Quarter 7 - Week 5

We had two guest lectures this week, and as always, they've been spectacular! One's a biggie, a hotshot from the advertising arena, and the other's a serial entrepreneur in the e-business arena. It's really cool to see the energy that they had, it's quite contagious! Seeing the depth in one's creativity, and the depth in the other's analytics, and the way they're describing their stories to you, it tends to make you realize that they're human, just like you, with their own flaws, and hence if they could do, anyone can do it. All you need to do, is to atleast try to make use of your knowledge... take the leap. Challenge yourself.

E-business Models and Strategies

The first session was a discussion regarding Dell, and the way they disrupted PC/laptop delivery, and went on to break even bigger barriers by going online. Once again, we used a particular model to figure out how the flow of information and physical parts between the different players in this industry, and compared this with the other players like Compaq, IBM etc. Based on this, we figured out where Dell gets its major advantage from, in terms of depth in areas like customer insight, control over channel and the final transaction.

The second session was the one with the guest lecture, surrounding the case of TutorVista.com. And the speaker in this case was none other than the founder himself! Pretty amicable and friendly in nature, he talked of how he launched the venture, and went on to question us on why he might have made the decisions he did. And whenever he replied, or explained about something, he made it sound so simple. As simple as "I have A, I need C, so I find B and add it to A!". And then the side remark on the fact that "We do what we can, and then later if it succeeds the academics including your professor come by, look at what we did, ask us about it, write a case study, and THEN tell the world why what we did worked!". A very interesting session, one that says that even if you work according to the theories, analyse enough, still at some point, you need to attempt something that hasn't been attempted before, that hasn't been studied before. That might be your saving grace, after all.

Research for Marketing Decisions

I dont remember much from the first session, apparently I didnt even take notes. Now I remember I wasn't asleep, but it doesn't feel that different anyway. I'm guessing he was talking about exploratory research and experimental research, but, damn it, I don't remember!

The second session was split into two parts. The first was an hour's worth of presentations from our classmates on some case studies, and then he went on to explain a little bit about sampling to us. We also had a test, so I was poring over the book more than I was listening to the presentations. Finally, the test.. which mercifully had quite a bit of similar portions from the last test, but some different questions.

I'd rather not talk about it.

Marketing Communications

The first session was by this guest lecturer from JWT, one of the biggest names in advertising world-wide. I must say, these guys know how to make a presentation! This guy mixed in bollywood, a few naughty ads, and some ten fundas which he presented to explain how you go about making a pitch to clients! Brilliant stuff, I've never felt time pass by as fast as this, in a long time. And the coolest part (especially since I sit with a nice wide-angle view of the others in class), is that whenever a new funda came on screen, everyone leans forward to jot it down. Now remember, these students aren't your nerd equivalents... we don't care about marks, heck, we dont even have placements! But still, that's how cool those fundas were... and he'd then go on to cite examples, show videos, explain why and easily transition to the next. What can I say, it was just... amazing!

The next session, was a little more low key. We have now entered the field of media strategy. All this time we were talking about why ads are more nerdy, tear-jerky, call-to-action-y, the way they are. But now we've started talking about why and how you've to choose between the different vehicles of communication. The different rates, how you choose the slots based on the type of audience you're trying to target. Was all good fun. And oh yes, good learning too. We were talking about Suave, a company that's into value-products for hair, shampoos, hair sprays, the likes. Quite a bit of head-churning, but as usual, the prof knows how to make it fun! :)

And once again, we're off on a two-week break, as the full-timers have their midterms coming up on the next weekend. So, we are going to chill... I mean study hard for our midterms in the week after, and work on a project that has to be submitted in a few days, and maybe it might slip our minds that we're now half done for this quarter.