Author Archives: amrita

Technology Trends and Disruptions in 2012

Posted on January 21, 2012 by amrita

In this video blog post I talk about technology trends and disruptions I see coming in 2012. Some key themes include — enterprise software making a comeback, how there is a true globalization of startups and VC money, how social is changing for the better and lastly how reading and education are being disrupted.

Whats funny though is that I recorded this video over the weekend and Apple’s iBooks 2.0 and iTunes University announcements came out on Jan 19th (yesterday) and focused exactly on the last point I make — about education, learning and reading needing to be disrupted.

In any case, you must watch the recorded live stream of the Apple educational event if you haven’t already. Do it for your kids if not for yourself, because it will be their new reality very soon.

In a nutshell, Apple is first in line (and likely soon to become the leader) to completely changing the face of education by allowing students to access textbooks on their iPad, textbooks that are a lot more fun, interactive and engaging. And probably more impactful, by partnerning up with more schools than ever to release even more free classes on iTunes University from leading educational institutes like Stanford, Harvard, MIT etc. These free classes while intended for students and teachers in those schools and programs, can also be accesses for free by anybody with an iTunes account.

Almost unbelievable. I mean who wouldn’t want to take a 2 hour class at Stanford, for FREE, while sitting in their living room, right?

read more

Posted in Funding, Innovation, Media, Social, Startups | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Social Enterprise is here in full force! Profiling 3 Toronto startups in the space

Posted on November 23, 2011 by amrita

Weaving a social context into your business is quickly becoming a prerequisite for success.

Fortune 500 companies are already investing in what is now known as the ‘Social Enterprise’, wherein employees easily collaborate with one another and use social media to connect with partners and customers like never before.

The Social Enterprise promises to connect companies with their customers and employees in a whole new way. In this post, I talk about what it means for a business to be social.

I also profile three Toronto startups – Viafoura, realSociable and Rypple – that are shaping the Social Enterprise pie, one slice at a time.

There are many aspects of a business that social enterprise technology can serve, and numerous software companies have emerged in the last few years to solve these problems.

Salesforce.com, one of the front-runners in bringing Social Enterprise technology to its clients, believes that:

85% of companies use social media to engage customers
64% of users are more likely to purchase from a company that helps them via social media
27% of companies active in social media report higher profit margins
read more

Posted in Profiles, Social, Startups | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Reminder on why Business Blogging is essential

Posted on October 7, 2011 by amrita

I am a huge fan of blogging for numerous reasons. Content marketing is one of the most critical components of online marketing because it can be leveraged across all mediums. A blog post isn’t limited to existing solely on that …
read more

Posted in Corporate Culture, Marketing | Leave a comment

The iPad2 and my Top 5 native iPad apps

Posted on October 1, 2011 by amrita

Folks, I had recorded this back in August during my road trip to Philadelphia and Atlantic City and completely forgot to post it here! Take a look at the video, after which you can check out the top 10 list of my most-loved, most-used “productivity” iPad Apps.
read more

Posted in Gadgets, Innovation, Media, Mobile, Product | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Steve Jobs: You’ve got to find what you love

Posted on August 25, 2011 by amrita

“You’ve got to find what you love” These are the words uttered by Steve Jobs – at the Stanford Commencement speech in 2005 – who just stepped down today on Wednesday, August 23rd 2011, as the CEO of Apple Inc., …
read more

Posted in Gadgets, Innovation, Profiles | 1 Comment

Google Pluses and Minuses – What Works & What’s Missing with Google+

Posted on August 10, 2011 by amrita

Google’s latest offering in the social networking arena – Google Plus (Google+) has now been out for over a month. Google Plus has already surpassed 25 million registered users. To put this in perspective, know that Facebook took 3 years to reach this goal!

Google’s failure to effectively launch Google Buzz and Google Wave a few years ago, made this new foray into social networking seem like a monumental task, but it looks like this is one of their best efforts yet. The company may have finally figured out how to do social well, their key mantra being: you don’t have to share your content with everyone. Instead they expect content to be targetted to specific contacts and groups of people.

Below are my thoughts on some of the less obvious features that are awesome and some comments on what might be missing:

read more

Posted in Innovation, Media, Product, Social, UX/ UI | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Karma Behaviorism: Does It Pay Off?

Posted on August 9, 2011 by amrita

The @Jonathanscard story is taking the world by storm. TechCrunch, the Globe&Mail etc have already written about it. (Yeah I know what you’re thinking – even credible “news” sites are nothing more than link grabbers these days).

Anyhow, I myself tried it today to see if it works. And it did!

I walked over to a Starbucks this afternoon and ordered a $3.23 grande ice-tea lemonade – and quelle surprise – a quick scan of the photo image of the loaded Starbucks card on my phone, rang the order through! The cashier was pretty impressed by my “tech skills” too. Poor guy had no idea it was simply a photo image of the barcoded back of the Starbucks card ;)

In any case, of course I was happy to get my poison of choice, free of charge to me. But the question remains: is JonathansCard a thoughtful gesture/ social experiment or a genius marketing campaign?
read more

Posted in Marketing, Product, Social | Leave a comment

Personal note: Amrita Missing In Action

Posted on August 5, 2011 by amrita

Hi folks, I thought I’d post this note here as I’ve had many people ask me why I haven’t posted anything in some time, why they haven’t been able to reach me, get face-time with me etc. Well the short answer …
read more

Posted in Personal | 1 Comment

Why Social Media Is Not Working For You: A Wake-up Call

Posted on June 13, 2011 by amrita

Often businesses get overwhelmed by the hype around social media and jump right into it to avoid getting left behind. This tends to lead to a circumstance where a company expects to start seeing traction, but end up only burning rubber – simply because they haven’t thought things through properly.

They then tend look for issues with their quality of content or frequency of posting (which do contribute to take up in some capacity) without really looking at the big picture of why progress hasn’t been made.

Below are some common reasons why social media may not be working for your organization (apart from the fact that you sound like a corporate robot and not a real person):

read more

Posted in Corporate Culture, Marketing, Media, Social | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

How To Turn Employees into Advocates and Leverage them for Content Marketing

Posted on May 16, 2011 by amrita

If you’re a marketer and have ever been tasked with thought-leadership for your organization, you will know what a lonely place it can be. Becoming a thought-leader in a particular sector/ subject matter does not happen overnight. It takes much effort, consistency and reputation building to churn out stellar content that will get you to that place.

One common oversight that organizations make when deliberating over their thought-leadership strategy is that they fail to leverage the skills, influence and deep insight of their employees; in the interest of maintaining control.

So what happens? Well, everything gets funneled through “corporate accounts” and the puck ends up stopping at marketing.

This is a common problem, especially with large organizations that don’t have the same flexibility and nimbleness that smaller businesses might have. This is exactly where small B2B companies can really thrive and empower their employees to solve their content problems.
read more

Posted in Corporate Culture, Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments