Author: ashokkarania

  • Idea’s Latest Ad: Save Paper, Use Mobile

    Check out the new ad of Idea on Environment. Thomas Friedman and all of us are happy ! The ad talks about using mobile phones instead of paper for daily activities and saving the earth. The ad is a wonderful example of consistent positioning, great idea and impeccable execution. It has its heart in right place – never mind the tree Abhishek!

    According to Idea, World over, millions of tonnes of trees get cut everyday to produce paper, leading to alarming rates of deforestation. The new IDEA TVC showcases how the mobile phone can be used as an efficient tool to read daily newspapers, generate e-bills, make payments and transactions, issue e-tickets and boarding passes; thereby saving tonnes of paper everyday.

    Idea has promoting the Future of Mobile in its own creative away. It is also demonstrating creative solutions to today’s complex problems. The earlier campaigns were – ‘Championing a world without caste’; ‘Championing a world in which no one suffers from the disability to communicate’; ‘Education for All’, ‘Participative Governance’, and the last ‘Walk When You Talk’ – addressed subjects such as Caste War, Disability to Communicate, Education, Democracy and Health, respectively. Now, ‘Environment’ is IDEA’s next big Idea!   

    usemobilesavepaper
    Cheers to Idea and Lowe, IDEA’s creative agency.

    In all these Ideas, the big Idea is the infinite possibilities of mobile phone ! As Einstein said, Imagination is more important than knowledge. Mobile phones are a part of our daily life and their role is only going to increase. It is the most personal tool. Every company, every brand manager has to think of how it can leverage the most important screen. Creative ideas, smart apps are one part of the answer. The other – Get a big Idea!

  • InfoStretch Is Hiring : Walk-In On Jan 9

    InfoStretch is hiring ! The Silicon-Valley based thought leader is augmenting its team in India. The fast growing organization needs highly passionate, energetic, self-driven and performance-biased professionals. The perks include opportunity to demonstrate leadership, create new practices and add fuel to the existing growth areas.

    Walk-In at Ahmedabad Centre on Jan 9, TwentyTen.

    advertisement_01-01-2010

    Lot of other positions as well !

  • Presentation Skills

    I was surfing for some information and I came across one of my old presentations on Presentation Skills. One of my subordinates had uploaded it on the net for the benefit of all. I was glad and realized that the principles remain true.

    I have embedded it here.

    Mckinsey Mind

  • Google Chrome for Mac

    Google Chrome for Mac is out !

    I downloaded it. It was quick. The browser looks clean and is fast. It has some features of Safari – when you open a tab, it shows gallery of recently opened sites. Let me try it out for a few days.

    Check its features here!

    screen-shot-2009-12-09-at-25208-pm

  • InfoStretch – Mob4Hire Offer Seamless Mobile Handset And Application Testing Solutions

    Press Release of Our New Partnership:

    InfoStretch, a global provider of outsourced mobile development, testing and certification services and Mob4Hire, the largest real world; crowd sourced testing and market research community for mobile apps, announced today that they have entered into a professional services agreement that will deliver effective and efficient mobile handset and application testing solutions for enterprise mobile developers. The agreement involves a co-marketing platform that will address the unique testing needs of enterprise mobile applications by offering a global reach of handset and application testing by real people, on real phones all around the world.

    “As the age of the app store matures and grows, we are seeing more enterprise customers reaching out to us to add our unique offer to their development and testing needs,” said Stephen King, CEO, Mob4Hire. “Our partnership with InfoStretch adds depth and breadth to our offer and is a perfect complement for large projects that require additional strategic and project management value.” added King.

    “We are thrilled to partner with Mob4Hire and be able to offer robust testing solutions to enterprise customers, who need comprehensive test coverage on global devices that are tested in real-time by real people in real locations,” said Rutesh Shah, CEO – InfoStretch Corporation. “What the enterprise customers are looking for today is to leverage the crowd sourcing platform with an expert partner like InfoStretch who manages all of the testing needs and can make strategic recommendations that will help enterprises reach into new markets efficiently. Together, we are offering improved service that will help customers reduce the cost and time required to do testing.” Shah added.

    Mobile fragmentation is currently estimated to be a $3 billion problem. It occurs when mobile software developers are faced with the onerous task of ensuring that their software works properly on the 25,000 different handsets, 700 different networks and the multitude of operating systems, platforms and browsers. This requires detailed, location-specific testing on the part of the mobile developer community in order to bring their product to market. The plethora of mobile applications has created a tremendous groundswell of activity in mobile software, and companies such as Mob4Hire and InfoStretch have been created to help solve this daunting task.

    About InfoStretch
    InfoStretch is a leader in outsourced Mobile Application Development Testing and Certification Services. InfoStretch also specializes in Enterprise application Testing, QA and Test Automation Services with specific emphasis on Enteprise 2.0 and Cloud Infrastrufcutre based SaaS applications. InfoStretch delivers high-quality, reliable and cost effective services to clients throughout the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The company specializes in delivering outsourced business solutions that command deep technology knowledge, process proficiency and domain expertise.

    For more information, visit http://www.infostretch.com

    About Mob4Hire
    With tens of thousands of mobile users on over 330 operators in 105 countries worldwide, Mob4Hire (http://www.mob4hire.com) is the largest real world; crowd sourced testing and market research community for mobile apps. By incorporating user feedback and in market testing to developers, we help make mobile software better. Mob4Hire significantly reduces mobile application testing costs and reduces time to market by connecting developers with eager, lower priced, crowd sourced testers and focus groups. Mob4Hire also provides their unique micro-payment crowd-sourced MAAP technology (Mob4Hire as a Platform) to developer networks and app stores such as O2 Litmus to allow for private labeled communities to be added to Carrier and Handset Manufacturer enterprise systems. Founded in 2007, Mob4Hire is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with offices in Victoria, British Columbia, and London, U.K.

  • PCOs, Grocery Shops, Retired Teachers Offer Banking Services

    Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has allowed banks to appoint the following entities as banking correspondents:

    – Individual kirana (grocery)/medical /fair price shop owners
    – Individual Public Call Office (PCO) operators
    – Agents of Small Savings schemes of Government of India/Insurance Companies
    – Individuals who own Petrol Pumps
    – Retired teachers and
    – Authorised functionaries of well run Self Help Groups (SHGs) linked to banks

    The above move will ensure access of banking services to more and more people. It will also open possibilities for digital commerce and technological innovations in BFSI Sector.

    Telecom Companies would have loved to be a part of this endeavor as they had the right infrastructure and capabilities which could have been easily leveraged. It could have helped increase their ARPUs as well.

    Related Article: MediaNaama

  • The Best of 2009

    The attention spans are reducing. The media channels are increasing. So how do we get notice? That is the challenge of every marketer.

    These days, I have already started getting emails, reports and feeds for The Top 2009 List, The Best of 2009, Things To Watch Out In 2010. I think I also supported one such post – Best Smartphones. Not to forget, that the title of this piece 🙂

    But what counts? Being First or Being The Best? Breaking News or Insightful Detailed Analysis ? I think the answer is obvious!