08

Feb

Lessons from Chak De!

Posted on February 8th, 2008 by Harsh

I was again late in catching a popular movie. This time it was Chak De India! I was always under the impression that Yashraj Films are melodramatic and show over-the-top emotions (I am still partially under that impression). However, Chak De was very real in many parts, in fact all parts except one – the last bit when the goalkeeper Vidya saves all three penalties. That was a quintessential Bollywood climax, otherwise it seemed to be a Hollywood-like movie, really! It is not that Hollywood Movies are the benchmark for quality, but Chak De just appeared to be very global.

Much has already been written about the movie and Shah Rukh Khan’s acting skills have been appreciated. I think he was good in a role that could have been equally competently performed by a few other Bollywood actors as well – Few names that come to my mind are Akshay Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan, Irfan Khan, Naseerudin, Saif, Aamir. Anyhow, Shah Rukh performed and was convincing.

Watching Chak De was an experience for me. I don’t think of myself as a chauvinist who thinks Machismo is a trademark of men, and women are only assistants to men in the world. Chak De was refreshing in this aspect. Also, that it was a very unusual subject, helped the movie (not to mention that star power of SRK). How many of us actually know the captain of National Women’s Hockey team. I can’t even recall a singe player’s name. I am quite ashamed of myself!

However, Chak De holds some very important lessons for all of us, I believe. SRK’s character Kabir Khan is someone from who you can only draw inspiration. The movie shows how one man’s perseverance and grit exonerate him from a blame that could have easily made a more human man even end his life or at least give up. Kabir Khan’s focus and self-restraint I guess is very do-able and that’s one reason I adore this movie. His objective is clear all the time – to make girls play as a team, even if they don’t respect the coach in turn. Keeping the eventual goal in vision, he never really lets his ego come in between or think that his stature is bigger than any of the girls in the team. This makes him a very special character. I believe this is one aspect of the person that makes him a winner even in the real life.

The second half of the movie encompasses the world cup matches, and I think that director Shimit Amin has done well by not exaggerating here. Except the first match, where the Indian team is completely skittled by the Australians, most of the action is pretty much under control. There are a lot of emotional moments in the second half, that may just make your eyes moist or make your heart swell. The songs are few, two I think, and very well composed, and not at all interfering. I don’t think that many Indians watch hockey on TV but it is a pleasure to watch hockey in the movie, especially with some pretty looking girls :) Preeti Sabharwal rocks in the looks department.

The whole girls team performs very well, and considering that none of them is actually a professional, they are very convincing. I particularly liked the performance of Bindia Naik. I did a quick Google search – her real name is Shilpa Shukla. She was very convincing as the “goonda” of the team, and carried herself very well thruout the movie. She was the real actress amongst novices. While watching the movie, I was also imagining what a mammoth task it would have been for the cast director to find people from all over India – think of girls from Jharkhand and Punjab – they looked so real!

All in all, Chak De motivates us, gives us hope and above all makes us believable that unachievable is do-able.

Hope to see more such movies in 2008!

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07

Feb

Social Media Optimization – Coding and de-coding SMO

Posted on February 7th, 2008 by Harsh

Off late, I have heard a lot about Social Media Optimization. Since it is a content-driven concept it really interests me a lot more. Few companies however have understood the true concept of SMO, which is set to be the next wave after SEO, which has been the big daddy of site optimization processes.

With more and more businesses going online, there is scope for more optimization activities. SMO is the child of modern age social networking sites. At the end of the day, every business wants to reach the end consumer, and every end consumer is present there on SNSs, blogs, forums, etc.

SMO uses media sites as a tool to publicize the product/service/business and also optimize the website in the process. In my opinion, SMO is a revolution, a booming process that can bring enormous traffic to your website, if you do a few things correctly. It also helps your content travel, and lastly it is very cost-effective. Also, the cost of SMO can be regulated. It depends on a company to what length it wants to get SMO done, therefore doing SMO within their budget.

For me, following are the benefits of SMO:

Visibility – Social Media Optimization increases the visibility of your website. You get more traffic and your links are placed at many places on the web. More and more people visit your website; you only need to position the content according to the taste of your website visitor.

Helps your content travel – The WWW is gigantic. No body actually knows how big it is – at least I don’t. May be Google or Alexa know. Traveling in the virtual world is a lot difficult than traveling in the real world, simply because you do not know the ways. Well, coming back to more sane talks, SMO helps your content travel, and has more eyeballs gazing to it.

Brings more traffic - SMO can give you far better results than very expensive SEM. What if you target blog owners, community owners and forum administrators? Moreover, you can target blogs and communities that are pertinent to your business and industry segment. For example, if you are from the travel sector, you can target blogs and communities related to cities/countries.

These are three major benefits, but SMO does more – improves inbound linkability, popularize the website, does branding.

However, to do effective SMO you need a more systematic and sustained approach when compared with SEO. It is important to draw a strategy before doing SMO. Execution is easy, but strategizing is challenging. Right strategy and execution can bring in results. Type “Social Media Optimization” in Google and you will have millions of results, and I am sure this is going to increase with time, and I am contributing to the rise here.

It is the next big thing, for sure! Know more here

1561 days ago Short URL 1 Comment

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02

Feb

Just how big can CM be – II

Posted on February 2nd, 2008 by Harsh

After the last night’s scribbling, I realized that I had more to say about CM, and perhaps share more. My objective of putting posts about CM is to let prospective and current employees/clients have an insight into the company. Also, I won’t mind having prospective investors know more.
As I said, there so much more CM that needs to be said. Overall, we provide every service under the content umbrella, barring video and audio content (at least as of now).  Over the years, we have worked for companies such as GE, TV-18, MIH and MS. Besides, we have also been fortunate to have worked with some of the finest upcoming SMEs in India and the US.

CM runs on two business models. One is to have work-from-home writers who have been the backbone of CM for a long time, and the in-house experts. We plan to grow both the models. The former has given us access to some of the finest talent and the latter more reliability. The blended approach is a success for us, and I am confident it will continue adding more value to the customer as we go along. Our third business model is also catching up, which is to have zealous writers turn into entrepreneurs. We are offering entrepreneurial opportunities to people outside Delhi form development centers for CM.

CM will grow on these three models. It is very hard to quantify right now, but I think the next one year will bring more clarity and I should able to know the exact figures. The amount of work, I believe, should not be a problem. We have humungous client work and many internal projects to be worked upon. If a VC steps in amidst this planning, then things may just accelerate.

Also, CM will be coming up with more specialized, super-niche websites that will target specific customers. These sites will be based on one service. The plan also is to develop such sites into full-fledged portals.
We have a very sound process of working now. A dedicated manager, expert writers, editors, round-the-clock availability. The system is there, but as we grow the effort will be to make it sharper.

Will keep you posted!

1566 days ago Short URL Comments

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01

Feb

Just how big can ContentMantra be?

Posted on February 1st, 2008 by Harsh

I have often asked myself this question, and have been at times at the receiving end too.  Just how big I want ContentMantra to become? Well, my instinctive reaction is that there is no end. ContentMantra can be big and keep becoming bigger and bigger.

If I take a more rational viewpoint, I would say that ContentMantra will be say a 100-people company in the next five years, with operations in India and overseas. I have also felt that no. of people is a wrong way of measuring the company size. ContentMantra today is not a success because of the sheer size of its team, but due to its commitment to quality and focussed approach. It has been good 8 months since we put the website live, and two months since MantraBlogs went live. I agree that the posts have not been very regular but the effort is on to streamline that, and share more with our regular visitors.

Coming back to the main topic, I see ContentMantra as a firm catering to the quality-sensitive clients, which would essentially be the top companies. It is sad that most of the SMEs are non-serious customers who like to bully their vendors. We have always been sure that we do not want to work for companies that see content as a secondary or complimentary service, regardless of the size of the company. Our approach requires client involvement at all levels and his participation in finalizing the content. The process of to and fro of content between CM and client goes on for many days (this depends on the quantum of work).

Another way of measuring the size of the company is measuring the increase in revenues. Since italics (the parent company) began in July 2005, the revenues have gone up by almost 100% with a 250% growth is forecasted in the third year (end of fiscal 2009). The growth has been encouraging. I somehow also candidly admit that this growth could have been better, had we been more aggressive with our marketing. Anyhow, we have also learnt a few important lessons in the first few years of our operations. Bad clients, default payments, bad decisions, good clients, incentives, good people, bad people – we have seen it all. These experiences have also made us more aware, cautious and intelligent.

As an entrepreneur, I see CM spreading to many cities in the coming years, forming strategic alliances with quality-centric companies. One of our objective is also to encourage entrepreneurship across India, and we will establish development centers in collaborations with expert writers for that. I have personally come across people with great potential and talent and I would be happy to work with them by helping them form companies and nurturing them in whatever way I can. ContentMantra can never be big unless its people become bigger. The people who work with CM are its biggest assets, the driving forces, and future leaders and innovators. CM may have started with one man’s dream but now it is a reality that is being worked upon by many like-minded and talented people. I would love to have many more such people join us and move towards more success.

Having said all this, I would like to say that CM would never forget its role as a socially responsible company. Many companies don’t realize that they can do so much for the people outside it also. What happens to your obsolete computers? you sell it for a few grands…why not donate it to a boy who studies in a municipality school, or donate it to an NGO. It is always good to re-invest money in your company but sharing a bit with the community will always keep you grounded. This is one value that I would like every person in ContentMantra to have. It needs to be infectious.      

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