Entrepreneurship And Beyond

Warren Buffet's Advice For 2009 - The Year Of The Meltdown

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis D Maliekal) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:24:00 +0000

Google “Warren Buffet’s advice for 2009” and there are a lot of websites that have this piece of advice on them. I just couldn’t help sharing it with my readers. So here you go

We begin this New Year with dampened enthusiasm and dented optimism. Our happiness is diluted and our peace is threatened by the financial illness that has infected our families, organizations and nations. Everyone is desperate to find a remedy that will cure their financial illness and help them recover their financial health. They expect the financial experts to provide them with remedies, forgetting the fact that it is these experts who created this financial mess.

Every new year, I adopt a couple of old maxims as my beacons to guide my future. This self-prescribed therapy has ensured that with each passing year, I grow wiser and not older. This year, I invite you to tap into the financial wisdom of our elders along with me, and become financially wiser.

Hard work - All hard work bring a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.
Laziness - A sleeping lobster is carried away by the water current.
Earnings - Never depend on a single source of income. [At least make your Investments get you second earning]
Spending - If you buy things you don't need, you'll soon sell things you need.
Savings - Don't save what is left after spending; Spend what is left after saving.
Borrowings - The borrower becomes the lender's slave.
Accounting - It's no use carrying an umbrella, if your shoes are leaking.
Auditing - Beware of little expenses; A small leak can sink a large ship.
Risk-taking - Never test the depth of the river with both feet. [ Have an alternate plan ready ]
Investment - Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

I'm certain that those who have already been practicing these principles remain financially healthy. I'm equally confident that those who resolve to start practicing these principles will quickly regain their financial health.

Let us become wiser and lead a happy, healthy, prosperous and peaceful life.

Feel welcome to post your thoughts, views and questions in the comments.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog

Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal

The Importance Of Changing Your Perspective

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis D Maliekal) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 08:48:00 +0000

I received this story from a friend of mine as an e-mail forward. It is a fantastic story with its central theme focused at how things can changes when we change our perspective. I do not know the source from where this story originated from. If any of you have this information please feel to add it into the comments and I’ll update this post with credit given to you ofcourse :-)

Read On ….

This Story is about a man who once upon a time was selling Hotdogs by the roadside.
He was illiterate, so he never read newspapers.
He was hard of hearing, so he never listened to the radio.
His eyes were weak, so he never watched television.
But enthusiastically, he sold lots of hotdogs.
He was smart enough to offer some attractive schemes to increase his sales.

His sales and profit went up. He ordered more a more raw material and buns and use to sale more.
He recruited few more supporting staff to serve more customers. He started offering home deliveries. Eventually he got himself a bigger and better stove.
As his business was growing, the son, who had recently graduated from College, joined his father.

Then something strange happened.
The son asked, "Dad, aren't you aware of the great recession that is coming our way?"
The father replied, "No, but tell me about it." The son said, "The international situation is terrible. The domestic situation is even worse. We should be prepared for the coming bad times."
The man thought that since his son had been to college, read the papers, listened to the radio and watched TV.
He ought to know and his advice should not be taken lightly.

So the next day onwards, the father cut down the his raw material order and buns, took down the colorful signboard, removed all the special schemes he was offering to the customers and was no
longer as enthusiastic. He reduced his staff strength by giving layoffs.
Very soon, fewer and fewer people bothered to stop at his hotdog stand.
And his sales started coming down rapidly, same is the profit.
The father said to his son, "Son, you were right".
"We are in the middle of a recession and crisis. I am glad you warned me ahead of time."

Moral of The Story: It's all in your MIND! And we actually FUEL this recession much more than we think we do!!!!!!!!!! !!

What can we take away from this story??

1. How many times we confuse intelligence with good judgment?

2. Choose your advisers carefully but use your own judgment

3. A person or an organization will survive forever, if they have the 5 Cs

* Character
* Commitment
* Conviction
* Courtesy
* Courage

The tragedy today is that there are many walking encyclopedias that are living failures.
The More practical and appropriate views on this economic recession is:

"This is the time to reunite together for any small or a big organization, this is the time to motivate and retain people which are the biggest asset,
this is the time to show more commitments to the customers, this is the time show values of our company to the world”

Feel welcome to post your thoughts, views and questions in the comments.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog

Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal

A Business Of Your Own

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis D Maliekal) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 08:14:00 +0000

Jonnelle Marte has an interesting article on the Wall Street Journal, on offering tips to the Generation Y entrepreneurs who are to create jobs and lead way as entrepreneurs.

Finding a job in this economy -- even keeping one -- is tough. Tired of the uncertainty, some twenty something are going from job hunting to job creating by starting their own businesses.

Generation Y entrepreneurs have a few advantages here: They're seen as tech-savvy, enthusiastic risk takers with fresh perspectives. But they also tend to lack money, credit histories and managerial experience.

He talks about the 4 Tips that every Generation Y entrepreneur below 30 must examine.

1. Ask For Advice
2. Be realistic on funding
3. Search for targeted loans.
4. Find a good lawyer

Here's the reference link to read more.

Feel welcome to post your thoughts, views and questions in the comments.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog

Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal

Leverage On Layoffs

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis D Maliekal) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:50:00 +0000

I happened to read this article on entrepreneur.com on how to leverage on layoffs. The article is quite interesting and showcases the life of Diane Lindquist, Veteran journalist and an expert on the trade economy of the U.S.-Mexico border.

She was offered a buyout from the San Diego Union-Tribune after being at the news paper for nearly 30 years. Older journalists were shown the door for younger blood to take their places. With the knowledge she had acquired over the years helped her move to a role of a consultant on the border business, thus transforming a Layoff into an Entrepreneurial birth.

The key notes from Diane Lindquist story are

1. Knowledge Is Power - Re-visit your skills. Build on them further and transform yourself into an expert on it. You don’t necessarily have to quite your day job to offer consultation. Build a platform online and freelance your skill sets. If you are good, people would come knocking at your doors.

2. Be Positive - Diane Lindquist did not brood and cry over the loss of her job. She looked at the positive side of her layoff by focusing on providing her skills online, through her blog. This is what each one of us has to look at, a positive side of the situation that we are in. It would alter the way we live life.

3. Adapt To Change – The move from being a busy worker bee to a lonely boss is not very nice. Change is the only thing that is constant in life. There are pro’s and con’s to everything. Being a lonely boss, would further push you to expand on your business for the very sake of working with more people.

Here are the Reference links
Cover Story
Diane Lindquist Site

Feel welcome to post your thoughts, views and questions in the comments.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog

Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal

Entrepreneurship – The Courage Needed To Get Started

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis D Maliekal) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:25:00 +0000

There is a general feeling that runs in a lot many of us folks who come from middle class families. The feeling where we think, 'The road to entrepreneurship is not for the faint hearted'. It takes a lot of courage to get started. This is not always true. You don’t have to be the bravest soul in this world to kick start your entrepreneurial dream.

Many entrepreneurs that we see around us were not necessarily very courageous and were people who hesitated to take risks. Given the fact that they having done their homework really well, had contingency plans in place and a lot of safety measures in position anticipating a failure. They needed something more to propel them forward and generate that spark of entrepreneurship.

The way they moved out of their cocoon is by convincing themselves with this fact. The fact that their nice ‘safe’ job that they currently hold is ‘not necessarily as safe’ as it seems. This triggered the thought process of examining the risk in of being an entrepreneur is not as scary as it always looked. Think of it, during these troubled economic times and recession, Is your job really that safe?

Once you have an idea which when applied can be transformed into something that can change the world, it’s worth taking the risk of trying it and seeing it implemented. It is a lot more satisfying to give it your ambition of being an entrepreneur a shot, than live in regret all your life that you did not do it.

Feel welcome to post your thoughts, views and questions in the comments.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog

Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal

Maximize The Impact Of Your Television Advertisements

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis D Maliekal) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:09:00 +0000

The reason why television channels exist is because of the revenue advertisements get them. The ads paid by business folks like you, are to reach people and maximize the impact that it has on your business. Television Ads to a large does impact the way your product is publicized, but then a simple tweak in the way your advertisement is shown on screen can further increase the impact it has on viewers.

On examining most Advertisements show on the television, I noticed that the way an Advertisement was structured.

1. A Problem – The Advertisement highlighted the problem that is faced by the viewer. A problem does not always mean a tedious or painful situation; for example a headache or a toothache. It could also be as simple as enhancing your lifestyle and comfort from a stage at which it already is; for ex: - A car with much better comfort features than an existing luxury car.

2. Tackling the Problem – The Advertisement further talks about what can be done to solve the problem. Using the above example, the solution could be to use an analgesic or toothpaste or own a car which is much roomier and has better seats.

3. The Product solving the problem – This is the stage in which the advertised product solves the problem to near perfection and emphasis the reason why the ad viewer should buy the product.

4. The Brand Logo – This is the final stage of the Advertisement, where the Brand Logo of your business is displayed.

The ad in spite of being really good, would in time fade out of your viewers mind. Your business would make tons of products advertise and sell it. What is permanent is your business and to the world it’s your Brand Image portrayed as the Brand Logo.

You spend less than a second in a ten second advertisement to show your Logo. Do you see the problem here? The solution to the problem is simple. Have the Brand Logo of your business be present during the entire duration of the advertisement. Place the Logo as an opaque watermark at one of the corners of the screen. Just as a television channel has its logo constantly in the screen. This would definitely imprint your brand logo in your viewer’s memory far better, than a fraction of a second flash of the logo.

One Indian company has seemed to do it and it’s worked really well for them. The company that I am talking about is Reliance. Below are a couple of links to a TV ad of Reliance Mobile. Notice that the Logo is always present during the entire duration of the Ad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qhJdqMz7-M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OqGr8Gwxm4

Feel welcome to post your thoughts, views and questions in the comments.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog

Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal

The Problems Of Mixing Family and Business

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis D Maliekal) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:31:00 +0000

Any smart entrepreneur would second the statement Mr. Subroto Bagchi ( COO of MindTree Consulting) made “Blood is a poor substitute for competence”. There are times when an entrepreneur is tempted to involve family into the intricacies of the business and worse, get them to be part of the business.

The presence of family removes a clear reporting structure. Wrong decisions can be made with emotions being in play. Let’s just say you are the CEO and your wife heads the HR. Can you see the devastating effect it could have? Your people would never have the confidence to speak up about the flaws that a management has. Flaws if corrected, would transform the value that your organization imparts.
Family and business don’t really mix well. The presence of family usually results unnecessary politics within your organization. The value chain is ruined. It would not be long with vultures flying in destroying what’s left of your business.

As with everything in life, there are exceptions. With increased people maturity, It sometimes make sense to have a smart and more importantly a trust worthy family member handle certain functions of the business. Let’s say for example finances could be one.

Summarizing it in a nutshell, it’s prudent not to involve business and blood. But if your judgment with perfect logical backing says otherwise go on and make the best of it.

Feel welcome to post your thoughts, views and questions in the comments.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog

Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal

Transform Your Dream - Your Path To Entrepreneurship

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis D Maliekal) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:28:00 +0000

Everyone wants to be his own boss. The path to entrepreneurship is something that all of us dream off. It’s great to dream, because it’s those dreams that present to us the goal that we need to achieve. To a whole lot of us, the dream sometimes seems blurry. We fail to truly understand what we need to tread on, to reach the dream of transforming from an employee to an entrepreneur.

Here are 5 steps to kick start a successful entrepreneur journey

1. Dream Big – Only if you can dream, can you see what you want. Dream Big, that’s what gives you the hope to move on.

2. Make The World A Better Place – If your aim is to make money from a business, the probability of you achieving success would be very low. Work on making the world a better place, this is what every big corporation has done. Look at Sony, Microsoft, Philips, HP, Dell, Honda, Wal-Mart all of these corporations are what they are because they have made products that have made the world a better place. Once your goal is clear, the money would automatically flow in.

3. Communicate – Most people are very worried that if they talk about their ideas to start a successful business, there is a high chance that someone might steal it. This is NOT TRUE. There definitely are a thousand other people in this planet thinking about the exact same idea that you have, to start a business. The best bet here would be to talk to reliable and “Smart” friends, family about your idea. There is always a huge possibility of them adding a new thought to what you’ve talked to them about. This will give you an edge when you start off.

4. Reason Over Passion – Like I always say “let your passion not take over your reasoning”. Have a just logical reason for your decisions. Make decisions which are good for your business, not ones that make you happy.

5. Teams – Once you have the Idea in place, build a team of the best of the folks that you think are the ones who would be the founding pillars of your business. There is a catch to this step though. There are times when no one is ready to venture out into the deep sea with you. This is when you have to look at the option of asking your proposed team to at least stand in as consultants with you.

I have a lot many steps more that I would like to share, but I’d do it some other time in another post. Feel welcome to post your thoughts, views in the comments.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog

Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal

Recession: “In A NutShell” - “For Dummies” – “Demystified”

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis D Maliekal) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 07:03:00 +0000

Every day in my inbox there are mails from a couple of people asking me to explain as to, what really does the term “Recession” mean. So I finally decided to write this little post explaining what it means in the simplest way possible.

Let’s say I earn 10,000 Rs every month as my income and I am pretty sure that I would not lose my job for the next 10 years. Now if I fancy that new LCD TV in the electronic showroom worth 30,000Rs I would probably buy it on an installment even though it is 3 times my monthly earning. This is simply for the fact that, I am assured that I would continue earning and I can easily pay it off in time. Similarly I would probably not even think twice before you spend 500Rs on a nice meal with my family in a decent restaurant.

Now let’s say, my boss comes up to me and says, “Dennis, your job is not secure and you may probably lose it in the next 6 months”. What is the direct impact it has on me? Fear !! the obvious answer. I would think 50 times before spending 50Rs let alone 500Rs. I would try to save up as much as you can, which means I “Stop Spending”.

If I am the only person who is to lose my job in 6 months it does not matter because, the effect I single handedly have on the economy is insignificant. Imagine half the country is in the fear of losing there jobs in the next 6 months. No one would be ready to spend. This would result in excessive stocks coming in from manufactures and just lying in warehouse’s or shop shelves. This would result in companies reducing their manufacturing, which would result in people within these companies losing jobs. So these people would stop spending. This basically is a vicious circle. The whole economy stops growing. The money is present but it is not changing hand, thus resulting in a recession.

So in simple words recession is an economic fear that is at a very large scale. There are a lot of other factors that are involved of course, but explaining that would just complicate the way this post is structured.

Share in your thoughts and join discussions in the comment section.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog

Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal

Understanding The Importance of Competition

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis D Maliekal) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 09:32:00 +0000

Every entrepreneur out there is trying to start his own business and has tons of ideas why his venture is the best with numerous reasons, why it would never fail. A small bunch of aspiring entrepreneurs have the mindset where they believe, “They would succeed in flying colors since they face, or have no competition”.

The truth is “A business is not worth venturing into if you do not have competition”. Competition is the only way to evaluate the existence of the market that you are trying to sell to. There are 6 billion people on this planet. Assuming that no one else has seen potential in the business that you are trying to establish is quite dumb.

Summarizing what Guy Kawasaki says in the ‘Art of the Start', The best venture is where you have evaluated your competition and worked out smarter ways to leap frog them. It’s smarter to have someone else make the mistake and you learn from it. This would give you the advantage to zip past them successfully. Look at the mobile phone industry, Motorola was the first company to launch the mobile phone, not Nokia or Apple. Compare the market that Motorola has captured and that of Nokia and Apple.

The lessons learn't here, for any want to be entrepreneur are

1. Know your market well
2. Understand your Competition better
3. Innovate by learning from the flaws of your competition.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog

Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal

Cut Costs Not People - Ways to Avoid Layoffs In An Organization

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis D Maliekal) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 10:18:00 +0000

The fear looms when recession is around and the most obvious dread is that of the Pink Slip. The fear that is present here is not just in the person getting fired, but also the person firing. The best brand ambassador on an organization is its employees. A organization looses huge reputation and credibility when they layoff people.

Here are ways and alternatives on how avoid layoffs

1. Salary cuts starting from the top – This is an efficient way of saving an organization. People are a lot happier with a lesser income than NO income. A 50% cut in salary of the top most individual in the organization would probably save 50 jobs in the bottom

2. Re-visit Inventory – Cut on ‘Nice to Have inventory’ and be judicious. The classic example here could be to move to stop color print out and allow only black and white print outs. If the number of people occupying the work space in a building is loosely scattered across different floors, get them together and save on Air conditioning or Heating.

3. Sell, dont just donate or Trash – You probably may have a lot of old computers that your employees no longer use. At bad times it is better to find someone to buy them than just donating or trashing them.

4. Encourage longer working hours\weeks – People may groan initially, but they would prefer this to sitting at home idle with no work or salary. This would help you deliver better products at shorter times to your clients

5. Remove lunch subsidies – The saving from this can be huge especially if you have a lot of employees. People would be ok getting lunch from home

6. Avoid travelling abroad – As much as it is possible avoid sending people abroad. Look at alternatives like video conferencing to cut costs. If the travel is an absolute must, look at cheaper means like an economy ticket instead of a business class seat.

7. Aim at Zero Bench – Effectively use your existing bench strength to help out in marketing. This would avoid costs of additionally having people hired to make marketing collateral.

8. Inculcate Innovation – Encourage every employee to come up with one unique idea every fortnight to bring more value to the organization. You may probably get a lot of trash, but the chances of getting a couple of really good ideas are high. This might just be the life savior.

9. Slow down on Unnecessary Advertising – It does not sense to have trade booths at shows where nobody is really going to come. Use prudence when advertising.

10. The Last and the most important piece of Advice – Try eliminating all of the above suggestions in your organization as soon as possible, simply because your company is what it is because of the people in it. The happier they are, the better they perform. The suggestions above are definitely not the ones that would show happy faces in the short term, but your people will be loyal to you to have given them the support they needed at the worst of times.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog

Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal

Ride The Recession With Success

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis D Maliekal) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 08:57:00 +0000

I have scouted around the net on how to not just overcome the recession but rather beat it. Experiencing success and emerging victorious at the end of the cycle can definitely be turned from a dream to reality.

These are seven ways how to achieve success during recession, be it an individual or a enterprise.

1. Revisit Your Borrowings - The interest rates for loans drop big time during bad economic times. Re-finance your loans at a lower rate to save up and increase cash reserves.

2. Negotiate On Your Lease – Appalling economies show their trace on real estate. If you are a corporate or individual in a leased accommodation, negotiate on a new and lower lease. If moving to a different premise with the same facilities at a lower price seems like a viable option; Consider it.

3. Invest In Trainings – If you are a corporate, invest in training your best employees. These are the ones who would remain loyal and would help you grow in extensively in the next boom. If you are an individual, training and gearing yourself with new skills would definitely be good since it gives you an edge to market yourself better against competition.

4. Cut Costs Not People – An enterprise would only gain in the long run when they hold on to people and not discard them like trash during troubled economic conditions. Examine the feasibility of salary cuts starting from the top. People would prefer a lower pay to no pay. This would also result in tremendous loyalty once the bad times are over.

5. Technology: The Investment’s Worth It- Invest on technology, this would keep you ahead of competition the when the boom arrives. Cut cost on advertising when it’s not necessary, instead invest it on technology. Man is as good as his tools only !!!

6. Re-Evaluate Your Customers – These are times to re-evaluate your customers. See if they are worth keeping. In the long run if you find that holding on to certain customers would cost you more that you earn, you know what you should be doing !

7. Broaden Your Engagements – Be ok with signing short term deals too. This would give you the required income to run your organization and these might be the High Net worth organizations coming back to you in boom times.

The most important of all, Keep faith, work smart, deliver value. Don’t just wade through the recession, ride it with success.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blogCopyright © Dennis D Maliekal

Satyam Fiasco – The Effect It Has On You And Me

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis D Maliekal) — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 10:46:00 +0000

Ramalinga Raju’s recent confession on the scam at Satyam has resulted in a change of tide not just for the thousands of investors and employees, but for you and me working in different software companies.

The implication of the fiasco at Satyam has basically turned close to 50 thousand experienced professionals into job hunting populace. The experience in this group ranges from that of a fresher to that of a top level manager with 15 – 20+ years in the industry.

There are tons of people who have huge loans to payoff and some may also have dismal financial commitments. This would result in these professionals underselling themselves in the market, thus in turn change the dynamics of the cost of skilled labor.

If you were to get 25 thousand as your take home as a mid level engineer, these folks would be ready to pick up the same job for let’s say 20 thousand or maybe even 15. This would impact the already failing economical state transforming it further into a gloomier one. The Indian IT sector would lose credibility and thus this would evolve into a situation where the Chinese and Pilipinos would have more work that India should be doing.

There is a positive side to this though, with the further depreciation in the job market, our costs would reduce and thus in turn we would be fighting the cost factor against China and Philippines that has loomed around as a threat.

The lesson that we all have to learn here is, ethics and honesty is truly the best policy and no matter how smart or cleaver you are, The Truth Will Be Exposed !!!

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog

Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal 2009

Marketing– Economic Recession and Economic Boom

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis D Maliekal) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 10:09:00 +0000

The marketing team of any company is the sole group that makes sure that the company survives, expands and grows. No matter what the economic situation is, the last in the line of fire is this team. The dissolution of this team directly implies that the shutters are down for the organization.

Why is marketing the best profession to be in? To answer this, let’s look at the 2 different economic situations.

1. The economy is booming – This is the stage when an organization is looking to expand and bloom into something larger. The expansion is direct result of increased business which of course is because the marketing team stepped in and did their job well.

2. The economy is in a recession – Sales are down, customers seem apprehensive to do business, people think 10 times before opening up their wallets. This is the stage when every organization is trying to survive and make sure they never hit an iceberg. The only way to sail through and weather the storm is by having customers do business. This can happen if and only if the marketing team can make it happen. The marketing team is the last hope for an organization to have sustained business. This implies that the jobs of the members of this team are the safest. They are the saviors.

The irony here is the marketing team does not really have to exist, if the product that you sell to your customer carries value. The best marketing that you can get is a happy satisfied customer talking positively about your product.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog
Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal 2009

Legitimate Ways To Make Money Online

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis D Maliekal) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:32:00 +0000

These are interesting times that we are living in. It does not hurt to have a small addition income apart from the monthly pay cheque that you take home. If you are someone who likes using computers and would love to write interesting things that other people would love to read, the additional income is not too far off.

There are a number of ways to make money online, but a handful is legitimate and safe. Beware of all the scams that ask you to pay a small fee to register yourself promising you thousands of Dollars overnight.

Here is list of the 5 most popular ways to make legitimate money online.

1. Google Adsense (Contextual Advertising)– Start by writing a blog on something that is interesting and attracts a lot of visitors. Google Adsense is a great way of having Google placing the right ads on your blog. Create an account in Adsense, write a great blog and start seeing those dollars flowing in.

2. Yahoo Publisher Network (Contextual Advertising) – Similar to Google Adsense, Yahoo Publisher Network allows you to place contextual ads to earn money.

3. Affiliate Programs – This is a great way to earn money online. You place products that a certain merchant wants to sell. Every sale that you generate from your site would yield you a percentage commission from the merchant. Amazon.com has a great affiliate program.

4. Ebay – This is a great place to make money online. Sell products online on Ebay for a tidy profit and that is a huge income based on the sales you do. Simple things like importing electronics from China and selling them in your country would give you tremendous profits.

5. Freelance Writing – If you are knowledgeable and know your stuff well enough, you should look at a lot of places that would pay you for writing. Helium, Shvoong are some places that you can start with.

There are tons of sites which talk about high paying keywords. Words like Chicago Lawyers or Accident Attorney’s or Real Estate and many other high paying keywords. The most important thing here is, do not make a site or a blog to just make money, “Add Value”! You will automatically attract a huge set of dedicated readers if you put in the right content. Till then have fun making those additional dollars :-)

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog
Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal 2009

The Fundamental Rules for a Perfect Customer Satisfaction Score

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis D Maliekal) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 06:54:00 +0000

Rule 1 – The Customer is the most important guest in our organization

Rule 2 – The Customer is not dependent on us. We are dependent on the Customer.

Rule 3 – The Customer is never an Interruption on our work. The Customer is the purpose of the work.

Rule 4 – The Customer is not the outsider in our business, he is the essence of it.

Rule 5 – We are not doing the Customer a favor by serving them. They are doing us a favor by giving us the opportunity to do it.

Rule 6 – The Customer is NOT the king, he is the emperor, but the Customer is NOT always right. The Customer can always be reasoned with justifiable, logical, polite and non-offensive facts.

These rules have been made by Mahatma Gandhi and is visible at a lot of Public places in India.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog
Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal 2009

Building and Maintaining Your Client Base

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis D Maliekal) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 10:08:00 +0000

All organizations have clients. The reason that they have customers is because of the great marketing & sales team that the organization has. These are the heroes who got out there to the deep ocean and fish out customers who indirectly but definitely write our pay cheques.

No matter who the client is, be it a large organization with 10000+ employees or a small business of say 50 people, the ‘Client’ is finally a human. The reason why this was stated is to understand the way people think and work when it comes to buying a product or a solution.

Let’s deep dive at the 3 stages that are involved from the “Marketing & Sales Sell” to the “Final product delivery”

Stage 1: The Emotional Bond
A human being has to reach a height of emotional bonding and desire to buy something big. For example If you had to buy a car, you did for some point of time reach the peak of liking and desire for that particular car, to have actually bought it.

This is the same rule that applies to your clients. Your marketing and sales team has performed the role of getting your client to a level of desire and want for your product or solution, which resulted in a guaranteed sell.

Stage 2: The Buyers Regret
Once a product\solution is bought, it’s only a matter of time (i.e. anywhere from a day to two weeks) when your client enters the phase of ‘The Buyers Regret’. This is the phase where your client would start thinking that he could have got a better deal or a better product and start regretting the current purchase.

This is also the phase where your marketing and sales teams have moved out of the picture and it’s the client coordinator who is in charge to deliver what was promised. Imagine the scenario where your coordinator is not perfectly in sync with what has been promised and sold by the marketing team. This basically results in the recipe for disaster. The client being in the regret phase is further anguished and the regret seems more justified to him.

The Moral here is, always keep the stakeholders in the entire cycle in sync. The Client coordinator has to have a perfect knowledge transfer with the marketing team to understand what was exactly sold.

Stage 3: The Product Shipment
If things went perfectly fine in stage 2, then stage 3 is where you could potentially fall. If the marketing team promises the moon and the stars and what the development team can create is only water and soil, we both know what will the result will be.

The Moral here is, it’s better off to have a smaller satisfied customer base and grow steadily than to have a large one who is continuously breathing down your neck and threatening to break the deal. Your marketing team should know what is the potential of the development team is. They should only sell and promise what can be achieved by the development team by a realistic stretch.

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog
Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal 2009

Games & Gaming Past – Present – Future

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis D Maliekal) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 05:32:00 +0000

A game is defined as a structured activity that is undertaken for enjoyment & pleasure. So follows the definition, a video game is a game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device for enjoyment and fun. Video games have always been an integral part of the lives, of those of us born in the 80’s and beyond. The games ranged from those, played on single game handheld consoles to the very latest PS3’s and Xbox’s. Video games have evolved and transformed with time. The uses they have been put to have not only ranged from entertainment to amusement, but to help train soldiers in combat & high end ultra realistic simulations for pilots.

The Past

One of the first games to become really popular was Pong, a take on table tennis. This was just the advent of people finding entertainment on a visual console. In the mid to late 80’s the 8 bit - 16 bit consoles became popular due to the low cost and easy availability. Games like Bomber Man, Contra, and Super Mario Bros were the greatest hit’s that these consoles featured. Prominently these consoles had games where players could shoot aliens and other weird shaped creatures. The audio that accompanied these games were sounds like ping, pong, boom, and other sounds, which mobiles in the early – mid 90’s used to make. An achievement worth a laurel then was rescuing Princess Peach in Super Mario Bros. Friends and supporters used to gather around to cheer and celebrate the point of reaching end and completing the game.

The princess that was rescued in Mario was more like a white patch on the screen, with an orange tuft on the top portion of the white patch (the head & the body). The color patches put together looked vaguely like a character which was supposed to resemble a human.

Game developers tried their best to avoided humans in their games. Designing human like characters required a lot of work & extreme programming skills. Every game made had to be made from scratch. Game engines were science fiction then. Reusability between games was a herculean task. That’s the reason game developers satisfied themselves with aliens as the villains and white blots on the screen representing space ships that could shoot the aliens as the playable character.
So what’s the difference between the games of then and that of today? What will be the difference between the games of today & that of games released 7 – 10 years from now?

The biggest difference between the games that we play on the 7th Generation consoles (XBOX, PS3 Wii) vs. the 8\16bit console is the Graphics that are rendered in the game. This Comparison would equate to comparing the horseless carriages of 18th century with the Ferrari.

What is similar? To get to this answer, we have to understand what games truly are. Games ideally are a problem set. A gamer solves the set of problem with a defined set of rules to progress further & finally complete it. This brings out the obvious answer on the similarity; it’s the game play.

The Interlude between the Past and the Present

John Carmack, the developer of Doom, one of the most popular FPS game in the history of gaming created the Doom Game Engine. This existence of game engines saw the advent of a new era of game development. Game developers knew what the new tool they had, they would trigger a revolution in the way games would look, feel & experience.
Time passed with better games greeting gamers every time. Games in this stage of evolution slowly witnessed the PC as great means to play games in addition to the existing consoles. Sony was lucky to have a man named Ken Kutaragi as an employee. He persuaded Sony to fund his research of the Super NES CD, which evolved into the first ever PlayStation. This was a revolution in the hardware that was needed to play games. The release of the PlayStation in the Mid 90’s triggered a fierce competition between Sony, Nintendo & Atari, each trying to prove that their gaming hardware was better. Incidentally Ken is known as the father of the Play Station.
With dedicated gaming consoles where the graphics rendering capability was increased several folds further evolved the face of the gaming industry. Human characters were the central focus in the games being developed. It was times when we had a human hero fighting of battles against evil alien invaders and finally protecting dear old earth.

Gamers loved what these games had to offer, but want for more resulted in another breathtaking feature in the world of gaming. Quake was one the first FPS game to incorporate this feature. Most Games today have this as definite feature. Guesses on what are we talking about?

The Multiplayer element! This is the most additive option in a game. Game’s which incorporate multiplayer option has always sold more & better than games which do not incorporate it. The obvious question arises as to Why? No matter how good is the AI in the game, the intelligence exhibited by a human is way superior. Competing against this form of intelligence in the game gives a different sense of challenge and satisfaction to a gamer. A human and not a CPU, is what’s competing against us. The fun factor in a Multiplayer mode is on completely different scale. Games like Quake & Halo where Multiplayer is the essence of the game; have not just followers but cults which portray what the game means to them.

The Japanese had monopolized the game market with Atari, Sony, and Nintendo becoming household brands when it came to gaming. Microsoft sensing opportunity decided to enter this space. The XBOX, being backed by the mighty financial power of Microsoft, had a space reserved for it in the future as a Console which would have a huge customer base.

The Present

We have seen the game play has pretty much remained the same. So what does the present showcase gaming as? Gaming is now evolved into a multi-billion dollar industry. Games of every possible genre have made its way to the gaming market.
Motion picture studios believe that a huge untapped market exists in transforming movies into games. Huge multinational organizations have started to realize that games are the fastest and most cost effective ways to train staff on complicated methods that are required to perform their work.
With the advancement in the Hardware for games, how have the games evolved? The games got more and more complex, no matter how advanced the hardware got, the game always needed more computing power.

The insatiable thirst for powerful graphics processing hardware was a boon for companies like Nvidia, AMD (ATI), IBM (Cell). These organizations made and are still making huge profits, selling graphic cards, and gaming CPU’s to both the Console and the PC based game populace.

Today there are awesome games. Games that take you into a completely new world, where things look so real, that the gamer is so much in unity with the game which he or she is playing. But the question is, are the games “Really that Real”?
The answer is No; this answer reverberates in the minds of most the game publishers including EA, Ubisoft, RockStar, Gathering of Developers, Take Two and all the other big gaming giants. So why is it not so real? The graphics look so real, the skin tones of the character is amazing, so much like mine. The clothes that the character put on are also so strikingly real. So what then is the problem here?

The Future

The future of gaming would address not just the problems faced in the present, but a whole new set of features that would blend the real and the virtual worlds together.
Revisiting the problem that was mentioned in the previous section; there is nothing called realistic emotions on the Characters face. The lack of emotions makes game characters look so plastic, so zombie like. The Holy Grail that all game developers are looking at now is to introduce true emotion in the characters. Emotions just like what a human would exhibit. That’s what would be the Future. That’s what the next generation games & game developers are expected to deliver. This would be the next huge chunk of development in the next generation game engines, where emotions would of central focus.

Surprisingly there is an industry that’s already perfected this art of portraying realistic emotions on artificial animated characters. The industry is the Animation & Cartoon industry. Companies like Disney, DreamWorks, and Pixar etc. The presumption as to why they can do it is because they have such huge computing power & memory to spare when developing these cartoons. The animation being pre-rendered and processed does not require specialized hardware to display it on the visual interface. Transmitting this is a very easy task. This of course is quite different with games. The rendering power that a developer has is the rendering power that the console has. This results in Console manufacturer researching and finding out how best they can incorporate the mechanisms that the animation industry is using into their hardware.

The next big thing that games in the future would have is involving a lot of the real world into the virtual world. This would involve game characters being able to shop on the net in game. This would be something like connecting to e-commerce sites to probably buy music or movies that can be watched or listened to as in game movies or music. The other use would be using VOIP or Internet Telephony within the game (Skype, Yahoo messenger), such that the character within the game can talk to another character in the same game on a different console within a network.
The future would have games played in specialized enclosure where, the environment would ambiently change with the game. These enclosures would have the lighting, temperature, wind speed, sound levels change with the game.

Conclusion
We traveled through how games have made it through time & what would possibly be in store for the future. But for now happy gaming with the what’s in the present

For more entrepreneurial talk and ideas visit the Home Page of my blog
Copyright © Dennis D Maliekal 2009