into such games that brains play and where the brain stores its memory, I came across following two sites of interest:

1. Mind Tricks Explained (PopSci)

2. Mapping Memory (NatGeo)

I obviously have some spare time now on my hands to do all this wacky and weird thinking. If you too happen to have some, I'd strongly advise you to exercise your thought muscles by paying those links a visit.

'Transformer' railroad market

(File under trivia)
For all Transformers fans out there. Here's a you tube clip I'd come across quite some time ago (don't remember how) from Bangkok. Donno if this is a fake or for real!



And I thought Mumbai was crowded.

90 mins = 60 secs

I have seen compression - many flavors of it, but this one on techCrunch was the beatifullest of them all. Hats off to Mahalo’s Veronica Belmont for the feat, compressing 90 mins of Steve Job's presentation into 60 secs.

(Courtesy: textually.org)

Kindof like how Apple compressed its new MacBook Air into the super slim framework (though I dont like the doing-away-with-dvd-drive thing)

Who can be an entrepreneur? Part II

(Continued from part I)

In my last post on this subject I presented my reading on the Grameen Bank initiative by Muhammad Yunus and found that entrepreneurship as a yearning is innate in all and that success is relative. In this post I'd take my study further on a slightly different viewpoint.

This viewpoint is based on this article that I'd come across a few months back by Clay Shirky titled, The (Bayesian) Advantage of Youth.

It postulates that entrepreneurship is a byproduct of inexperience, youthfulness and an idea. Or in other words - it is the result of not having a preconditioned mind and an ability to unlearn some things and start from scratch.

The author argues that experience, that comes through age is all about being exposed to a set of conditions, knowing its limitations and thus calibrating oneself to 'learn' how to handle the same or a similar situation based on this learning. Now, this process of 'learning' is by nature a process that aims at minimizing risk and moving towards stability and away from unknown territory.

While such experience might be advantageous in certain situations, the author further argues that the predictable-reactionary nature that experience brings is a contra requirement to entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is mostly (not all) about making that dangerous leap that the experienced might think foolish or feel scared to. A beautiful analogy based on Bayesian logic is also presented in the article.

Another interesting book that I had read was The Ten Faces of Innovation by IDEO's Tom Kelley (thanks to Jayadev). In this book the author says that in most organizations, many an innovative idea is killed by people who love to play the Devil's Advocate. The 'idea-killer' role is kinda addictive, it kinda becomes a part of you once you've made a 'kill'. Unwittingly, while you might pride yourself in your devilish skills, some bright spark might get silenced forever.

While I subscribe to the fact that youthfulness coupled with wild imagination and creativity does lead to innovation, I would also like to have it tapered slightly (only slightly) with some expert advice. Which is to say - have a young person as the key ideator but make sure he has an experienced adviser. An adviser would be the dampener, but every useful coiled spring knows the importance of damping factor! Remember the dot com vagaries (ah... thats the devil's advocate in me speaking again - hushhhh!). Am I getting too old for the game ;) ?

Revolution on four wheels - Tata Nano

It had to happen someday and so it has. Delhi today witnessed the revolution on four wheels, literally, as Tata Motors unveiled the cheapest car in the world. Here comes the Tata Nano - called the "peoples car" (that name isnt new since thats what Volkswagen means in German).


The bright side:

Psst: I'm trying to become an optimist so please don't scroll down to find the dark side - it no longer exists :)

1. The fact that Tata was able to keep its word on keeping the price at Rs. 1,00,000 despite raw material cost escalation over the last four years is remarkable. And for that price, Tata Nano is more than a bargain anyway. It will probably take years for Tata to recover its investment, but thats well worth the cost of the goodwill, trust and eyeballs this product will generate.

2. Almost marks the coming-of-age for the Indian product manufacturing sector. I believe this whole project was executed from thought to the prototype stage, right here. Now, THAT is something.

3. Finally, there is a potential replacement for the millions of auto-rickshaws and centuries old fiats taxis that flood the streets today. Thats tonnes of greenhouse emissions cut in a single stroke! not to mention the potential ease in traffic congestion. (Image source: dancewithshadows)


4. You no longer have to worry about the dad riding the Lamby, blocking the road (Lamberretta - an Italian antique from the 1960s that some Indians continue to use well past its expiry date) with his son crouching on the foot-board in-front, mom on the pillion, daughter sandwiched in between along with the weeks supply of groceries and the little baby dangling from the mother's lap. (Image source: Saad, Flickr. CC. Some rights reserved)

4. Scrap dealers are partying ever since the Nano was unveiled. The favorite tune at these parties is an Indian remix of '2001: A Space Odyssey' (wierd, even the Tatas used it at the launch). All those Lambys, Vespas, Fiats, Old Bajajs, Padminis and the occasional Maruti 800 and Ambassadors to be replaced by the lil-chunky Nanos will have to go somewhere! Sample this news-bite that is going to appear on Indian media in the near future, "... the ragged rag-picker downtown (on his white Nano) is being chased by at least three leading Venture Capitalists (in the red, green and yellow Nanos) in broad daylight... and these visuals are being exclusively broadcast to your Mobile TVs by ABTV India."

5. A few months ago, Tatas had announced a partnership with the French co. MDI which had come up with an engine that runs on compressed air! I had then thought it would've been a good fit for the to-be Nano. Good that it wasn't used, at least for the time being. Rumor has it that unfortunately, the prototype MDI cars cant run more than 7.5 Km per air-fill. Lets use it for some drag racing then ;).

6. Lets admit it, Indians will have to wait ages till the government does something (if at all - and thats a big IF) about the public transport system. With the loan companies dangling the low EMI carrots, most of the Indian population would have had to take the two wheeler option. Add to it the fact, that Indians have a hate-hate relationship with the helmet, the fact that the bikes rarely if ever get serviced. 500 Nanos are better than 1000 bikes are better than 500 autorickshaws and fiat taxis are better than some future fantasy public transport system.

7. This is what Sherlock Holmes had to say when asked why he'd bought the Tata Nano: "Elementary Watson, four wheels are stabler than two; specially when you hit a pothole."
*bump, bump*
Watson: "That was no pothole, it was an open manhole in the middle of the road!"
Sherlock: "This is India Watson, even I find it difficult to distinguish one from the other."

8. Hats off to Prof. C. K. Prahalad, who saw the glass full to the brim where others thought was empty, right at the bottom of the pyramid. And, hats of to Ratan Tata the visionary who kept his word.