A couple of weeks ago, Shubhodeep Pal, a student of Singapore Management University - SMU reached out to me with an interview request, as part of an ongoing non-profit project for the university, where, in Shubhodeep's words, "students who take the Comm215 course, Digital Media Across Asia, are required to build and expand a wiki that deals exclusively with the digital media landscape across Asia. By the end of 2009, we aim to create the first social media map of Asia."

The wiki has existed for a bit and there are other mentions of Blogworks from earlier and there are 3 interviews that have been added recently. Besides mine, there is Kiruba and Gaurav Mishra's interviews too.

My interview has a few typos/ mistakes and Shubhodeep is getting them corrected they have now been corrected.

Shubhodeep asked me about the challenges to Social Media adoption. This is what I said to him. It keeps getting manifested:

"The primary challenge is that the adoption of social media is slow. It is not growing as fast as people who are investing time and resources in it would like.

Another problem is that marketers in India believe in a 'one-way street': I speak, you listen. Brands are not engaging their customers. People are not used to a culture of voicing opinions, collaborative working and knowledge sharing.

Channels to resolve customer queries and complaints have not been created. Essentially, we sell and then forget about service. Shifting to social media is a culture shift for brands so it is taking time. It's happening slowly: Brands are unable to react properly to feedback, especially of the negative sort. Feedback is seen by many as criticism rather than constructive suggestions."

What do you think?

The full interview is here.

I loved this picture by Sankarshan on first sight. He is amongst the most wonderful people I know and what a great couple Runa and he make :).

These are the things on my mind right now:

1. One
2. Two
3. Three

Have a wonderful day and a great year ahead.

Cheers

I just converted my Social Media Marketing Triad post into a slide-deck and put it on Slideshare. Even before I knew what was happening it has found its way to the home page and into featured posts.

Thought I will share it here:

I have earlier written about the E Factor in advertising, combine it with cutting edge messaging and you've got a winner.

Most parents try everything to ensure that their children are able to live their dreams, unlike many that they themselves could not. You know anyone who didn't grow up dreaming of becoming a movie star/ rock star/ star cricketer/ footballer? I don't. Powerful insight converted into a memorable an interesting series.

Don't you love these 2 TVCs from Aegon Religare? I am sure there others in the making...

Enjoy.

One of my colleagues suggested that the message "ताकि हमारे बच्चे वह बन पाएं जो हम ना बन
सके" seem to suggest that we want out children to live 'our dreams'. I interpreted it as, everyone wants their children to be the 'star' that they themselves could not, rather than associate it with a particular activity/ vocation. I agree that it is subject to interpretation. What do you think?