Microsoft Guy Speaks Up!

We had the pleasure of listening to the Microsoft SEO person Chewy Chong at the CS3216 talk - "You, Others and the Business of People".
Chewy is a public speaker. Most inspiring - his Oratory skills. His words forced us all to think and thats what his motive was. Cedric mentions it as "tour de force".

So the talk in all was about the consumer behavior, the marketing strategies and a bit of Search engines. It was fun to see a MS guy use Google :P

Consumer Behavior
Coming straight to the point, he managed to implant a really important thought in the minds of all the listeners out there, as is evident from the other blogs on this talk. Chewy got us into thinking about the consumer behavior, what a typical (non-geeky, not-so-tech savvy, and an ad-influenced person. In short - a rather large segment of the consumer market) consumer thinks and does before buying a product.
Here is what got into my mind regarding it-
There is this "unaware" phase where the consumer wants to buy a product but is unaware of the stuff - price, companies, offers. The companies target such unaware consumer by the traditional advertising methods- TV ads, Radio ads, Huge roadside boards etc.
Then comes the phase of the "aware" consumer where he is aware of the product available from the different competitors. So what the consumer does is to go ahead and do a Google search (Or Bing for that matter :P). There come the Google Ads. There is a whole big world of Google Ads and their strategies. I am not too interested in either SEO or how Google Ads work, and nor do I intend to delve into that. I am an ad-free person (there you go Laurence =)).

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Get to know yourself
The man of talk got this point absolutely right. We need to know our strengths and ultimately should know where we should be. I dont know if I have an idea right now where I would want to be in the coming 10 years, nor am I sure about my strengths. CS3216 is making up a bit of me. It is constructing me in my raw years. I just know that I should do everything and in the best possible way. I should taste almost every apple (in my garden) to know which tree is the best for me and which I can climb. I had written this post quite earlier and have linked it many times in my blog. I link it here again too because I really cherish a comment by a friend - there

"I think it's ok to be jack of all trades. You are gaining width.
I would have said "it's ok to be jack of all trades and master of none", but that it is quite clearly not the case. You're doing enough specialization for what you need, if not more. Plus what all this width adds to you is knowledge of the field(s) that you eventually want to get into. It'll be harder for someone who's not had the taste of oranges, cherries, guavas, mangoes and grapes to pick and say "I love mangoes the most, and that is what I shall eat for the rest of my life." But you will have a taste of most, if not all, of them and say with at least some added confidence that you wanna have bananas for the rest of your life (pun intended). haha."

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See from others' eyes
I think this is a point where I can say that I think "I can".  The first step to look from other people's eyes is not to judge people immediately. To get, what I call the "Helicopter view", one must close its one inner eye (that judges people), and open the other inner eye (that anlayses the situation) as wide as possible. That way, I think one can get the best view from other's viewpoint. Just putting oneself in the other person's position is not enough. One must also look at the situation and the external factors.

Breaking the traditional market
Chewy pointed out a real important thing in the talk - Location matters (atleast in Singapore). He was trying to get us to be the change-makers for breaking this "Location" tradition.
Singapore is a small place. Getting from one farthest point to other farthest point shouldnt take more than an hour. So the markets such as the Shoe market in Queensway flourishes because people know that it is the hub of shoes. I wouldnt go all the way to Tampines to buy shoes from a particular shop when I know there are loads in Queensway and I perhaps might get a better choice (than a single shop in Tampines).

I would like to point out that perhaps the Queensway shoes example is how a traditional market economy is supposed to work. I come from India, where the Mall culture has recently hit the cities (i mean the state capitals and other important towns. Metro cities had malls quite earlier). It is often argued their that the mall culture destroys the traditional economy and the traditional way of how business was done. I would often hear from the elders that earlier this particular place was where you would get the best of hand made thread-needle work clothes (dunno what is it called actually in English, though has a word in Hindi), or the best kind of cotton cloth in this area. Now that culture is dying off slowly with the advent of malls. A common notion : People would prefer buying from an air-conditioned mall, than going to individual dealers with no guaranteed after sales service.

I take a stand here that the Mall culture destroys the traditional culture and how it affects the lives of the people in the particular business. Though it might be a hell-load of a success for a businessman to transform a Queensway shoe shopping area to a decentralised mall where everything is available. But we are aspiring entrepreneurs here, Not ruddy businessmen. I can think of a situation here which is more-or-less true - A place in my city was really famous for tailors and the best quality cloth stitching. (In India people still get their clothes stitched, especially the ladies garment http://www.indian-dresses.net/Salwarkameez.asp). So I remember my mum telling me that all her marriage dresses were made by a particular tailor there.
Now, when the city has seen the rise of 3 malls and even more brand-shouting shops in a mall like environment, these tailors have almost lost their daily high earnings. And I can say that the clothes they stitch is still much better than any other shops across the city. This implies that in a place such as India where traditional arts have always been the culture, the mall advent and the ruddy businessmen are destroying the local people's wages. Also, the age-old art and craft is being lost over generations.
I want to point out a major related event that happened like 2-3 years back in several cities almost all over India. Reliance, a big company, opened up a big vegetables/fruits only super market chain that got its supplies directly from the farmers (known as Reliance Fresh). All the local wheel-cart grocery sellers were horrified by this. They pulled down some of the shops as a strong group but still the super store exists. But it is not of any major success or breakthrough. Breaking a traditional economy is difficult.

Singapore is much more advanced and has seen the rise of malls since long. But still, traditional markets do exist (though quite less in number), implying there is still scope for thenew business idea of decentralised marketplaces.
In Singapore's case this might not be the situation (as in India) as there are really less places which talk about traditional art. But still the idea of destroying a place which is a hub for good quality products and convert it to a consumer oriented market, is a bit difficult to accept. Regarding the attitude of the traditional shop owners, they should rather be open to the current marketing strategies or let their business die to a businessman's eye-candy offers to the customer.

I dont know what the entrepreneurial solution to such a problem would be. I would rack my brains on it if I ever get into people-to-people business. Till then Peace Ho!

Just a quick point : if you try searching for the mall culture in India and google it - you just type "mall cu" and the top entry is "mall culture in india". That denotes the hotness of the topic. Read this to get a good insight
http://www.chillibreeze.com/articles_various/mall-culture-India.asp