Author: manu prasad

  • A change of course

    There was an intriguing article on HBR last month, titled “Can Companies Both Do Well and Do Good?” It was based on a research that looked at the correlation  between the financial performance of firms and their social & environmental performance. At the corners of a grid made of both kinds of performances on X and Y axes respectively, are Idealists (great on socio-environmental, but low on financial performance) Trendsetters, Exploiters and Laggards, in the clockwise direction. As should be expected, there are companies all over the chart, and the correlation is near zero! There were outliers, of course, but not really a pattern.

    It made me think whether it was possible for the corporations we see around to do good and well. I am not talking of CSR or ad hoc sustainability projects that would temporarily bring them to a Trendsetter level, but a radical shift that would stand the test of time. We are seeing a paradigm change in the way business is done, but this era is only the beginning of that transformation. In general, the entities we see around are hard wired to maximise profit and not really to spare a thought on the social/environmental or I daresay human fallout of their activities. These are large corporations with individual personnel, processes, shareholders who are used to a certain perspective. These are systems with a single point agenda. Is it really possible to shift them without a huge investment of all kinds of resources – time, energy, money – with no guarantee that this would really benefit the firm in the long run?

    So does this mean that in the medium-long term, these corporations are destined to fail as our understanding of achieving a balance between profit and being ‘good’ matures, and only those which have started/start now with a DNA that is meant to achieve this balance will do well? Or is it that as the individual and societal mindset gradually change, and as social business evolves, corporations will also be able to use that time to slowly transform themselves? I do wonder. What do you think?

    until next time, become the change you want to see

  • Crambuddy

    CramBuddy uses content, quizzing and social networking to help students in their learning process. In conversation with founder Chirag Patel

    [scribd id=123281362 key=key-btc9awadhsis2e69t0n mode=scroll]

  • Search me..

    I was quoted in a recent Social Samosa post – on Facebook Graph Search. Do check it out on their website, it has useful thoughts from various others as well.

    Given that it is a fairly large move, (third pillar, Facebook calls it) I thought I’ll add to my quote there. As a final goal, both Google and Facebook are trying to organise and display information to users, because contextually relevant information is still a means to revenue, especially in the era of information overload. Google crawls the web, and Facebook uses social connections as a means to gaining this information. Google is also trying to add social as a context, and Facebook has Bing’s support. It’s not a war now, but it’s definitely armament.

    Facebook has tons of data to get this right, and this is dynamic data, thanks to the information we supply, and this is going to get better as Pages (and people) start optimising for Graph Search. Also, once the Open Graph is integrated and actions outside FB also start becoming data, it will become a larger treasure trove of information. Though there’s no advertising product in sight, I will wager that it is an advertising foray in the guise of a consumer tool. As I wrote in the article, Facebook now has the user’s intent broadly divided into 4 categories (people, places, photos and interests), along with his/her ‘influencers’. All of this will allow for some massive segmentation, and thus better targeted ads. And this is not necessarily evil, it can be damn useful because discoverability will be increased.

    In terms of implication for brands, (like I said in the quote) brands with organic signals (eg. for a retail outlet, check in at a physical location) will have a starting advantage. Once the Open Graph kicks in, social actions on websites will become a huge advantage. Content marketing takes on added significance since every action on FB increases the chances of a brand being discovered. Oh yes, Like is a back with a vengeance! On a tangential note, recruiters could use Graph Search as a hiring tool.

    It’s a long shot, but what would happen if Graph Search was thrown open to Pages. Think about it – as a page admin, I already have the ability to target my post to a certain level (about 7 parameters) but that’s really basic demographics. What if I were able to target (organically) (as Myntra) an Angry Birds t-shirt post at people in India who Like Angry Birds. (or even standard apparel brands)

    Meanwhile, there are two immediate concerns. One – privacy. Users will, over a period of time, calibrate the information they supply to Facebook with the advantages of doing so, but it will be a difficult process. The second, I will highlight through a comment made by Romit on Twitter

    But this is just version 1. I’m sure Facebook will have/build more signals inside the hood to filter data. Social just became even more interesting. For that. Facebook gets a thank you.

    until next time, Like I said…

  • Treetle

    Treetle helps you find people in your neighbourhood who are interested in the same things that you are. In conversation with founder Pankaj Dugar..

    [scribd id=122398088 key=key-2d5x186ls25co2ncjha8 mode=scroll]

  • With great data…

    LinkedIn’s article curation is improving very well in my case. What I particularly like is the dash of serendipity in the list. One of the articles I recently read was “Are we all being fooled by Big Data?” Though it is less to do with business per se and is skewed towards economic forecasting, it does make for a very interesting read.

    Gartner’s 2013 Strategic Technology Trends has Strategic Big Data as one. In fact, I’d also add ‘The Internet of Things’, ‘In Memory Computing’ and ‘Actionable Analytics’ (also in the list) as related items, as a source, enabler and application respectively. While Big Data has been talked about for a while now, and has seen applications as well, I am not sure how accessible it is to the majority of organisations and brands. In essence, is it ‘mainstream’ enough? (I see organisations struggling to link existing data) Are there frameworks being built that will aid analysis and action across various functional domains – ways to nimbly access and use contextually relevant ‘packets’ from troves?

    Probably 2013 is when we will see things moving. But there’s something about data that worries me. This has come from my own experience as well as from the things I have read/heard. And that’s where the organisation’s intent becomes important, because you can find data to validate most anything! This is all the more significant because with improving technology, the volumes of data will have the potential to help brands shift paradigms and disrupt the status quo. But it can also be used for strategic/tactical blunders. As the saying goes “If you torture data long enough, it will confess to almost anything“

    All of this reminds me of social media. The hype, the evangelism, the tools and so on. And just like social, Big Data has in it the ability to amplify the inherent nature of the enterprise.

    until next time, think big