*puke*. My apologies but gosh please excuse me. I haven’t seen worst ads in my life, okay I may have, but these are bad. As an advertising buff, I passively keep an eye open for good, catchy advertising be it in print, tv or web. And OMG, I fail to recall when I have seen horrible ads. A good ad entices you to use the product so much that you are willing to pay for it. An poor ad is one that leaves you ambivalent and you don’t really care much for the product shown. The ads shown below, make me want to run away from the product as far as possible. Infact these ads are so terrible that if I was in a situation that I HAD to use the product, I’d pay money not to use it.
The pity is that Tata Telecom is a good company that provide decent products with decent service. Infact I am currently typing this blog post while using a TATA Docomo 3G dongle and I have been getting decent speeds. However, when it comes to advertising I don’t know why but TATA seems to always miss the mark. I blogged about TATA’s Telecom poor advertising several years ago here as well. Anyway, I am a fan of TATA Products and I hope someone senior enough in their organisation sees this and makes the requisite changes.
Here are those horrible ads. Don’t view them.
And this is suppose to make me subscribe to a Tata Docomo service? Next time I’m getting an operation, besides checking the Doctor’s experience I’m also going to check who is his Telecom Service Providoer.
Yes, I can just see mothers spotting those Tata Stores so that they can take their babies as far away from them as possible.
This is the worst of them all. Profiling domestic workers.
TrulyMUST-HEAR for every entrepreneur, marketing, customer-care and HR department. Tony Hsieh, retells his heartwarming journey on how he took Zappos, once this unknown company, to become the darling of the American Shoe Shoppers. When Tony joined Zappos, it was a sinking company with sales of a grand total of $0. Over 10 years he turned it around for it to earn $1 Billion in 2008. Subsequently, Zappos was acquired by Amazon for $1.2 Billion. The best part is how he did it. It was not by hammering advertising down customers throats. It was instead by focussing on the Culture of the Company, the Employees and Staying True to it’s mission of providing Outstanding Customer Service.
There were several take backs that I got from this talk some of which I remember are:
- The Vision, Mision, Values (you know the stuff you find in lobbies of Companies) are not as important as the commitment and dedication to living up to them. Don’t spend eons and oodles of money on retreats to come up with grandiouse mission statements. A simple one off the internet would do just fine, as long as you believe in it and are committed and dedicated to live up to it.
- Encourage employees to spend more time on the phone with customers, not less. They don’t have written scripts nor fixed time during which to complete a call. A complete opposite of the Call Centre Culture.
- Long term happiness is obtained by being part of a movement that is larger than yourself. Focus on that first and then top it up with the other forms of happiness such as the Flow experience and Momentary Pleasures.
Wow. What A Brilliant Play. Infact I have a good mind to hear it all over again. The play is on Washinton’s Post decision to publish excerpts of The Pentagon Papers, a top-secret document about the Vietnam war, which“demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance”.
The play beautifully brings out issues of how much freedom of press should there be in a democracy and how responsible should they be. Very timely in today’s era.
Court Room dramas don’t get more exciting than this. I highly recommend clicking the link and hearing the sample audio available. I did. I was hooked and bought this audio drama. Boy, was it well worth it. I later bought the DVD and watched it all over again. A brilliant court-room drama that exercises one critical thinking and questioning skills. How do you look at a situation impartially. Devoid of emotion, prejudices and give your view completely based on facts. You think you can do that? Would you test your theory/view before airing it? Hear this play to know where you stand.
The play is about a boy who is convicted of killing his father based on overwhelming evidence. The jury battle out their views over the course of this play till the reach a conclusion.
The ipod in my car is continually dishing out some advice or the other. I am really fortunate to come across some soul-lifting, practical, enriching lectures.
This is a lovely little talk by the author of an immensely successful Spiritual Classic. He offers great pointers on determining your self-worth and how to discover your purpose in life. Nothing radically new. Yet great to hear.
Another 18 minute gem. What I loved about the talk is how Martin breaks down happiness, into three different types.
1. The immediate happiness we feel on say having chocolate or having a good time with friends.
2. The Flow State of happiness that we experience when we are truly engaged in something. You know, when time stops for us. For me, that happens when I’m blogging or drawing.
3. The Meaningful happiness when we are involved with a purpose that is greater than ourselves.
Hence to live a Full, Happy and Meaningful life is to maximise the opportunities for the three circumstances to take place. Here the talk, there may be other nuggets that you can pick up.
Here’s a talk by another best selling author. Although lot of the advice is very American specific, yet I walked away with principles and tips that I could implement.
A very touching story by the great Russian author on how a humble cobbler yearns to meet Jesus Christ. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the reading of this story online anymore. But do subscribe to the Classic Tales Podcast by B J Harrison. Ever so often I come across a story that I feel like sharing with all. But unfortunately that story is taken down before I can write about it. If you are subscribed to The Classic Tales Podcast, when I let you know of the story, you can then go back to the archives and hear it.
I always have some interesting lecture playing in my car. Here are the ones that I’ve recently heard. I recommend you to download them and hear them for yourself.
This is a lecture by Yale Professor on What makes us happy? How does happiness vary across person and culture? What is happiness for? Hearing this will certainly more skilled at being happy.
A great 30 minutes lecture by Mary Buffet (the ex-Daughter in Law of Warren Buffet) on her latest book the Tao of of Warren Buffet. In this lecture she runs through her book which contains quotations of Warren’s insights on investing and life, that she had privy to being close to him. Good Lecture. I am glad I heard it.
3. Does God Exist? – Debate
I always love hearing debates on the Existence of God. I have just started hearing this one and don’t know how it ends. The bit that I’ve heard is stimulating and am looking forward to complete it. Ofcourse those who’ve heard other Existence of God debates, may not find any new arguments, but the way they are put across is always unique and refreshing. Christopher Hitchens is the author of the book God is Not Great and Al Sharpton is the famous African American Baptist minister, Civil Rights Activist and Radio Talk Show Host.
For years I have been searching for an elegant solution to sync my task list between my blackberry and Mac. But nothing would cut it. There are so many clumsy attempts out there that at one point I’d thought to have the blackberry and Mac synced is an impossible riddle to crack . A real pity because the market for blackberry and Mac users out there is huge. Finally now there is the awesome app, that not only ensures that my tasks are synced between my Mac and Blackberry, but even on my iPad, infact I can access my tasks anywhere as long as I’m connected to the web.
Why Blackberry and not an iPhone Simply because nothing tops the speed that one can get on typing on the blackberry. The iPhone keyboard sucks. Well for me it does. For the life of me I can’t type on it. Certainly not with the speed and accuracy I can on the blackberry keyboard. So it when it comes to sending SMSes, typing quick emails, jotting down tasks, with speed and accuracy, the iPhone is yet to conquer the Blackberry in my book.
First the problems with the existing setups possible:
1. The default setup: Syncing the native tasks application on Blackberry with Microsoft Outlook.
This is the second-best option that I had been running till date. I have blackberry server installed at my office. Thereby ensuring that wirelessly all my Tasks, Calendar items, Notes are wirelessly synced to my desktop. They sync is tight. Rarely or no errors. And fast. However the problems are as follows:
- Microsoft Outlook is clunky, heavy software. Operating Microsoft Outlook is like manoeuvring a truck on a crowded street.
- Microsoft Outlook has to run on Windows, which has to run on Parallel Desktop. So I’m constantly running two operating systems. That takes a lot of resources, RAM, speed and battery power out from my Macbook.
- When I’m away from the office and want to process the tasks on the go, my Outlook cannot connect to the Blackberry Server without VPN. And VPN isn’t also reliable. Sometimes it connects well, othertimes it doesn’t.
- The native Task App in the blackberry although great has limitations. The most irritating one is that I can’t see all tasks that are Overdue on a single page. I have the habit of marking tasks to be due on a certain date. But life happens that I can’t attend to the task on that date. And I’d like to see all tasks that are Overdue together. The tasks app in blackberry doesn’t show that.
2. Sync the Native Tasks Application with Remember the Milk.
- Remember the Milk is one of the most popular online tasks applications out there. And for good reason too. It is indeed an elegant solution to managing your to-dos. Clean interface. Reliable. Very fast. Online hence accessible from virtually anywhere. Anywhere except your blackberry. There is an app to sync the Blackberry Tasks with Remember the Milk. It’s Great, when it works. Which it rarely does. Each time I try to sync I get error message after error message.
3. Other attempts that have crashed.
The other applications that I’ve used to sync my Blackberry tasks with my Mac or any online app are:
- ToDo Matrix. This may work. However I’ve briefly tried this, and for reasons I can’t remember I couldn’t continue using it.
- Blackberry’s official sync software for the Mac. This is the worst of them all. Don’t even think about it.
The Solution: Behold Upvise. Enter the Pearly Gates of Task Management Heaven.
Literally after years of searching I found one stray reference of Upvise in some forum post somewhere. The homepage didn’t look promising (it’s better now), but I gave it a shot anyway and installed the Blackberry app.
Why Upvise Rocks:
1. They Sync is really Tight. Upvise doesn’t try to sync the native Tasks app of Blackberry. That’s where the other developers were going wrong. Instead it installs an app of it’s on in Blackberry, which automatically syncs really well with the web-app.
2. It’s Fast! Not as fast with the native app. Yet I have been using it for a couple of months now and a picky Power User like me is satisfied with it.
3. The developers seem committed. They are constantly upgrading the blackberry app and web app with new features, without making it heavy.
4. Awesome Customer Service. Whenever I have a problem with Blackberry Tasks or Microsoft Outlook sync. Who can I call? Nobody. But with upvise, I shoot them a mail and mostly receive a reply within 24 hours.
5. They’ve got a super-duper iPad App. I no longer have to squint in my blackberry to process my tasks. I can do it from my ipad and in style.
My Upvise wishlist:
As great as Upvise is, here are a couple of things that I wish they’d implement to make it better:
1. Shortucts. The webapp doesn’t have shortucuts to create new tasks, mark them complete etc. Their customer support says that they should be upgrading it with shortcuts in a weeks time.
2. Option to select multiple tasks to process them. This is a killer feature ofRemember the Milk. Meaning I can selelct multiple tasks and then either mark them complete, postpone them etc. Hope Upvise implements this soon too.
3. Option to modify the default due date. When creating a new task, the system automatically sets the default due date to the next day. I’d prefer the option to modify that.
4. When creating a new task, a quick box drops down. I’d like the option to select the task list in that drop box. Right now I have to go to the main task edit screen to do that.
Overall I’m very satisfied with Upvise. The free version of Upvise you get some free apps. The tasks app cost $50 per annum. Well worth the price. I would strongly recommend it. Hope more Blackberry and Mac users read this post and give Upvise a try.
