Technology, style, trends, analysis, questioning the normal, if you got it flaunt it, hep and X-Generation audience, drawing the best talent and creative minds to this blog to share with the rest.
Blog Camp 2008 is at the horizon and we are planning an usual 2 day event but with added scope of content and audience from regional language bloggers in tamil, hindi also to converge in this event. Mainstream media today has a great recognition for citizen journalism and blogging. For such bloggers we aim to create a networking opportunity to mingle with the techies to know better ways to commercialise their blogs and manage analytics and related areas. On personal space mobile blogging has arrived in India with availability of cheaper bandwidth and mobile gadgets that facilitate blogging easily. These are some of the added features and scope of content that will be discussed apart from the regular blogging and blog related content during blog Camp 2008. So Gear up folks Blog Camp 2008 will be here and the venue will be Tidel Park and the dates will be confirmed very soon.
There might be a surprise 3 rd day in Blog camp which might be a new formula that we plan to test in Indian ethos. The contents of that day will sure be a blockbuster and a first of its kind in India and provided that we are able to pull it off well then this by itself will evolve as a separate event. We will get into the specifics of this as soon as we finalise on dates and budgets for BlogCamp 2008. Currently The knowledge foundation lends the support of past volunteers of Blog Camp 2006 to pitch in and also welcomes spirited young people to volunteer and make this event a greater success than Blog Camp 2006. Mail us at blogcamp@googlegroups.com for participation. Good day !
As a part of my earlier post on Web 2.0 related information here is a post that is a recorded video of the plans of Google in healthcare, storage, search and so on. Google seems to be charting out great plans for the individual users to access their personal health information online synonymous with their mailing plans. A very interesting video to know more about the plans of the behemoth. Good Day !
There have been many coffee table conversations with friends and buddies reminiscing about how IT has changed our lives itself. To be more specific there have been specific discussions where we have wondered about the compactness of the form factor that has changed over the period of years as personal computing has evolved. I am sure many of us have had similar conversations at our living rooms as well but this blog post is about the doers / aka.. the real performers who took up the initiative to make the form factor more compact. There has been instance i had wondered how a device as small as ipod is able to hold 30 gb data compared to the standard hard disk of a PC that is at least 8 times bigger and makes so much noise while reading.
Enter professor Albert Fert from Universite of Paris - Sud also scientific director of Unite Mixte de Physique of France and Peter Grunberg also a professor at Germany who pulled out the concept of GMR (Giant Magnetoresistance ) . GMR effect large changes in electrical resistance for small changes in magnetic resistances. This effect was explained by murdin so vividly here at reuters " A computer hard disk reader that uses GMR sensor is equivalent to a jet flying at a speed of 30,000 kmph ..at a height of just 1 meter above the ground and yet being able to see and catalog every single blade of grass as it passes over" Isnt this amazing ? This inventions has opened the frontiers of technology to a totally new level. There is a new term being coined called Spintronics for developments in this technology. Looks like movies like "Island" are soon to be a reality . Nano technology is going to bring in similar breakthrough into new avenues of scientific exploration. Soon there might be devices that can record a persons total life metabolism at all stages of growth that will be helpful to narrow down on what can be termed as good habit from bad habits. Devices of this kind might be of great help in drug discovery studies thus Technology contributing towards the betterment of mankind.
After so many years i could really comprehend that Nobel Prizes in Physics are given to some practical realtime solutions and theories too. Most of the time either the studies that get awarded nobel prizes are way above my grasp or are too abstract. But this time the awardees seem to be well deserved and their invention has greater implications in the days ahead of us.
Post Blog camp fever the Knowledge Foundation team has been huddling their heads together on plans about putting together an event, somewhat similar to DEMO, where we can get some fascinating ideas together on stage with working prototypes and pre-releases, bring the public there, and invite the VC circles there. The demo of the technology , depending on how well it resonates with the audience will give the VC a good perspective on how relevant the product is, and how well the team is capable of conveying their story - which might drive the VCs to invest in them, and it will help the small companies which are struggling to get some exposure.
With a lot of VCs here in India, and news about over-investments all over the place, and sadly all the good companies getting too few notice, it might be something worthwhile. Chennai could use an event like this, since the whole technology space really does need a boost. If it does pick up, it has potential to spawn, just like barcamp or whatever. It cant be an unconference, as there has to be a set of entrepreneurs and VCs (I am sure TIE will be happy to be part of it) to screen the technologies, and make sure that the pitches are compelling enough and help them brush up, but it could be fun nevertheless. TIECON is happening at the second week of December. Nonetheless it is a great idea and might serve as a great alternative / complement to TIE, ISB connect which is happening currently which is platform in which VC’s have more say
What would PROTO be?
A PROTO is totally different thing when compared to a Barcamp or a Blogcamp which could be done as where one can contribute whenever they can. It is different not only in the way it is conducted or organized but also in its core philosophy. A barcamp or a blogcamp is fundamentally inclusive but a PROTO is to its core exclusive and that is what constitutes to its popularity. Not every company that applies to PROTO get to present there , there is a screening team which does a thorough job of making sure that only the best of the products gets to reach to PROTO. We might have to think through some of these things while we plan ahead for PROTO. There will be a screening committee put together, and only products that are mature enough, have the relevance with the audience - or founders/presenters who have the capability to present a radically new idea to an audience will be permitted to demo. Now PROTO charges each individual company that presents, and yet i am not sure, but maybe also the audience that attends there. If we could get it done via sponsor, all the best, but if we charge some amount from the companies, it will ensure that they are committed, and there will be a threshold that will eliminate a lot of people who want to demo the program they wrote yesterday night. There is going to be a lot more work involved in this, and the videos / demos have to be very professionally organized. But, its just one step ahead, of what we have accomplished in bar/blogcamp
Will PROTO Take off ?
Our one major concern will be to evaluate about radical new ideas/products/technology but are there enough new radical ideas in India. I have been trying to look out for radical ideas in India and there are only very few names that comes to my mind. No doubt that entrepreneurship is on the rise in India and one gets to see web 2.0 companies springing up everywhere but most of them are what can be called YAFO companies (yet another fad opportunity) basically a concept successful elsewhere and just copied in India to meet a market gap (Bazee kind of companies). We might have to think about if we will have enough participation if we restrict ourselves to radical ideas. But then radical could be a very subjective word and also I could have not been exposed to many ideas that is the reason for me to think that ways. I think now would be a good opportunity to ask the group to name few radical companies that are based out of India.
Focus will be on to as services oriented companies such as TCS and such could be asked to attend. Putting them on the frontpage, gives a totally different wrapper around this whole thing. Microsoft, for starters is a good one to pursue. There are a whole bunch of VC firms in and around India (personally know a few) and let’s leverage organizations that are crucial parts of an "entrepreneurship and innovative" community…
Why PROTO in Chennai ?
Everyone one of us is aware that there are quite a few very interesting companies based out of bangalore. The curse with any bangalore-based company is that they are all on "stealth" mode. We can make a list of companies, and we will need to send them a notice soon, asking them to get a product ready to be "demo capable", atleast a month before the event, so that we all get a chance to look at it, and if it doesnt make the cut, look at other companies. The first event, we will have to be lenient… not too lenient hopefully, with the perfection of the pitch.
What would be interesting, is if we go a bit beyond India, and also scan for companies around us, in Singapore, Malaysia, etc etc. Rajan is thinking about it, and in a sense, we do want to give our companies exposure, but at the sametime, I think some just don’t know who their competition is and what they are competing against. Putting them face to face with their nemesis, will do quite a bit of good for them. That’s my thought.
Venuewise, we will need a place that can really catch the buzz. A place where anybody who is fascinated about what the next generation of lifestyle is going to be, can walk in. IIT, as much as I can get permission for this, is a bit too inside and wouldnt get much attention - unless we can do enough marketing buzz around it to cover up for it, trading for the prestige that goes with IIT. Hunting is on to find if there are any big avenues in the middle of the Chennai city, such as Nungambakkam or so?
One major concern raised by Syed was how to involve everyone who was a part of the blogcamp team to participation in PROTO. We need to strike a balance there - Think big and very very professional, like TED ( www.ted.com) and have the involvement of everyone. Even though, we’ll need to put together a team and committee to screen through companies and products, we still need to put together the event. Screening is going to be the very least of the process compared to all the other stuff that needs to go on. Plus, as part of the screening process, there will be a team which will go meet the companies (if possible) and perhaps have an interview with them and their team. That should make for some very interesting podcasting sessions. Plus the mingling of professionals with various dreams and aspirations, will be an amazing asset to those of us who are running among limited circles of the entrepreneurial spirit. If we want to go a complete "unconference" mode, then PROTO Camp is not a bad idea to follow - problem is that, you wont be getting any general audience, and it will just be barcamp with lots and lots of demos.
I am assuming at least 150 days of preparation for an event like this. And among the list of invitees, one that comes to mind, is Marissa Mayer of Google, the Product Manager for the company. Think profiles like that, and discussions we could have about the future of technology, add the dash of indian context to it, and it should make for one heck of an event. We need to list categories of technologies we are going to focus on. Volunteers pls pitch in …
Our Objectives
OK Enough of the talking folks lets us sum up on this initiative of The Knowledge Foundation. As was said by vijay in the right context about TKF "Our motives are different, our momentum is different, and we are basically the next wave of India’s future. We have no financial benefits that come out of it. We try to pool people together, connect them by dots, and have a blast at doing it" .
Will someone wonder how to get involved? Well, think a combination and blog camp, bar camp done twice more elegantly (that is going to be tough to achieve, but we can get there). We are going to need all the people we need, to cover all the angles. So if you are interested then join us by mailing me or commenting here.
I heard a gentleman throwing lot of ideas on the subject of "Hope" in life. I was then seriously looking at the dimension of HOPE with regard to investments.
In life, there are areas where we have total control & areas where we have no or little control.
Someone buys a real estate property in a remote location. Mobilising funds to buy and doing the needful to own the property is under his/her control. But generating return out of the investment made is certainly beyond his/ her control. The individual just is on a HOPE….. that it will appreciate in value over time.
I buy a stock, upon thorough analysis. Funds, adequate information, at what price to buy all these things are in my control. But I cling to the rope of HOPE…… when it comes to the return aspect. Hoping that xyz company will deliver solid returns.
I buy a mutual fund. I can choose the brand, texture of the fund and things like that. But I keep HOPE….. on the fund manager to make me happy.
I board an investment vehicle, hoping that it will beat inflation and still give me a decent value for money. HOPE again !
If that is the case, is HOPE time ?Looks like ! But HOPE till when ?
On Investments HOPE is something tricky. Some people invest and keep waiting hoping for better and better returns. This is disgusting. Isn’t it ? Have a clear goal, invest for reaching that goal & be clear on the rate of return. Once we get the desired appreciation do not HOPE for greater returns. Instead protect the appreciation and reach your goal.
This morning i was scheduled for a meeting with Dr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, professor IIT Chennai on a project related to TeNeT (Telecom and Networks Group) thanx to our common friend Dr. Osama Manzar. As scheduled i arrived at the pristine IIT campus to meet Dr. Ashok. The meeting was attended by Mr. Falguni , Ms Saloni and Ms Aarthi . What ensued for the next 2 hrs was an interesting outline of a project on how we bloggers can make a big difference in the digital divide of india and measures we could take and contribute to empower rural india to bring to the global platform.
This project will be discussed in more detail in the forthcoming Blogcamp admin meeting and we need to evolve with our creative inputs so i suggest all to be there and not miss it.
Whenever there is a crisis or emergency we bloggers have been doing so much of good work in our field to facilitate better communication. Here is a requirement of a similar sort where we get our bit in the nation building process. We are not neta’s (politicians) but nations are built by people like us who would like to make a difference. So be there if you are interested to chip in your ideas and for other after the meeting the plans will be posted in my blog to know more about it. Have a nice day !
Last evening the Blog Camp Admin group had convened at Anokhi to wrap up the various outstanding issues of the event and do a post mortem of the same. We also wanted to recapitulate the lessons learnt from the event. Some key points that were discussed encompassed freezing on the following features:
1. Blog camp.in will become a common site hereafter and this chennai event will be a part of www.blogcamp.in/chennai . 2. Any takers who would like to spread the word or host another blog camp in their city of choice could always contact us and the blog camp admin is all willing to help and volunteer all the pitfalls and measures to be taken. 3. The current blog admin group would like to carry forward their team spirit and hold focussed workshops targetting niche areas and bringing in experts to address those niches starting this weekend at sunil’s place 4. All the more a compelling reason to fast track The knowledge Foundation 5. In a month we might hit upon the next big thing and start working on it… 6. As for now more on celebration and new networking will be the agenda for the day.
Since the beginning of the blog camp my blogging had taken a big hit as i was more involved in coordinating things and also moderating sessions for the two days. And i havent slept the entire two days as we had to take care of small incident at Beach house party me and raghavan being the only sober guys had to take care of things and by the time me wrapped things up it was 4.30 in the morning and i alongwith Sunil was scheduled for and interview with Osama Manzar about exploring common grounds to take up empowerment of the rural poor in india at Tidel park followed by another detailed interaction with Lakshmanan of Arvind Mills direct marketing on the launch of Fashion Blogging in relation to the global launch of Fashion Blogs of Fashion IQ .com . Subsequent to that i alongwith Andy had to moderate a session with Sujatha of Podbazaar.com. Totally hectic day and so many things happening.
We do have some totally lighter moments from the Blogcamp courtesy some pics taken unaware about serious and seasoned bloggers like Nandhu, shyam and ganesh, other bloggers but then never let your guards down in front of bloggers. They will totally bomb you! Excellent reference will be to the tagline of Blog Camp ” How do you feel Now ? ” what say you blogcamp admin group.
Surprise of the Sponsors !
The two days of blog camp 2006 was a great boon for the related sponsors Yahoo, Nokia, Ford, Intel, Merinews, enewss and other sponsors. Yahoo received a lot of foot fall for all their services and Nokia was conducting a workshop on hot to do moblogging using the N Series of mobile phones from Nokia, Ford had conducted an ipod contest for best live blogger and podcaster. The footfall in the camp exceeded to 350 people.
Live from Tidel those 2 days!
One week before the event i was hunting for a solution to address the rising needs of the Virtual attendees of Blog Camp. One of the advantages of coming from an IT background and from good networked company was that i was able to narrow down on the solutions that are available in hand to enable live videocasting/streaming and also to keep in mind the bandwidth effeciency. I got in touch with Clickstream and the response was so swift from them that i had Abhijit from calcutta representing Clipstream calling me offering to help me officially . Abhijit was so enterprising that on the first day of the Blog Camp before 11 we were hitting maximum viewership in his software and we were getting the feedback on the quality of the feed was excellent Then again we started asking him to increase the licence. We subsequently raised the level to 200 viewers and by the second day we were hitting max levels. Clipstream software is built with a feature that whenever the load of the viewers is more than maximum it alerts you and by second day during the discussions of Sharad Haskar and Sunil Gavaskar the viewership was at maximum levels. We had additional feeds from Skype as skype casts and there was the most useful IRC too. We had some great planning ad hoc by the techie goups of the BlogCamp Admin . Callers and viewers as far away as Orange county, thailand, Australia, and UK not to forget many places from india.
Post Blog Camp 2006!
For all of those who would like to view the different facets of the twod days and a more detailed account of individual sessions i would suggest that you can click on the following link and get to know the extensiveness with which the blog camp at chennai was blogged about. Pls click on the following link as the coverage on it is great.! Hats off to enewss.
Hi guys first cut views of the Blog camp are here. Its 8 am and the Admin crowd is already there and we are busy setting our systems up. All excited to rock! Will keep posting as and when things happen
Pls check flickr with tags " Blog camp live chennai "
This morning as every morning of this week was cluttered with stream of callers / fellow bloggers and patiently answering all queries about various issues related to the forthcoming event Blog Camp 2006. Interestingly i got a call and the called told me he is Osama and suddenly all my antenna’s were up but the subsequent conversation that ensued followed immediately by his mail was one of interesting events of the day. Here is a transcipt of the mail of Mr. Osama Manzar and his very enlightening views
" I am extremely glad to come to know this entire new phenomenon of Bloggers camping and discussing the larger issues og Blogging. There is no doubt that Blogging is a typical Bottom Up phenomenon, where you get to know information directly from the source and the source get a chance to disseminate the information which is not subjected to various layers of so-called cleaning processes.
Anyway, as discussed, I am extremely keen to be a part of the BlogCamp scheduled on 9th and 10th of September in Chennai. I was going through your website and realised that there is no topic discussing the the real India which is hidden in its hinterland, across the country side, and among the 70 percent of Indians who speak local languages and whose knowledge lies in their oral conversation. If Blogging can include the Rural India, or rather if we initiate a dialogue of how Rural Blogging can be done, in no-time, we will see the cyberspace enriched with "GlocaL" content (Local Content for Global Reach). India is among the poorest country in the world if you look at how much india-related content present on the virtual world. And, ironically, Internet is the only true Universal Medium for unlimited access and dissemination of content and information. How do India in this case of being the poorest on cyberspace, can take advantage of the global economy? For the economica prosperity to trickle down to the bottom of the pyramid, India needs to reach out to the Internet through all possible means and tools about its immense local content and assets. And this is possible with only bottom up approach, meaning blogging can paint the cyberspace with the colours of India hidden into its 650,000 villages and among more than 3/4th of a billion population of our country. "
Mr. Osama Manzar runs an organisation called Digital Empowerment Foundation, that works in the areas of empowering masses through ICT and related tools. We have perhaps the largest database of case studies, where ICT tools are being used for rural empowerment in its various senses. They also run the award called The Manthan Award for Best e-Content & Creativity in India.
Sir, I look forward to the great opportunity of hearing you in person on your favorite topic, your passion and responsibility to the rural masses in India. Welcome to Blog Camp 2006
Last night on an online discussion just me and kiruba were discussing on the future plans for Blog Camp and we fell into the rut of how things were easy for us because we had the venue as chennai and slowly the comfort feel started creeping in to the extent that we decided lets leave it to the crowd and see if anyone else comes with better suggestions and bigger team from other cities to pursue this initiative in 2007.
For today we found the following as very advantageous because the venue is chennai…
1. The Blog camp admin team is more than 60 + bloggers strong and 80% of that committed crowd is based at chennai. Getting that kind of synergy to help organize an event of this magnitude was easy.
2. Most of the sponsor companies have vested interest on the Target population (yuppie IT crowd) and chennai happens to be one of the happening IT capital in india.
3. We had some gracious support from the press like New indian express, CNN-IBN, Deccan Chronicle, Enewss and we had some good connections and access to them from our own circles. Without the makings of the press we wouldnt have got this visibility.
4. Accessibility : Since the event falls in sync with Connect 2006 we expect a lot of footfalls in the event and at the same time its totally a event done by a group of individuals who have taken to blogging as passion but getting the same kind of space as to a governement sponsored event is also a major plus.
Online marketing has evolved around so many areas like site hits, page visits, page ranking, and sticky eyes. Today with the advent of internet pervasiveness and the expansion of bandwidth at varous levels newer forms of marketing using compelling media like audio recordings that are converted into podcast and home grown videos are converted into optimised videos on youtube or google videos. Thus taking content to the world is now easy and doesnt need you to move mountains but the next challenge will be in attracting the target audience to the context relevant content. Thats a big challenge where a lot of marketers are adopting traditional methods to gather the relevant momentum. Today PR is easy but reach the right audience to translate all this PR into effective sales and bottom lines is where a lot of us are working on. For the moment pls listen to this intertesting podcast from Robert Scoble which revolves around how corporates are using blooging to do marketing online effectively.
Today in the primary market there are two attractive scrips on the offer Action Construction and Atlanta Limited. Both are in the realty and construction segment. In my earlier posts you will find my emphasis on the booming realty sector. As long as Indian economy is chugging ahead at 8+% GDP we can expect FDI in all prime sector to fuel growth of a gamut of industries which translates as spurred growth in real estate and contructions. Coming to analyse both the scrips individually. Atlanta is the company behind building Nagpur, Kondhali four-lane Build Operate Transfer (BOT) project. The plans also include executing construction of runways and roads.The bidding price starts at 130 on lower band until 150. Fair valuation compared to peers in the same industry. The second scrip is Action Construction principally suppliers of high tower cranes and mobile cranes for construction their client list include reliance, Neyveli lignite, ACC, India railway, KEC, Bhel so on.. Niche segment, high cost of entry for competitors, and the bullish market. Listing 110 - 130 on the higher band. Both have fairly strong fundamentals and are in the booming industry with long term clients and this IPO objective is basically to enhance their current positions in respective areas so stand a good chance in the market.
Finally the dust is settling down after all the pressure to conclude all our efforts to close sponsors for Blog Camp 2006. We have Yahoo, Nokia, Apple, Sify , Fashion IQ , Fuente system, Fresh and honest and a few more to add. As of this evening we froze on all the efforts as taking things beyond tomorro will be too late for other work. Now that i have a breather i would like to share some good news that this confeence has brought to me. I was able to tag with one of my college mate Navin and that has opened access to a string of friends who i lost touch once i was at malaysia for the previous 3 yrs. I would like to quote that earlier in a similar blogadmin meet i came across one more classmate kennedi who is an astrologer and who blogs . As the event is nearing its D day the core team is practically breathing Blog camp and the activtiy is so viral. Now we are left with building strategies, games, contest covered by Ganesh , T Shirt design by Jacob, adel and also to ensure the hospitality desk taken care by Sunil , Varun and Vicky. Then food and catering is covered by Ganesh . Then there is Kiruba, Nandhu and me working getting some interviews with interested bloggers who would like to be a part of the Blog Camp yet cannot make it to chennai in person. Such people have volunteered to share their thoughts with us online. Last we have Dina and Neha from Global Voices Online working on getting the content for the conference to the latest trends and ensuring that its all fresh and great. Hats off to all these guys! And we have miles to go….
“A friend of mine, asked me to buy this stock”
“You can buy that stock, as it is recommended by this newspaper”
“I am trying to copy cat a Fund Manager’s Portfolio”
“I bought this because it is less than Rs.30/- (cheap!!!!)”
When I hear such statements, I just cannot control laughing at them……..
It is advised in general to buy value, rather then follow a particular trend or go by gut feeling. But……..People go by market trend, glamourous brand and speculation. Sehwag or Tendulkar ? That is the big question. We have seen both these players battle it out in the middle. We have seen more of the latter. But at this point of time, I would put my money on Sehwag, for the simple reason that he has tremendous growth potential. Likewise it has to be value when choosing a particular stock
Do plenty of research before deciding what or what not to buy. “Everything has got a price tag” - I firmly believe in this. If you buy on a tip / trend, without analysis, chances are very high that we are taking wrong footing. A tip / hint is a way to making fast money, quite dangerous. We all should realise that Life is a MARATHON not a 100m dash. So is Investing ! Quick Profits are glamorous but short periods are dangerous for investments, especially in equity.
Leave your investments time to grow. Expect realistic returns. This is apt especially to not so affluent investors. Investing is a Profession by itself. It requires discipline, dedicated time and adequate knowledge. If some one cannot spend, 4 to 5 hours every day, then better stop investing in the market directly. Leave the job to a Fund Manager. Opt the Mutual Fund route. It pays to take a decision now !
