Marketing and Technology: Complementing each other

Being "Agile" is the way to be. No matter if its technology, Project management or be it marketing .

 According to  +Wikipedia  " Agile management or agile project management is an iterative and incremental method of managing the design and build activities for engineering, information technology, and new product or service development projects in a highly flexible and interactive manner, for example agile software development. It requires capable individuals from the relevant business, with supplier and customer input. "

An d with advent +Smartphones , devices and digital media , Marketing is getting more fragmented than ever.

The ecosystem of the entire marketing is changing and technology is one of the main reason behind its. Marketing signifies evolution, continuous change bur today in the digital world, the pace of that change is higher than ever.

And technical specialist and a marketing specialist had to go hand in hand.

Only marketing without innovation does not work and vice versa.

And only innovation also does not make successful product. If it was the case, then Xerox would have been the company to introduce different calligraphy and fonts to the world not Apple.

Xerox invented it, Apple first improvised it to personal computers and Microsoft made it popular.

Today, almost all the renowned brands are bringing in the Digital Marketing in their Marketing Strategy. And to utilize it properly, only investing money is not the case anymore investing wisely in content and technology to promote is useful

It’s all about superior user interface nowadays and the lies in how to detect the sweet spot for your consumers 

Marketing is Beautiful

The most beautiful thing about marketing is that it embraces all science, culture, logic, numbers, strategy, philosophy, creativity and what not.

People say marketing can be lots of noise and clutter of promises just to shell out your target customer’s money. And with advent of social media and their penetration to one’s personal place had increased this clutter.

But come on do all of us whatever we do or things happened around us are always significant. No !! never there is always unnecessary things happening around and a very insignificant portion of it is created by the irrelevant and not so successful marketing campaigns …big deal!!!

But when marketing is is packaged with innovation + imagination it does creates magic. And don’t a kid hidden in all of us like to believe in magic.

 +HBO – an leading entertainment channel brought innovations into business with IT infrastructure improvement.

To improve its business it went through virtualization and private cloud infrastructure changes in 2008. And by implementing virtulization it reduces 30 % power consumption footprint and 50 % less physical space while still growing its business. The server landscape an the infrastructure had witnessed 100 % and 460 % growth respectively. With all its technical Innovation and infrastructure improvements. HBO now comes up “Marketing” lines of “Content Everywhere” and “Shaping Trends”

 With adding to its product categories it had brought HBO GO, MAX GO, CW Digital Studio to name a few.

And the List of examples of imagination + marketing can be describes by “Group Buying” concept practical implementation by “  GroupOn” and “Living Social”

Innovation:Keep it fresh!!

We humans sometimes can be so greedy and materialistic -- we want more from life and every aspect of it.

It makes me think does that inbuilt program of "wanting more" is the driving force behind innovation and evolution. I think great philosophers and psychologists must have answer it already if not it's a request to the great and genius mind please do so...

Every time I heard of the marketing jargon "blockbuster product" or "product category smasher" I can see something common in them --- fun, simple and useful.

But what happens when that fun, simplicity and usefulness is not so new and fresh anymore. It's started to stale or we have some nagging feeling in our mind, can't it get better, can't we have something more to make our life easier.

  

Corporations, small businesses and start ups around the world are trying to keep up with the ever changing dynamic business scenario. And these businesses do have their own challenges. +Sony  almost came up with +iPod  like products but could not leverage on it due to their own internal issues and   +Apple Inc.  came up with its iPod.

Innovation is not only the key but the presence of culture in an organization to commercialize it which brings revolution and change and thus "Innovation".

Watch this Carl Brass +TEDx  video ....

Simplicity and Human Touch: Future of Technology !!

I am avid e-book reader since last few years but once upon a time during rainy days I used sit in my room with my favorite novel and a cup of hot coffee with "samosa" and read it.

I feel e-book let me allow read whenever I am free time.And its mobility and availability through help of any smart device make it more preferable to me.

But I crave more human touch in it ....

 I miss the comfort and simplicity of a paperback book, its smell and the experience of laziness and coziness attached to it.

My idol  +Steve Jobs had described iPad as "...strategy is really simple. What we want to do is we want to put an incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you and learn how to use in 20 minutes ... And we really want to do it with a radio link in it so you don’t have to hook up to anything and you’re in communication with all of these larger databases and other computers"

But I am waiting for someone taking such user experience to next level.

Where is the next +Apple Inc. ???

It's my request to all the brilliant minds out there to come op with a technology which has a simple usage but also can me make me experience the human touch.

I know I am becoming greedy!! But what can I do I am a spoiled being of this Digital Age who is getting used to innovation of new technologies and their ever decreasing life cycle.

And I guess it’s take a brilliant moment of realization from an inventor's mind to work on already existing technologies and develop something brilliant.

Like fibre optics are existing since 19th century but it was only around 1970's the problem of attenuation (degrading of signal or connectivity over a distance) was given a thought.

 And we all know what it had led to --> The “Internet".

And its the simplicity of thought process and few -- accidentally lucky -- "eureka" moments that had given birth to few of the greatest invention that had changed the world.

For example : Discovery of microwave oven by an engineer  Percy Spencer while US company +Raytheon was carrying out wartime experiment of magnetron tubes used in radar defence.And the lucky incident was that a chocolate in his pocket was melting due to "microwave" and he implemented it into a box and what impact it had on our lifestyle!!

And such examples can go on and on ...

I am sure like lots of you out there I am also waiting for more such magic moment to happen!!!

Simple Understanding of Human Psychology:Is it the key to business success?

In my previous post I expressed my viewpoints and believes about creativity. 

Sometimes creativity is known as innovation or breakthrough technology or some cool scientific discovery.But how creativity or innovation become the survival of the fittest for businesses.

Take the case of  Victor Fernandes director of  +Natura Cosmeticos , he thinks that you can behold success by trying to innovate keeping in mind about the well being experiences. Ans similar was the thought of  +Steve Jobs , that you have to give people  experience which they have not witnessed before-- a need no one realized before.

It's all come down to small inventions, an attempt to make people's life better and make it more efficient.

Some key to creativity and innovation I read from a  +Forbes article talks about the following.

 Observing--> Its very important to know what is happening around you. The understanding of what people want or need.

Questioning --> It's the key for inquisitive minds and discovering the unknown an the wonderful !!

 Experimenting --> The mantra of success  lies with experimenting, may be it will lead to failure but its also leads to success. For reference -->  +Thomas Alva Edison 

Networking --> One of the most powerful marketing tactic to accelerate and sustain success

 

Associational Thinking --> Well this one deals with the capability of drawing connection among question, problem or ideas from diversified fields

Live Life the Android Way !!!

In my first bog ever which I wrote 3 days ago  I mentioned that Steve Paul Jobs is my inspiration and today while reading tech news regarding  +Android  Apps I remembered one of his famous quotes --

“Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

And its so true.Let me tell you why?........Few years ago while I was pursuing my engineering in Computer Science I had to create a technical presentation with 2 of my friends. I was allotted with the task of choosing the topic for presentation by my group. While I was doing my secondary research on current technologies --- I came up with 2 topics a> +BlackBerry  and b> +Android  as we were asked to submit 2 topics from which our professor would choose one and on which we had to make the presentation.

Fortunately my friends liked the topic I chose and when we went to our Operating System professor he asked us to ahead with Blackberry (as it was a rage at that point of time and he thought that our class could connect to the topic easily) but with my friends support I managed to convince him maybe Android Operating system is not as popular and well known as Blackberry but it is a very cool and a new topic.Please let us go ahead with it and luckily he agreed, and we gave our presentation finally on Android .

And at present when  my engineering and MBA days are now over, Android don't need any  introduction .Its a common word for  +Smartphones  generation. (all thanks to  +Google ,  +Andy Rubin , +Rich Miner , +Nick Sears  and +Chris White --> people responsible for it)

In my dream I did not think of Android to become such a rage (which I sincerely wish I could claim otherwise) and a  +Linux  based operating system can be so cool .

I mean just have a look to this top 10 Apps of October 2013 http://www.androidheadlines.com/2013/10/featured-top-10-best-android-apps-october-2013.html

Its awesome and I think same is the word which come to mind of approximately over 70 % of world's mobile developer population when they think of Android.And , yes God Bless Open-source Community !!!

And once again -- All Hail to  +Steve Jobs  for  being himself and +Google  for making such a useful product a commodity for users.Innovators and innovation rocks...........