(Tom has been named one of the industry’s most influential consultants by InformationWeek magazine. Geoff James of CBS Interactive Media called Tom, “one of the truly deep thinkers in the arena of technology and culture. ” Forbes.com named Tom one of its Business Visionaries with, “an incisive view of world trade…”)

Locality is important.

The bottom line is that inefficient markets tend to put control in the hands of the seller and not the consumer. An efficient market balances the scales. It gives me the best deal as a consumer and also allows sellers to appeal to me directly at the precise moment of need.

Giving control directly to consumers at the moment they’ve decided to buy and on location is not the no-brainer it seems to be. Very few seem to ‘get’ the value it could bring. Not Tom. He goes,

The greatest impact of the Internet has been the evolution of community. We are more connected than ever to the people, places, ideas and things that we want to be part of our lives.

However, this digital connectivity has been slow to find its way into our analog lives. A prime example is the huge disconnect between online shopping and the traditional store-based experience. Although we see the two as being in conflict, the realty is that what’s missing is the connection between the two.

In this age of location-aware smartphones, DealChaat is one platform for creating frictionless markets. Thanks Tom, for your insightful analysis … DealChaat sure has some catching up to do with your visionary thinking. 

As apps like DealChaat become pervasive we will be lubricating the wheels of consumerism in ways that will become as indispensable to us in the 21st Century as the Sears Catalog was at the turn of the 20th Century.

And besides, who doesn’t love a deal 

Read the brilliant post on Tom’s blog ’Have I got a deal for you!‘

Check it out. You may want to be associated … write on the blog, help with design, technology, be a critic, join the crack team … let me know.

DealChaat on the web: Facebook, Twitter, Website

Talk to us.

Also interesting in the above context are the following trends for 2013

FUN in 3 easy steps 

1. Go “Like” the Dealchaat page on Facebook

2. Upload your masterpiece

3. Tell all your friends to VOTE for your pic

EVERYBODY wins something (till prizes last)

Have pictures capturing your most awesome memories from Holi? Played with mud, got your dog colored all pink and blue, got your grandfather to play with you too, your kid’s first holi or that with your neighborhood gang … whatever triggers your Holi memory and that your friends will like. Submit them to the DealChaat PhotoKaari contest. The best thing is that you make your own rules … only you have to “LIKE’ the DealChaat page on Facebook.

(Don’t have any Holi pics? Well its a good thing then that Holi is just around the corner. Time to get that camera ready! Because you don’t wanna miss out on the awesome prizes!) 

The picture that gets the most number of votes will win!

Don’t like playing Holi at all? Worry not my friend.

We won’t hold it against you if you submit any other pic with a lot of color in it. Hey, Holi means color and anything with colors will fly (especially a colorful parrot?).

Contest ends 10th April 2013. So hurry and go shutterhappy.

– #PhotoKaari Contest – Participate to WIN exciting prizes.

Click the image

(Don’t have any Holi pics? Well its a good thing then that Holi is just around the corner. Time to get that camera ready! Because you don’t wanna miss out on the awesome prizes!) 

The picture that gets the most number of votes will win!

Don’t like playing Holi at all? Worry not my friend.

We won’t hold it against you if you submit any other pic with a lot of color in it. Hey, Holi means color and anything with colors will fly (especially a colorful parrot?).

Contest ends 10th April 2013. So hurry and go shutterhappy.

– #PhotoKaari Contest – Participate to WIN exciting prizes.

Click the image

Remember my post in May 2012 – German Minister promises to ensure Just Resolution of Ideafarms Dispute? Well, it looks like there are more and more such injustices now coming to light.

Close on the heels of the last post on this blog (Indian Court Issues Warrant for Porsche C.E.O.s Arrest – NYTimes.com), comes another shocker. Now Padma Rao, A senior journalist has alleged discrimination at the hands of her former employers, a leading German magazine, because she is an Indian. 

Padma Rao. Photo: Sanjay Rawat

Read this Tehelka expose Is Padma Rao a victim of racism in the German media?

Of late, Germany, which has always enjoyed the reputation of an admirable welfare state and a fair judiciary, has been arbitrary and racist.

While it’s not uncommon for journalists to get entangled in law suits, as inescapable fallout of the occupation, it’s rare for a journalist to go to court over the issue of employment. In 2009, in one such unusual case, a labour court in Delhi ordered the Associated Press (AP) to award a gratuity of Rs 50 lakh to Laurinda Keys, a former employee working in India, who was sacked wrongfully. And now, more recently, the former South Asia Bureau Chief of the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, filed a lawsuit against her employers, for what appears to be a case of racial discrimination.

Padma Rao, 53, has worked for Der Spiegel for the past 14 years, covering major events and interviewing prominent personalities. “The first 10 years were brilliant,” says Rao, “but with a new set of editors, things changed. My writings were published under someone else’s byline. My story ideas were assigned to others. And then they told me I would be demoted under two junior correspondents.”

 

Padma’s case is not unique. I am heartened to see Tehelka expose the arbitrariness of the German legal system trying to protect their own corporations. It is a brand of arrogance unbecoming of the keepers of the world’s ethical practices. Call it “kleptocracy”.

This post is a call to India to come out and rally against this injustice. Especially to our hallowed media as well as Industry associations, to come out in support of the truth without fearing ‘financial’ repercussions of not aligning with could-be clients.

This is also a call for Government’s backing — the only way errant German corporations will be deterred from treating Indians the way the likes of Continental AG, Porsche and Der Spiegel have been doing.

This is our rally cry on behalf of India’s Davids.

An Indian court has issued an arrest warrant for Matthias Müller, chief executive and chairman of Porsche, the German carmaker, and eight other executives from the company.

Another case of German high-handedness where they show little respect to Indian partners, knowing they can rely on their legal system to side with them.

Whether the arrests will happen or not, this action by the Jaipur court is a strong signal that Indian companies have come into their own and will not allow themselves to be walked all over.

Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters
Matthias Mueller, chief executive of Porsche, posing inside a 911 sports car, at the company’s headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany on Jan. 9.

via Indian Court Issues Warrant for Porsche C.E.O.s Arrest – NYTimes.com.

***

2. Reported on this blog was the case of Continental AG of Germany against Ideafarms last May where the Regional Court of Hannover had delivered injustice to the Indian company and ‘robbed’ them of a rightful compensation for unlawful use of their copyrighted software.

Given that a lot of noise was being made in Germany about the lack of enforcement of IP rights in India following the Enercon and Natco decisions, it was inevitable that Germany would raise those two matters during the bilateral talks scheduled with India between May 9 and May 11. As had been predicted before in the related post, the Indian government too found in the Ideafarms dispute sufficient diplomatic ammunition to face Germany.

As per a recent report from The Economic Times, in course of the meeting that had taken place between the Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma and the German Federal Minister of Economics & Technology Philipp Roessler, Sharma had raised concerns about the Ideafarms dispute and the manner in which it had been handled by the German court. He was assured that the German government would look into the matter and ensure a just resolution to the dispute.

via SPICY IP: Spicy IP Tidbit: German Minister promises to ensure Just Resolution of Ideafarms Dispute.

***

3. Questions on the issue were raised in the Economic Times “Should Govt. Support Davids?” many months before the German court delivered its unexpected ruling. 

While Indian information technology companies should, indeed, be encouraged to diversify into software products whose intellectual property they own and license, what recourse do Indian companies have, particularly the small ones, in case foreign parties , particularly large ones, violate their intellectual property? Is it possible for the government to fund the legal expenses of Indian companies defending their intellectual property abroad, once initial screening shows a viable case?

via Should government support Davids?

Comments invited …

Pics from DNA

Incredibly lucid views by Ranjeev Dubey, summing up the goings-on in Delhi in response to the horrific gang-rape of a 23-year old physiotherapist on 16th December, 2012.

“Sunil, I think I said this on Twitter.

ONE, The violence against women on the street is only an extension of the violence in our homes. You can’t fix one without fixing the other.

TWO, in the specific case, these were criminals. To call them rapists is to mislead those responsible for dealing with the law and order challenge of an understaffed overworked police force permanantly subject to political pressures to say nothing of their obligation to provide security to these same politicians.

THREE, between the bizarre nature of popular reaction, our lumpen polity and our perverse political classes, existent or aspiring Kejriwal and Ramdev, every genuine protest will get hijacked unless we manage it very well which requires urban elites to be leaders, not those reeling under anger management issues.

FOUR, popular anger does start revolutions but careful analysis and the moulding of solutions creates new societies. It’s absurd that our urban elites should lead street protests. Who will now mould the solutions and drive change: the illitrates?

FIVE, the extreme inequities in our society encourges disempowered men one of them to do terrible things to women sometimes, it is one of us which is when we react, otherwise we let it go with the usual sympathetic noises and platitudes. Of course when one of us does terrible things to one of them, then it’s only some women trying to make money from one of us. We cannot create a new society without introspection and a fundamental change in our own attitude.

SIX, all this said and done, what has happened to this girl is terrible and unforgivable. Indians being a bit emotionally fragile as we are, the general reaction to anyone asking for a more nuanced and intellectually refined approach to public issues is then accused of promoting the opposite. In this case, it would be: “oh so you think it was okay for her to be raped, etc etc”.”

A reminder for us to exercise restraint and keep our animal instincts in check, whether in perpetrating crime or protesting against it. Moderation is what we need as we step into the New Year.

Ranjeev is an old friend and a good one at that. He’s also the guy that recently rocked the boat with his second (maybe third) book, Bullshit Quotient. A must read!

I cannot emphasize enough that “popular anger does start revolutions but careful analysis and the moulding of solutions creates new societies.”

It’s such a shame to see the age of unreason gripping the educated intelligentsia. Your helplessness is manifesting in your call for instant justice. The anger is justified but the means are not. Restraint doesn’t mean we’re giving up … by all means keep the intensity of emotion alive. An eye for an eye is not the Indian way.

Reminder that is the land where Buddha attained enlightenment and Gandhi won freedom. Ahimsa in thought, word and action. Happy 2013!

Related:
1. Stop Rape NOW – sign this petition by Namita Bhandare

The culprit is aggregation. Why have a middle-man that provides no or negative value. The other culprit is designing the mobile experience using the web toolkit. Mobile phones are not just computers with smaller screens; they are personal belongings that can be personalized. And yet another culprit is that advertising, promotion and marketing, meant to be instant and real-time on location-based apps, are still produced the way agencies produced print ads in the eighties.

via Deals on your smartphone on-location | the DealChaat blog.

The last few months have been crazy. It has been DealChaat all the way. Chaat, for the uninitiated, is all about junk, street food. And ‘deal’, they say, is a bad word in today’s India. Why am I not surprised! Here, let me give you a clue. Nobody wants the middleman any longer.

Enter DealChaat 

India’s first location-based “last-minute-last-mile” platform on mobile. Full disintermediation.

Check it out. You may want to be associated … write on the blog, help with design, technology, be a critic, join the crack team … let me know.

DealChaat on the web: Facebook, Twitter, Website

Talk to us.

Also interesting in the above context are the following trends for 2013

So here’s my equation …

VALUE = Mobile + Social

via Social Apps and the Mobile Frontier.

via The Five Levels of Communication in a Connected World :: Tips :: 99U.

People often either confuse modes of communication or believe they just don’t matter. This comes from our obsession with content. We somehow believe that if the content of our communication is all there, nothing else should matter.

It also has something to do with personality – some people are simply bashful and will not pick up a phone even when that’s the simplest aand most logical thing to do.

Image Courtesy: theagilehorizon.wordpress.com

Finally, it is all about the cultural context in which the interaction is set. Which is why global work even among team members across cultures is so challenging.