29

Oct

CEO BLOGS: The next best thing

CEOs have a lot to worry about, the least being the bottomline. Sometimes, surviving everyday troubles can take the life out of you. To make matters worse are nasty comments being made on you and your company both in the press and online. There has to be some way to not only emerge as a thought leader but also stem the misrepresentation. Importantly, it’s about creating a great working rapport with employees, investors, friends and potential recruits. And blogging is the way to go.

A CEO blog that carries illuminating, insightful and sometimes, entertaining information is more readable than something that is a mere press release. After all, nobody wants to worship anybody. They all want to know how to make the most of your blog post. And even if they don’t benefit monetarily, they should atleast be able to read a heartwarming, inspirational or entertaining story from the person heading the company. That’s the real ice breaker.

If you can call press releases as formal wear, CEO blogging is business casual. It’s a unique tool for CEOs to share their personal reflections, insights, news, musings and information, all dispensed in a direct and conversational style that invites discussion. It is a great platform where they can share their thoughts about the trends and issues they face, ask questions that genuinely bewilder them and, to varying degrees, talk about their personal life, hobbies and passions.
As an external recruiting tool, a CEO blog can be quite effective. After reading the blog, many like-minded companies and individuals might want to partner with the CEO.

Conventional wisdom suggests that you spend all of your time closing deals. But, the fact is that blogging will be the best idea and lead generator. The point isn’t to sign as many deals as possible; it’s to sign the right deals under the right terms. Developing a reputation as an industry leader will enable that.
Some examples of good CEO blogs include Bill Marriott (Executive Chairman, Marriott International), Richard Edelman (President & CEO, Edelman), Colin Byrne (CEO, Weber Shandwick EMEA, Mark Cuban (proprietor, Dallas Mavericks, Landmark Theatres & Magnolia Pictures), Ross Mayfield (Chairman & co-founder, SocialText) and Matt Blumberg (proprietor, Return Path), among others.

Somebody once said that we’re defined by the stories we tell ourselves. Indeed, in a world where others’ perception of you is a function of a Google query, you need to own your online presence, and CEO blogging is the way to go.

Welcome to CEO blogs. Welcome to business casual.

P.S: I specialise in generating content for CEO blogs. You can reach me here: zahid@writewing.in

207 days ago Short URL Comments

People/Technology

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15

May

Fast Company: 5 Ways To Smarter Ideas From Atari Founder Nolan Bushnell http://goo.gl/mag/LUVNY

374 days ago Short URL Comments

Business/Technology

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19

Dec

Bengaluru on Friday: Issue 8

 

Here is the new tabloid brought out by me. Do read, comment and suggest ways to better it. There’s always room for improvement. Happy reading!

521 days ago Short URL Comments

Books/Technology

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18

Dec

Bengaluru on Friday: Issue No 7

 

Read this new tabloid launched by me in Bangalore. And leave your comments. The more brickbats and suggestions, the better. So we can improve the product. Happy reading!

522 days ago Short URL Comments

Books/Technology

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26

Jul

Blend it like Beckham

Blender manufacturers are resorting to all sorts of zany viral campaigns to make their products stick. One in the news these days is a series developed to make people sit up and take notice. Not so much for the visuals, but the idea of it all. Can marbles, wood, golf balls and even a McDonald’s Value Meal be crushed by a standard blender? Or will it lose its fangs in the bargain? Ofcourse, the blender’s good and therefore it holds its ground and makes you wonder if it’s a visual trick or if it’s really possible. Well, when has advertising been about saying the truth and nothing but the truth. It has always been about generating a buzz that will stick and hopefully generate sales for the advertiser in question. Take this YouTube video of golf balls being chewed to bits. According to stats, it has had over 821,389 views and counting.

Technology can bite and heal. Here is a case where it is not only cost-effective, but also has far more reach than any other medium. We are talking about the Internet. At the OnMedia NYC conference in Manhattan, the occasion was to give away 2007′s best of broadband awards. They hand-picked Web video ads that grabbed the most eyeballs on the Internet. Some that made the cut included user-generated ad contests like Frito Lay’s ‘Crash the Super Bowl’; Ray-Ban’s ‘Never Hide’; Unilever’s Dove ‘Campaign for Real Beauty’; and “Will It Blend?” What’s that, you ask? It’s the blender ads that I was talking about. Apparently, blender manufacturer BlendTec created these YouTube blender series without the help of an external agency, and achieved notoriety with its ‘iPhone in a blender’ video.

Which brings me to one such promotion that grabbed my retina. Ofcourse, diamonds could be a girl’s best friend, but they are no friend of a blender. Under pressure, they could crack up, too. The premise of the video? “Will a Diamond Engagement Ring Blend?” Ofcourse, it could. Abazias Diamonds shredded a real diamond engagement ring in a Blendtec blender! Take a look at the video HERE.

PS: ‘Blender’ is also the name of a 3D computer animation tool that runs on Linux (and other platforms) and is popular in Open Source circles.

668 days ago Short URL Comments

Business/Technology

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19

Jul

Songify your life

Songify is a smart app at the app store that turns you into a singer. Just speak into your iPhone or iPod touch and set one of three music styles and you are good to go.

The app turns you into a pop and rap singer. With six more paid options, you could have a more complete musical portfolio.

I have sung an ode to my daughter using this app. It’s on Facebook. Which means, you can also share your creations on Facebook and Twitter or email yourself.

Songifying your life wasn’t easy until now.

674 days ago Short URL Comments

Technology

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12

Jul

Facebook gets email and video calling

Now you can also mail yourname@facebook.com. Yes, that’s the new feature of Facebook besides video calling. However, you can’t do group video calls yet. But that’s something you can do with Google+ (right now available only to a limited audience). But more on that in a future post.

The email feature is great, because sometimes, you know your Facebook friends, but don’t know their email ID. This way, you can pretty much guess the email ID of the person from their Facebook ID and reach out to them. And the fact that all your facebook conversations are arranged in a sequence makes reading easier, too. Just like Gmail.

However, the biggest minus remains: all and sundry get to read our Facebook updates and I have some 400 of them and counting. Here is where Google+ scores. Nobody gets to invite themselves – you do. And this helps in keeping your circle informed about everything in your world.

681 days ago Short URL Comments

Technology

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11

Jul

Nettigritty’s customer service is laudable

When one of my friends suggested the Bangalore-based Nettigritty.com as an efficient website hosting provider, I opted for it without raising my brows. And I haven’t regretted it since 2007.

The best happened only today. My friend had set me up on the self-hosted WordPress platform. When I was having trouble trying to manually update the WordPress version (I had version  2.6.1, which cannot be done automatically), I asked them for help. And they agreed to do it themselves even though that wasn’t their job.

They did it for this site and my other site (bollywoodviews.com) without so much as a quibble. I was taken aback by their level of customer service and said so.

These are times when customer service is excellent only when you are about to sign up. After that, they don’t bother to address your issues. In such a scenario, Netti Gritty comes as a welcome relief. And yes, before I forget, their turnaround time is another remarkable feature. They are so prompt that you wonder if they are waiting to serve you even when you don’t need them. That’s the real mark of customer service: going beyond your calling.

Thank you, Netti Gritty! You make us all proud.

682 days ago Short URL 1 Comment

Technology

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29

Mar

Nokia app for The Diary of Z

For many years, you have been following this blog online and through RSS feeds straight to your inbox. Since, the world is increasingly turning mobile, it was about time this blog and its sister blogs (bollywoodviews.com & astrofreak.com) were available on your smartphones.

Now, the app titled ‘The Diary of Z’ is available under the ‘Applications’ section in the Ovi Store for all Symbian phones. Download it. It’s free worldwide.

Happy reading!

786 days ago Short URL Comments

Technology

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28

Mar

Gmail full? There’s a solution

If your gmail inbox is full or close to exceeding it’s free 7.5GB storage, there’s help.

You can either upgrade to 20GB for as little as $5 or better still, save on that as well with findbigmail.com.

Yes, this is the best service i stumbled upon just the other day. I already have an expanded Gmail storage. But i did try out this nifty software. And it works beautifully. Within minutes, it organised my inbox of 9GB into different sized folders: Top 20 big emails, emails over 2mb, and so on.

I deleted many of the emails with huge photo attachments by working backwards – the oldest to the newest. Within no time, my inbox size was down to 5GB. That’s cutting flab by 40%.

Thank you, findbigmail.

Posted by Wordmobi

787 days ago Short URL Comments

Technology

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28

Mar

Twitterfeed is your social networking Jeeves

Twitterfeed.com works like Jeeves. If you are an active blogger. Have multiple blogs, but want all of them to become tweets and facebook wall messages, this is it.

Just register online and authenticate by logging into your twitter and facebook accounts, and you are set.

Every time, you upload a new blog post, the headline and first sentence will go up as a tweet and facebook post. Convenient indeed.

Posted by Wordmobi

787 days ago Short URL Comments

Technology

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28

Mar

Nokia app: You can make your own for free

While it’s expensive and time-consuming to make an iphone app, it’s very easy for Nokia’s Ovi store.

All you have to do is visit ovi.nokia.com and click on the button that says something like ‘Make your own app’. And you are set to go.

With easy steps on uploading and cropping icon, company logo and related stuff, you are done creating the app in minutes.

The added advantage? Nokia already has two advertisers who are ready to monetise your app if you choose to…

Which means, if you are running a blog, you can create an app for it, so people can access your rss feeds on their smartphones….

I have done mine. It’s in the waiting list now… Once Nokia approves it, it will go live.

Posted by Wordmobi

788 days ago Short URL Comments

Technology

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