$12K and a stupid idea

See how Guy turned $12K and a stupid idea into a beautiful social media website

How to be productive everyday?

There's an awesome article on how to productive everyday,its worth reading, go read it.

Pundits are always wrong?

Yesterday Seth posted "Pundits are (nearly) always wrong" on his blog,Is it true? he says

Talk show bookers, business plan competitions, acquiring book editors, movie critics, tech entrepreneurs who run trade shows that try to predict the future, tech bloggers, marketing bloggers... when we're trying to predict whether a new technology or web site or book or song is going to hit, we're almost always wrong.

Yes, No doubt Seth is one of the best of marketing pundits,but I dont completely agree with seth,may be seth exaggerated his view for pundits being wrong,sometimes,It is not neccessary that a pundit should predict the future correctly,after all he is just driven by his paradigms of the world and nobody's paradigms are accurate, Some one doesn't getting a thing doesn't make him wrong, I agree with Roger, he says

Warren Buffet initially passed on Intel and Microsoft I believe, does that make him wrong about everything else? If Mark Cuban or Nike liked your basketball shoe design does that mean you should trash it?

How I negotiated to waive my overlimit fee and late fee

I was pretty bad with my personal finance,now I'm kinda getting better at this,for the past couple of months I was charged an overlimit fee of Rs 700 and a late fee of Rs 500 per month and a yearly charge of Rs 2000 on my Gold credit card.
I called up the bank's customer care

Customer care girl: Hi, Im ......... How may I help you?
I:Hey,Why did you charge me the annual fee on my credit card?
CCG : Sorry sir,I will wave it! (cool!)
I:I have been charged this late fee and overlimit fee,I want you to waive it off.
CCG: Sorry sir,I can't do that you've crossed your credit limit and you've delayed your credit card payment.
I: But, I told you guys to increase my limit!
CCG: I'm very sorry sir,I dont see any kind of request for increasing your credit limit
I: No, I called up customer care before n you can't charge me the late fee too, coz i dropped the check in first week of the month.
CCG: Sorry Sir, I can't help you with this, You have to pay the fee.
I was loosing my composure but I kind of restored it, then I said: Yeah I do understand you can't do it,Ok, I will pay off the amount, you please let me know how to discontinue the credit card
CCG: Sir? Please understand sir,We can't waive it off,It's a company rule
I:Yeah I do know,I'm telling you I'm gonna pay them ,You just let me know how to discontinue my card
CCG: Could you gimme a second sir, I need to talk to my supervisor.
CCG: Sir,We gonna waive off the fee,Is there anything else I can help you with? , I was filled with a sense of pride,I did my first ever negotiation,all that I learned about negotiations did help me,but the awesome thing is, it worked twice!!.

Using analogies

I always found the most profound thinkers always use analogies to explain new ideas,today i was reading Ben's blog n it reads from Steven Pinker's review on scietific illiteracy

A good analogy does not just invoke some chance resemblance between the thing being explained and the thing introduced to explain it. It capitalizes on a deep similarity between the principles that govern the two things...A good analogy helps you think: the more you ponder it, the better you understand the phenomenon. But all too often in Angier’s writing, the similarity is sound-deep: the more you ponder the allusion, the worse you understand the phenomenon

Awesome lip sync video

I kinda watched this video on kiruba's blog n thought I should post it on mine too, it is awesoooooome, my office is aint that cool :(

Gossip helped evolution of human intelligence?

I've learnt a weird thing searching for psychology of rumours on google n it is gossip helped evolution of human intelligence!. The original article describes the difference between rumor and gossip,it reads "Rumors are different from gossips. The former are public communications "infused with private hypotheses about how the world works (Rosnow, 1991), or more specifically, ways of making sense to help us cope with our anxieties and uncertainties (Rosnow, 1988, 2001)." Gossips are more private in nature, and "it has been theorized that gossip played a fundamental role in the evolution of human intelligence and social life (Dunbar, 2004; Davis & McLeod, 2003) and that it continues to play an active role in cultural learning (Baumeister, Zhang, & Vohs, 2004) and as a source of social comparison information (Suls, 1977; Wert & Salovey, 2004a)." , interesting eh?

Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out

This is a youtube video I saw sometime before,Apparently shot by one of three bridesmaids, it shows a bride so unhappy with her hairstyle on her wedding day that she starts cutting it off! I was quite astonished to find out later that it's a Viral marketing video made to promote sunsilk.I should say ,its a brilliant piece of work.

Sustainable Prosperity?

Sounds like a dream,doesn't it?But people say it is not!

“Achieving sustainable prosperity will require integrating environmental and social challenges into corporate strategies and capital markets so that the global economy and the global community can flourish hand in hand.”
-Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, a sustainable business network that just hosted its 2007 “Advancing Sustainable Prosperity” conference in Boston, MA.

80 percent of the people at the conference cited climate change as the largest challenge to global economic sustainability.
Read the original article

Google analytics

Google released the new version of analytics on May 8 in sanfrancisco and the interface is really cool.Google analytics´s official blog says "we've redesigned the reporting interface for greater customization and collaboration. This should make it easier for businesses and website owners to find and share the data you need to make informed decisions. The new version presents data more clearly and in context, so you can look at a single report to gain insights rather than having to pull up several reports to understand what action to take".
Seth godin says "If you don't understand how to do goal tracking and funnel analysis, don't use Analytics until you do", the thing is that it offers extensive report on web traffic and helps you to convert traffic to revenue. Even if the tracking isn't realtime it is accurate and it is for free!,So If you dont already have it for your website, you should!

World's Best presentation Contest

Winner - Shift Happens by Jeff brenman

World's Best presentation Contest

People's choice winner Pani Puri by Thakkar

The name tag guy and 55 Questions

does it sound like Alibaba and 40 thieves,nope? Ok!, I learnt about this guy from John jantsch's blog,a guy who wears a name tag all the time to make himself more approachable, sounds funny eh?but the serious stuff is this guy scott is a writer,speaker n hes that guy with the name tag n he's got those 55 great questions you'd wanna ask somebody you've just met,go read em.

iPhone Challenge: Marketing pundits unite

I read this interesting post on seth godins blogregarding the iphone,
Steve Ballmer says, "There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance."
n seth says apple will sell 2m phone just in 2007,what do you think? will the steve job's magic work? Let's wait n see.