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  1. pramodk

    Future is AI

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    Recently OpenAI has made Chat GPT public and it is already shaking the tech world. Students are using chat GPT for their assignments, digital marketers are using it for content creation and so on. Lets look at how AI could possibly impact the world in ...
  2. pramodk

    What story you want to tell?

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    I will tell you a story.There was a village in a remote area in India. It was ruled by an evil land lord. People in that region are terrified and pray to god to send someone to save them. There enters the hero from somewhere. He enc...
  3. pramodk

    Curious Musings 2016-09-16 03:13:00

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    Overnight success


    I was elevated, excited and enthralled for the glory that Sakshi and Sindhu brought by winning their medals at Rio olympics. Like millions of Indian fans, i watched women’s badminton finals. Even though PV Sindhu lost the match to world no. 1, i liked the way she fought till the end. Her fighting spirit apart from the medal is appreciated by everyone.
    I was proud that in a country where sports infrastructure is less and kids are encouraged to become engineers and doctors, these athletes are bringing medals for India. I got curious about Sindhu. I wanted to know How she got there? what training she got? what sacrifices she made? As i dug deeper, following is what i believe are the reasons for her success.
    Purpose, Practice, Perseverance, and Progress
    Purpose: Sindhu’s father was a national level basket ball player. Yet he allowed her to play badminton as she showed interest in badminton only. She started playing from the age of 8. Played her first tournament at the age of 10 and ever since, she has been playing the game. Sindhu identified her interest very early in her life and luckily she got support from her parents and focused all her time and energy on the game and it helped her significantly.
    Practice: Malcum Gladwell, in his book OUTLIERS said, to master any skill, one needs to practice at least 10,000 hours. Sindhu trained in Pullela Gopi chand Badminton Academy. At some point, She used to travel 50 km to the academy and starts training at 4:30 am everyday. By the age of 21, Sindhu already played badminton for 13 years. Assuming she played about 3–4 hours a day, 300 days a year, she would have crossed 10,000 hours of practice. It gave her massive advantage in terms of acquiring the skill.
    Perseverance: There was a time she exited early in national under 13 badminton games. Next day morning, she was at the academy practicing the game. Even in Rio finals , she was trailing in all 3 sets. But she constantly fought back and won first set, and nearly made it in the 3rd set. She had her share of failures. But it didn’t stop her from moving forward.
    Progress: Many people spend time practicing the skill. But not all succeed. what makes the difference is the feedback one gets on their game. Having a coach who understands your strengths, identifies weakness and helps you grow, makes a lot of difference. Sindhu got a great coach in Pullela Gopi chand who had a track record of producing winners such as Saina Nehwal. Gopi Chand has played a major role in her winning Olympic silver medal at Rio.
    I would like to mention my favourite quote of will smith on talent and skill. “Talent is what you have naturally. Skill is only developed by hours and hours of beating on your craft.” It takes having clear purpose, then keep practicing to improve one’s skill, persevere through tough times and progress till you reach your goal.
    India may not have fared well at Rio olympics. However, we need winners such as PV Sindhu and Sakshi to inspire next generation of sporting talent so that India can get better results at future sporting events.
  4. pramodk

    Travel Chronicles

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    I was in the boat with other tourists. I was enjoying the view where boat was passing through a passage between two high lands. Suddenly my friend called, "Hey, come to the other side". The moment I reached other side of boat, I looked at the scene in front of me and I froze. All I could see was large blue sky, water falling from fifty feet height covering my eye site, making so much noise that I could not hear any other sound. Misty fog was created right in the middle of the fall as if there are clouds forming in front of my eyes. Water was so violent, I felt like I was in the middle of a storm.  I had never seen anything like that in my life and the whole experience gave me goose bumps.

    That was my first experience visiting Nayagara falls.  I was never much of a traveler. All the travel I did was visiting relatives or traveling for study or job purposes. That moment at nayagara changed my perspective about travel. I made a decision, that I will visit as many places as I can. Since then I traveled to over 7-8 countries and visited many cities in India. Each time I travel, I learn something new. Something about place, people, culture, food habits, history, more importantly I learn something about myself.

    One of the aspects I struggled with when I visited non-English non-native place is the language barrier. 
    When I visited Taiwan, locals didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Taiwanese. Basic necessities such as food, navigation became a problem. I struggled to find routes and destinations.  I still remember standing in front of a food stall and looking to eat food.  I was very hungry, but, I could not strike a conversation with shopkeeper to give me food. It was a humbling experience and  I felt like an illiterate trying to figure out basic things. However, I started enjoying the process in my subsequent travels.

    Another aspect I look forward to in travel is the random encounters with people. Interaction with people from different backgrounds helps me understand different perspectives. Once I was in a flight from Delhi to Bangalore. It was a 3 hour flight. I started a random conversation with a person next to me. We spoke at length on various issues such as generation these days and current telecom and internet situation in India, what are the causes we are not growing as fast as we should, only to know in the end that this gentleman is a General manager in BSNL, overseeing broadband adoption across India. Another time, I helped a lone lady with her luggage during Mumbai-newyrk flight. We became friends quickly. She is a well known paediatrician in Newark city. She said, "whenever you come to this city, don’t forget you know someone here". Whenever I travel, I look forward to these random encounters and the experience it brings.

    Most important thing about the travel is, I learn something about life. Once I was traveling back to my hometown. Last leg was a 4 hour bus journey to reach my village. I was all bogged down with my worries related to career, office problems, personal problems etc. There was a couple next to me. Husband, wife and 3 children are happy and they are having great time during the journey. It suddenly occurred to me that my life is good in terms of my job, family, friends, health etc. That moment, I learnt from that unknown family to enjoy every moment and life is not as bad as I often thought it is. I enjoyed my vacation forgetting whatever problems I thought I had and had good time at home.

    Each one of the travels changed me as a person. Be it enjoying nature, struggling with basic necessities or having those random encounters. It teaches me how little I know about the world. It helped me connect with different people and get different perspectives, and most importantly it helps me find little more about myself. That feeling drives me to take up next travel where I can expect the unexpected.





  5. pramodk

    Curious Musings 2016-08-05 07:15:00

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    Software DairiesMahesh is my colleague working in IT industry for past 15 years. He usually spends 15 hours a day at work. He is professionally successful, Got promoted fast and he gets a hefty pay check. However, Recently he was diagnosed with diabete...
  6. pramodk

    Disrupting Marketing Landscape using Social Media

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    Disrupting Marketing Landscape using Social Media

    Traditional media such as news publications, television have been ruling the roost for over a century on how content is delivered to the audience. Print media, Television, weekly, monthly magazines collecting and sharing regular news as well as quality content such as interviews from famous personalities.

    We heard about digitization for a while now and how it is changing the marketing landscape for various industries. First it has changed telecom industry, moving away from analog to digital telephony. In the process came internet that has changed the face of many industries, especially media industry.


    One of the changes I observed is the way NEWS is delivered to people. In late 80s in India, a newspaper was delivered home, one Black and white television with a big antenna on top of the house that needed to be adjusted so that people can view decent quality picture from TV channels sponsored by government. During late 90s there was surge of private entertainment channels as well as news channels creating their own content for public. News was curated, edited and delivered to public.  24/7 news channels took viewing to another level where debate on state issues has become synonymous with daily viewing along with soap operas.


    Businesses used Advertisements on various media such as print, radio and television to reach their target customers. However, there was dependence on content that has maximum viewership such as Live sports, latest movies, successfully running TV shows where businesses could promote their brands.



    In the internet age, one of the most visible campaigns was Indian Prime minister Narendra Modi’s social media campaign where agenda of the government and views of their party were proactively taken to people over internet based sites such as Twitter, Facebook etc. These digital campaigns differentiated current government in reaching out to young and majority population of India compared to their competitors. This shows social media is proving to be an effective medium where brands can directly reach out to their target audience with minimal/or no support from traditional mediums such as TV/news channels.




    Today brands are directly communicating with their customers over social media. They are hearing complaints, promoting new campaigns also in the process are forced to come up with innovative ideas to draw attention from their and target and potential customers. These brands are starting to depend less on traditional media and focus more on communicating with their customer directly  and also promote their brands that can increase their bottom line. 



    Is another disruption in Media Industry round the corner? 

  7. pramodk

    Why Big Companies can’t innovate

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    Recently i read an article from Harvard Business review. Posting my thoughts on the issue.I often wonder why many big companies, with lot of muscle power (money), fail to innovate. Even though companies come up with many good ideas, only few see ligh...

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