Curious Log

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    Thank You for subscribing to my newsletter at CuriousLog. As I work towards writing more consistently, I would love to hear your feedback, get your views and start a conversation. I invite you to be brutally honest in your criticism. Tell me what you like or don’t like, what you agree or disagree with, what…

  • Big Data, medicine and Dr Gregory House

    I am a big fan of House. BIG FAN ! I guess what I really like is the infectious curiosity of Dr Gregory House and the very extreme personalities of the characters at this clinic. In my overly simplistic understanding of medicine, there are two parts to it – diagnosis and treatment. And our Dr…

  • Why are we becoming more insensitive

    Are we really becoming more insensitive? I usually have my breakfast at office and the TV in the cafeteria is typically tuned into some news channel. On quite a few days I end up watching “100 tez khabar” or something with a similar name on one of the Hindi news channel. The other day it just…

  • Are commission based channels low on trust

    In US car salesmen are amongst the least trusted professionals. On digging deeper one finds that they share these low rankings with advertising professionals, stockbrokers, insurance salesmen and surprisingly politicans too (Members of Congress, Senators and Governors). Have a look at the Gallup report summary below: While there must be multiple reasons for people to…

  • Mobile Payments Security – concerns, issues, threats, models and measures

    One of the biggest reason why cash has still reigned supreme for purchases is the percieved safety it brings. It limits the potential damage to the hard currency one is carrying in her wallet. For many late stage adopters of plastic payment systems, secuirty has been a concern. Same is happening right now for Mobile…

  • Inflection point in Global mobile sales – Q2 2013

    The latest Gartner Mobile sales reports are clearly saying one thing – the 2nd quarter of 2013 has been the inflection point in Global Mobile sales. Feature phone sales were lower than Smart phone sales for the first time ever. This is big, as it is a sure sign of how mobile usage trends would…

  • Bell Curve and the Appraisal Process

    Imagine that a football team needs a manager/coach, someone who can motivate the players and help them deliver much more than they ever imagined they could. Now imagine that a seasoned HR manager somehow lands this job, someone who has been a big fan of bell curves and the other smarts we have grown so…

  • Mobile Money Facts and Figures

    Opportunity Scale 1.8 billion people globally have mobile phones but no bank acocunts (World Bank)   Success Stories/Adoption Figures 20% of Kenya’s GDP moves on mPESA (2013) 20 nations in the world where more than 10% of the population has used mobile money in the past year. 15 of those countries are in Africa (Global…

  • Automobile recalls in Indian Market

    May 2013: Updated  with the new Nissan Micra & Sunny recall data. ———————————————————————————————————————- Aug 2012: The recent and much covered recall of the Ford Figo, sparked a lunch debate  – which is the most re-called brand of car manufacturers? We did some quick Googling and here’s what we could find out: Manufacturer Brand Year/Month Issue…

  • Obsessing over finer details

    I have heard way too many stories about how some of the most iconic brands were built by obsessing over details, by ensuring that the customer was kept at the center of it all. And I am sure that this has over the years been documented, researched and made its way into the board rooms…

  • Next Phase of Search Engine Wars

    A close friend of mine, just started his own venture after spending over a decade in the banking industry. He still goes to his venture’s web site by going to Google first and then typing his venture’s name in the search bar. No he is not doing it for some convoluted SEO impact. This is…

  • If everyone treated us like our mobile operators

    TataDoCoMos recent ad campaigns have been very powerful, to say the least. Kudos to the agency and the marketing teams who could communicate and highlight the pain-points so well. I saw the ad recently and it brought back some recent experiences with the biggest brand of them all – Airtel.  I have done my share…

  • Where’s the Cupid in our Education System

    I was reading this incredible story yday and Dandu bhai’s one line stuck a chord with me – I realized for the first time what it meant to understand concepts and solve problems using first principles (and not by memorizing) I was immediately back in 1993 when I was getting introduced to the concepts of…

  • Offline to online

    Offline + online connect, was and remains an interesting area for internet innovation – simply because in our real-lives we consume most brands, products and services (remove information from this list for a moment) in an offline heavy way. The real challenge that most brands face is that while these “offline consumers” are heavy consumers…

  • The Digital Insurer

    Going Digital is no longer a choice that insurers have, its something they need to do and now. What insurers need to understand is how to embrace digital in their individual markets and what goals to strive for in each phase of the roll-out. Given below is a collection of articles & essays I have…

  • Next phase of digital marketplaces

    Internet adoption has seen the evolution of some usual suspects across most geographies and one of the key category is that of Digital Marketplaces. A portal which successfully brings together the supply and demand side forces together.  In India we have seen the growth of such marketplaces for jobs (Naukri, Monster etc) , marriages (Bharatmatrimony),…

  • Corporate Culture Localization

    Many global companies have adopted an approach of customizing their products to suit the local needs. McDonalds came up with some Indian burgers to suit the desi palate, Suvidha was Citibank’s experiment at serving the unique Indian market, General Motors shifted the driving wheel from left to right (and forgot to move the wiper and…

  • Celebrity Endorsements Work

    Had a very interesting chat with the guy who runs the sports-shop at the Sports Complex where I go for my regular squash. I noticed that Nadal and Federer were no longer there on his wall and all one could see were Djokovic posters with his Head racquets. One would be tempted to ask whether…