Don’t wonder. Ask.

Man is a social animal. Woman, more so.

Life today is no longer a simple sequence of events – more often unknown and unexpected, as it used to be. The modern day ‘metrozen’ leads a life that is planned down to the last second. There are plans made, plans executed, and plans re-planned. Not being prepared for an eventuality is no longer a luxury that can be afforded. It is not just about what one is doing, but also about what the others are, and the desperate attempt to make the best of all worlds. This translates into a task that involves a fair amount of meticulous planning and preparation, which is carried out based on facts that are obtained from ‘reliable’ sources. Aunty next door knows where to get the best veggies, the watchman downstairs will tell you where to take those clothes you want ironed, and chottu upstairs may not be sure about his geography lessons, but will certainly be well informed about what movie to watch – and where. Most of it is second nature to you – you know precisely who to ask what. Indians have, since time immemorial, been brought up on a culture of advice and guidance. There is always someone to turn to when you have a question – a living, breathing someone, who you know has the answer to your question.

Being used to such a mode of modus-operandi, it is not surprising that this wealth of information which resides in the neural nooks and crannies of the social fabric has not been readily available to the seeker. This mega-mass of information is something that seems to have a life of its own. It does not reside anywhere but in the minds of its possessors, and it does not reveal itself, unless you corner it. It is to the task of making this information readily available – as readily as leaning over and tapping your friend over the shoulder to ask a question, that we at Asklaila have committed ourselves to. We ask ourselves the questions you would ask yourself. That way, we are ready with answers, whatever be your question.

Having put together this elusive goodie bag for you, our next task is to make the bag readily available – whenever you need it! After all, what good is a hammer if you don’t have it when the iron is hot and ready to be struck! (Unless you are the violent sort of person that is – in which case you are bound to come up with many more creative uses for the hammer, which we shall not delve into here, for reasons obvious). The utility value of an object – be it anything right from a tangible physical object to a piece of information, is multiplied hundredfold when it is made available at the precise moment of its requirement. Have you not often looked at that nice LCD television on sale, and wished you’d seen that ad in the paper when you were frantically searching for it, instead of now, when you’ve spent all your hard earned money on another model, and you’re accompanying your friend who is triumphantly picking up the piece, grinning at you every five minutes, rubbing it in at every occasion possible?!

Coming back to the point – what we’d like, is for you to get you what you need, when you need it. This has been the primary impetus behind our attempts at ensuring that you can reach us anytime, anywhere. There are multiple access channels that you can reach out to us on – Web, SMS and WAP. Another milestone in our journey has been the team-up with Airtel, to power their local city search experience. Airtel subscribers can now access City search on WAP, SMS, USSD and DTH TV, completely free of cost!. This partnership is no mean event, as it extends the reach of our services to over 70 million Airtel customers! We are proud of this association with the premier mobile services provider of the country – the vision of making available, at zero cost, all information the satisfied customer may require – clear in the minds of both partners. Setting ourselves apart from the traditional breed of “information dealers”, we have instead, chosen to ride the wave of technology – leveraging the best technical solutions available today to bring to you an unmatched consumer experience. As always, the more you familiarize yourself with Laila, the better and brighter are the ideas that you will come up with, in order to help us serve you better. Write to us with any suggestions or queries that you may have, and we will be happy to get back to you.

We are in the business of answers. Ask away!

Evangelism v/s Marketing

If you walk into our office and wait for an hour, you are sure to hear atleast one Apple v/s Microsoft argument. So what’s with all the “Apple users being snobs” and Microsoft users really not caring much for usability, so on and so forth slogans on the internet? What is the actual deal?

I think it boils down to Evangelism v/s Marketing. Apple has the free power of evangelists, a quick example is our office where I started with a mac a year back and in a small team we have a total of 4 macs now and close to 6 iphones. On the other hand the rest of the folks are separated in Linux and a majority in Windows. So Microsoft does good marketing, which is why the product sells.

While the Apple slogan goes “Catch them young” and offers student discounts and pretty much makes them apple users for live, Windows would target our fathers who would rather use something which is tried, tested and has created brand awareness.

So in the long run, what would be the obvious choice? Evangelism or Marketing? If you think its only Marketing, think again. Wikipedia is a brilliant Evangelistic success model. To pick that special restaurant for your date would you trust a billboard or ask your friend laila? I think the trick lies in building a great product that you believe in and if its a great product for people around you too, then you just need to market enough to spread the word around.

Solving things the smart way…

One of the problem with a pure tech company where people only understand technology is that they think they can solve “world hunger and poverty” with technology and algorithms. But in a real world most problems are not technology solvable nor is technology always optimum.

A classic example is the Russian and American pencil/space pen story. In India especially, you need nifty little solutions that do the job and most times they are non-tech solutions. A classic case is, in India people ask others for directions, which is much more practical than carrying a map and trying to find your route when the city is always crowded and you are stuck in traffic.

One of the core competencies that companies can boast of is of having people who can think of problems in a holistic way, getting the big picture and solving the problem than deciding the methods to solve it beforehand. And for a company like ours working in the Indian domain, it is so very important to solve things the smart way, which works and is optimum.

4 Interactive?

dumbest guy in the room

We were recently chatting about how we evaluate who joins us, and all of us agreed that we look for folks who are much smarter than us, or in management lingo “raising the bar” ( thanks, Birla )

To us it is making sure that we build a team which with every new addition becomes more smarter, faster and passionate.

Then who is the dumbest guy in the room, well that would be the person who set the ball rolling, me !
But, then I am also the luckiest guy, cos I get to chase the dream with a dream team.

thanks guys….

Data mining on employee data

So now we have grown to a healthy number of 6 – May our tribe increase.

And I thought how about doing some data mining on our junta to figure out, what are the key characteristics of those who pass through our live in tests before the marriage. Here are some interesting facts to give you all the cheat codes to become a 4i team member.

1. 50% of us cycle to work.
2. 50% of us have had a brush with the law enforcement agencies as our bikes were picked up for parking wrongly in front of Divyasree.
3. 50% of us love to come to office in shorts and keep our feet on table while working, but can not due to the reasons which can not be disclosed on a public forum.
4. 50% of us are from IIT Kanpur.

Let me stop otherwise the number of characteristics will become more than the team size.

Cycling to office

So I’ve started cycling to work now, its around 3kms and sometimes takes less time than the car. Its quite refreshing, though the pollution is slightly high, I guess the exercise makes up for it.

I’m also convincing Birla to start cycling to work, he seems to be sold on the idea. Just need to wait and watch. More people are joining and I plan to convince all of them!