Understanding the Credit Crisis

I was browsing and came across this astonishing representation of the credit crisis. You are sure to fall in love with the animation which so beautifully describes the fall of investment banks. Here’s the link http://www.vimeo.com/3261363

Even if you have been following the credit crunch you’ll find this piece informative.

Social Change and the Web

The web is increasingly being used as a marketing tool. There is so much content on the web that people get lost in tons of data. Judging good from bad, relevant from irrelevant and authentic from unauthentic is not easy. Inspite of the tremendous potential of the web to get a campaign heard, web marketing is increasingly getting complicated. People outrightly reject new marketing initiatives with which they cannot connect with. At the end of the day, there are very few campaigns which utilize the full potential of the web, others just decay into this sea of eternity.

The most successful campaigns are invariably the ones with a social aspect attached to them. I consider The Pink Chaddi Campaign to be one of the biggest success stories of the web in recent times. The campaign was aimed at teaching the Ram Sena a lesson who took up the role of moral policemen and beat up women who they considered indecent. The idea was to flood the office of the Ram Sena with pink chaddis (which I think is symbolic to women empowerment). People across the country were livid with the incident of women being beaten up in Mangalore, and thus quickly connected with the initiative. The campaign spread like wildfire across the web, mostly with the facebook community which swelled to 52000 members within 2 weeks.

The idea is to have people connect with your initiative, which is more probable if your campaign is social in nature. Another great success story is the Jaago Re campaign of TATA tea. The campaign was not originally started by TATA tea, but they did well to synergize TATA tea’s marketing with a social cause. The campaign has already registered 2.5 lac voters becoming a nationwide success. This has got TATA tea a visibility on the web which no other means could have got.

There are many other examples like these across the web. A word of advice here would be to not deliberately try and connect a social campaign with your marketing strategy. People have a knack of kicking out the phoney. Afterall, jaagore and Tata Tea make sense together.

Social entrepreneurs today have powers like never before. They have a web at their feet which can spread their message like never before. An individual social change maker today has powers even greater than that possessed by Jesus Christ, Mohammad Prophet or Gautam Buddha. They were great men who had an extremely powerful idea. The only thing they did not have was a blog which could be followed by millions of people or a mail server which could send newsletters to huge mailing lists.

Venture Capital ( Transparency + Accountability )

I came across an interesting blog post which is an open offer of venture capital. The terms a really interesting. To me a lot of them make sense (especially the fact that this guy is not interested in any businesses which want to generate revenues out of advertising). He calls it ‘an open source funding environment’. You can go through this post and form your own opinions. Hope it is of some help

here’s the post http://blogmaverick.com/2009/02/09/the-mark-cuban-stimulus-plan-open-source-funding/

Interview on GRE, GMAT, TOEFL

We had a detailed session on GRE, GMAT and TOEFL in our college. Mr. Madhuresh Rai (who is the alumni of our college and doing MS in Finance in Chicago). A lot of people wrestle with the idea of doing their masters abroad before starting up. I hope you can get some help out of this exhaustive interview. Here is the full draft http://anmolsinha.blogspot.com/2009/02/information-on-gre-toefl-gmat.html

Biodiversity Conservation India Limited (BCIL)

Imagine buildings that don’t need power, electricity or sewerage from the local municipality. Self Sustainable, green buildings are what Dr. Hariharan and his team are building at BCIL.

You can check out his entrepreneurial journey here http://www.nenonline.org/jsp/eweek09/green_leaders_article1.jsp

He will also be a part of NEN’s eweek from 7-14 February 2009.

Ecopreneurship

The National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) is organising Entrepreneurship Week 2009 to celebrate the spirit of ecopreneurship. The theme for the event is “Go Green: The World is our Business”.

E Week India 2009 will connect young people across the country through a range of activities and programs to harness their potential as innovators and problem-solvers. In doing so, students will begin to acquire the knowledge, skills and values required to grow high-potential, sustainable enterprises for a brighter tomorrow.

You can find a whole lot of more information at http://www.nenonline.org/jsp/eweek09/index.jsp

Resources for Entrepreneurs

I found a very comprehensive and resourceful website that has loads of articles for entrepreneurs. I generally believe in having face to face interaction with entrepreneurs, which is perhaps the best way to learn. But every now and then there should also be some self analysis.

here’s the web link http://www.gaebler.com/

They have inserted google ads in a very offensive way, but that is not a problem as long as the place is resourceful. I hope you benefit out of it.

Proto.in – The Startup Event

Proto.in is a startup event. It provides a platform for startups from within and around the Indian subcontinent to participate, share, discuss and draw strength from the growing entrepreneurial community, in an effort to create world-class products and product leaders from the region.

Proto.in Goals

1.  To Showcase Innovative technology products borne out of India

2.  To Encourage, grow and create entrepreneurial awareness

3.  To create a community of startup entrepreneurs, who can grow in strength and numbers, drawing wisdom from each other.

4.  To act as a bridge between well-established companies, veteran entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, analysts, journalists, professionals and grass-root entrepreneurs.

Event Dates : 23, 24 January 2009 at Bangalore

Register for the event at http://www.proto.in/register/

Interview with Mr. Arun Kr Jain, Vice President, UP Chamber of Commerce

Mr. Arun Kr. Jain is a first generation entrepreneur apart from being the Vice President of the Uttar Pradesh Chamber of Commerce. He is in the business of applied materials and development of dome structures. His company has installed dome structures in a large number of cities in India. I decided to quiz him on issues related to conduciveness of doing business in Uttar Pradesh.

Here’s what I rememeber

me: What is the role of Chamber of Commerce in India ?

Mr. Jain: The CCI acts as an intermediate between the government and various agencies which are into providing land, development of land, development of industries, financial bodies and other related things. We try to solve problems faced by them. The Chamber also takes decisions to reform and suggest the government as to what changes are required for the development of the state. For an entrepreneur, CCI puts you across various bodies at different stages of development, provides information, gives an idea about the procedures and solves bottlenecks if any.

me: What is the general mindset of foreign investors regarding Uttar Pradesh ?

Mr. Jain: They are NOT happy. There is a lot of red tapism and even sanctions. Sometimes the systems here are not responsive. They expect the system to deliver efficiently in the shortest time, which does not happen here. The number of procedures also needs to be simplified. For certain purposes there are as many as 139 forms which needs to be filled for getting the work done.

me: Is the Chamber of Commerce influential enough in negotiating with the government to drive reforms ?

Mr. Jain: It is not influential as it can be. Most of the members like me are involved in their own businesses. Its only when something big happens, do organizations like ours really rise up and force the government to drive reforms. Today, if we have to change the system we need a lot of individual initiative to drive reforms. The best way for growth is to put pressure on the political system to perform.

me: What do you suggest for the India growth story ?

Mr. Jain: Reforms is the way to go. Unfortunately, the second generation of reforms did not come since 1991-92. Infact, this is the time for 3rd generation of reforms. We can’t just live in the age of 1991 which was almost 20 years back. Entrepreneurs need to be nurtured. There has to be a support system for them. Whenever the government is involved, it is usually the large enterprises who benefit. Small and Medium enterprises do not benefit as much. I believe we have to device a system where politicians are accountable. As an example, I know of a wonderful bridge project which got sanctioned for 300 crores. The same project was later done by a major construction company for 36 crores. So someone has to be responsible for bad decision making. Afterall, its the tax payers money.

P.S. I was able to take only a short interview of his as we travelled to his place in a car. He was full of disdain for the government of UP and its policies and leaders. I have left the issues related to Mayawati and her government out of the interview.

Farewell to George W. Bush

I hereby say farewell to George W. Bush, who I believe in his own right has been a great leader. I don’t say “great leader” because I want to justify some of the decisions he took. He, in his term, has made some horrendous mistakes. I say “great leader” because of his ability to push tough decisions. I say “great leader” because of his ability to get those people along with him, who were his most vehement opposers. I say “great leader” because of the sheer charisma with which he speaks and implements decisions.

President Bush was greeted by the 9/11 attacks when his term began. Thats when he stood up to the occasion and vowed to crush Al Qaida and Osama Bin Laden. The sheer determination by which the rescue work was carried out was a reflection of the American attitude. There has not been a single act of terrorism in America henceforth.

The Iraq war began before Bush renominated himself for the next election. At that time Americans didn’t know that the intelligence report regarding weapons of mass destruction was wrong and the fact that America didn’t have any post war solutions in Iraq. It was George W. Bush’s charisma which got him re-elected. Americans felt safe in his leadership. But then, everything went wrong, and now there are talks of Bush being the worst president of the United States of America.

Every policy or economic decision Bush took was frowned at. Inspite of that he was able to push them and get them passed by the senate. Be it a huge cut in taxes, increased spending on education and the legendary Nuclear Deal with India. On his way out of the office, Bush was faced with perhaps the biggest economic challenge of America; the credit crisis. By this time, the people of America and the senate thought there is nothing that Bush could do right. His bailout plan of $700bn was outrightly rejected. I don’t know what Bush does to push his plans, but a week hence the senate was by his side and the bailout was passed.

The tenure of Bush saw some of the toughest times for America. The terrorist attacks of 2001, the two wars after that, the hurricane Katrina and the Credit Crisis were the features of the last 8 years. George W. Bush in his farewell speech put what I was thinking very aptly, “You may not agree with some tough decisions I have made, but I hope you can agree that I was willing to make tough decisions.”

The motor of the world is kept running by people like Bush. The ability to make difficult choices and implementing them is what is required by more leaders and entrepreneurs to take humanity to new heights. At least we don’t need people who can only talk, who only have opinions after everything has happened. Someones got to make things happen first.

P.S. This post is not meant to express my opinions on whether Bush was a good president. It was just his leadership style which I liked. I wish I could have known more about the way he does things. I believe Bush’s skills are great for entrepreneurship.