Lucid Confusions

Even “big people” listen to others’ advice

Published on May 12, 2008 in advice. 0 Comments

Fortune magazine has an article about the best advice you have ever heard. Of course, it focuses on the people who have made it big in life, like Tina Fey, Indra Nooyi, Eddie Lambert, Tony Robbins…

I noticed there were 7 women on that list of 25. 3 of them remembered their dad’s advice. 6 of the remaining men got it from their fathers and one of them took it from his mother.

Another thing I noticed about the advice given in there -

3 of them focused on the customer
3 of them on how to handle money
7 of them on handling relationships
and 12 of them on handling work/life.

One of my favorite in there is from Sam Palmisano, Chairman and CEO of IBM

“Some of the best advice I ever received was unspoken. Over the course of my IBM career I’ve observed many CEOs, heads of state, and others in positions of great authority. I’ve noticed that some of the most effective leaders don’t make themselves the center of attention. They are respectful. They listen. This is an appealing personal quality, but it’s also an effective leadership attribute. Their selflessness makes the people around them comfortable. People open up, speak up, contribute. They give those leaders their very best. When it comes to specific advice, the best was from a former boss, who told me, “Don’t view your career as a linear progression.” He advised me to take horizontal rather than vertical steps: to try out situations that are unstructured, to learn different ways of working, and to get outside of headquarters and experience different cultures. I’ve applied this advice many times - most notably, taking a decidedly unstructured job at IBM Japan and then joining the fledgling IBM services business. After those experiences, I had the confidence that I could manage pretty much anything.”
- Sam Palmisano [source]

Thanks to John Moore for the link.

Updated WordPress. Great!

Published on May 2, 2008 in blog and wordpress. 0 Comments

I updated my WordPress software today. Got it done using the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin. Really nifty. It takes off all the work from you and goes through a systematic approach in updating your version of WordPress software.

I got 2.5.1 and it looks really good. The new UI is very neat and easier to manage. Some new features too - including embedding videos (this wasn’t available in the previous version). In fact, I was all set to use the EmbedIt WordPress plugin but it looks like I don’t need it anymore. I would definitely recommend this upgrade for people running their own WordPress blogs (wordpress.org)

Here’s how the new dashboard looks like:

One problem I faced was that I had to reactivate all my plugins manually. For some reason, the automatic reactivation (after upgrade) did not work. But that wasn’t too much hassle at all.

Presentation is everything

Published on March 20, 2008 in branding. 0 Comments

If it is personal. Official. Website. Dressing. Resume. Party. Office. Food.

How you package it makes a lot of difference.

The Vodafone Music Station is a very stupid idea

Published on March 17, 2008 in advertising, india, marketing and music. 3 Comments

Did any of you see this? If you are in India, it is hard to miss it. Vodafone has got TV spots, newspaper ads, billboards, flyers for their new Vodafone Music Station. The idea is users can call in and listen to music on the Vodafone network. They boast of a collection of 40,000 songs (in all languages together).

The TV ad, I think, is a good idea but it really gets to you because it seems to be shown in every ad break on literally every channel and it is no fun to listen to the first line of the same song over and over again. Add to that, when you think of the absolute uselessness of the service, it just makes me wonder if Vodafone could not come up with something better.

Ok, here’s what they offer. If you have a Vodafone connection in India, you activate the service paying Rs. 50/-. Then you can listen to these 40k songs paying Rs. 0.30 per minute. Here’s my calculation:

Average duration of a song: 4 mins.
Cost of 1 min: 30 paise
Cost for full song: 4 x 0.30 = Rs. 1.20
I listen to around 30-40 songs every day, if not more. So even if I limit myself to 20 songs, I would have to pay Rs. 1.20 x 20 = Rs. 24 every day.
i.e. Rs. 24 x 30 = Rs. 720 /month (plus Rs. 50 monthly subscription = Rs. 770)
Rs. 770 x 12 = Rs. 9240 /year.

So average cost of one song is (Rs. (1.20 x 30) x 12) = Rs. 432, considering if I were to listen to it every day for the whole year. The cost of a music CD in India (with ownership) is around Rs. 300 - 500 for English albums. Regional music is far more affordable (Rs. 60 - 250). If you still use cassettes, costs come further down.

And in this age of iPods and portable music players in cell phones, what is Vodafone really trying to do here? I put this point to Vodafone support and they said that this service can be used by people who do not have access to iPods or mobile phones without music player. But can the people who can’t afford an iPod really afford the Vodafone Music Station service?

The way Vodafone is advertising this service, you think this will be next biggest thing after the iPhone. But I just don’t get it and I want to know if Vodafone got any serious users to this service other than those curious testers. But even for that, they have set up an entry barrier of Rs. 50 as monthly subscription.

Duh!

The customer is a jack ass

Published on March 16, 2008 in customer service and retail. 0 Comments

That’s what I felt what Pantaloon was telling me. (For those who don’t know - “Pantaloon Retail (India) Limited, is India’s leading retailer that operates multiple retail formats in both the value and lifestyle segment of the Indian consumer market - from here.”

I went there today to get some shirts. And I saw that they had an offer - depending on the number of shirts, you get a package deal. So as I was checking out one rack, I asked the salesman if those shirts were included in the offer. It wasn’t. He mentioned only the Rs. 499 shirts were part of the offer and showed me the rack where the board was kept.

So I started checking out shirts on that rack, selected one and was ready to select my next shirt. That’s when I saw the price on the shirt - Rs. 799. Out of curiosity, I asked the guy if this shirt was included. Nope. I finally figured out that there were just some two rows on sale. All the other shirts were not included.

Did Pantaloon do this after some consumer research where they figured if you keep the shirts-on-sale and shirts-not-on-sale together, people will end up buying both and more of the second? I just didn’t get it. All they had to do was say “on shirts of Rs. 499 only” on the rack-advertisement.

I tried telling the sales guy my experience had just gone awry and he was quite apologetic about it. He mentioned that he had issues with other customers too and would change the board soon. I finaly exited the store with no purchase and a very bad experience with Pantaloon.

Feedburner Error - Fixed

Published on March 15, 2008 in feed and feedburner. 0 Comments

For some reason, I got this error from Feedburner for this blog’s feed.

It corrected itself. But if any of you have a problem accessing my feed, please do let me know.

What I did in the US of A

Published on March 14, 2008 in activity, travel and usa. 1 Comment

Got back last week from the US. Have been busy traveling and lot of catching up at work - so no posts here. Have a lot of pictures that I hope to upload soon.

While I was there, I visited Las Vegas, New York and Princeton, NJ. Apart from work, the things I did included:

Travelled the NJ Transit and Path trains (part of the Subway in New York).
Visited Ground Zero (the World Trade Center site).
Attended Times Square Church (amazing experience).
Attended the Princeton Alliance Church in Plainsboro, NJ
Made new friends in America
Saw Princeton University.
Visted the Apple store.
Had coffee from Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts (It’s true - America runs on Dunkin).
Was there when Starbucks closed shutter for a whole evening and actually saw Americans run helpless for a cup of coffee.
Ate from McDonalds and Burger King (Burger King is definitely better!).
Also ate from TGIF, Chillys and some other places I don’t recollect now.
Saw, touched and threw real snow!
Visited or/and shopped at Staples, Kohls, Radio Shack, Circuit City, Famous Footwear, Lids (cap shop), Marshalls, Burlington, Walmart (wow! it’s big)…
Gambled in Vegas.
Learnt Blackjack and gambled some more.
Taught a friend Blackjack and…
Stayed at the Bellagio (Oceans 11 was made there).
Saw the Dancing Fountains, Caesar’s Palace, Eiffel Tower at Vegas.
Walked the streets of Las Vegas and New York.
Spoke to three police officers of the NYPD (to ask directions to the subway).
Saw the LAPD Bomb Squad in action at the LAX airport (there was a bomb scare before I caught my flight to Las Vegas).
Wore 6 layers of clothing to protect against the cold
Saw migrating geese and one squirrel

Day 1

Published on February 19, 2008 in las vegas. 0 Comments

It is 3.12 am here and I better go to sleep. Day 1 at the Pink Elephant show was great! You can actually check out what happened at the ServiceDesk Plus blogs. Will post more soon.

Take care..