How Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Can use Social Media
Posted on 23. Jan, 2010 by Gautam in Events
I was at the 4th Indian Marketing Summit today on a panel discussion with luminaries like Mahendra Swarup who founded Indiatimes.com, Bikky Khosla of Tradeindia.com, Prof. Govind Hariharan from the Michael J Coles College of Business, Kennesaw State University and Rajeev Karwal, Founder and CEO of Milagrow.
The presentation I made is here:
The other panelists chose to speak rather than present, so I can’t share the presentations here 
There was a lively Q&A session where some students asked me interesting questions on cloud computing, ranking users on Twitter and how Social Media could help small enterprises recruit employees.
Overall a great learning experience for me!
My NASSCOM Talk: Made in India, Made for the World
Posted on 09. Jan, 2010 by gaurav in Events
Yesterday, I gave a talk at the NASSCOM Emerge Friday 2.0 event about how the time is ripe for Indian startups to target the global market: ‘Made in India, Made for the World‘.
So far, Indian startups have focused on tweaks for the local market, not inventions or tweaks for the global market, partly because Indian VCs have tended to fund me-too startups with a business model focused on enabling transactions for the local market (book a air/ rail/ bus/ movie ticket).
However, in the last one or two years, several Indian startups have dared to build products for the global market. On my list are enterprise collaboration players Zoho, Deskaway, Uhuroo, Remindo, Cyn.in and YouSuggest, consumer focused web 2.0 startups like LifeBlob, AuthorStream, GizaPage (and the now dead Fachak and Kwippy), widget company Tell-a-Friend/ SocialTwist, flash-maker Toufee and online tutoring company TutorVista. Do let me know if I have missed out startups that should be on this list. With a little luck, several of these startups can become global players, and some already have.
I think there are five trends that are enabling Indian startups to target the global market –
1. SaaS/ Cloud Computing: The SaaS based delivery model enables such startups to sign-up users without a significant upfront investment in a sales and distribution channel and the cloud computing infrastructure from players like Amazon allows them to scale seamlessly as more users sign up.
2. Application Ecosystems: The application ecosystem created by Facebook, OpenSocial, Twitter, iPhone, Android and Nokia Ovi enables startups to build and distribute applications quickly. Over the next two years, as more players set up structured marketplaces like the iPhone marketplace, I expect these applications ecosystems to become the key driver of entrepreneurial innovations around the world, including in India.
3. Social Connections: The people behind the tech blog ecosystem (TechCrunch, Mashable, GigaOm, ReadWriteWeb, WebWorkerDaily, Scobleizer) that drives initial adoption for tech startups are more accessible than ever, on Twitter, Facebook and their own blogs. The Indian tech blog ecosystem is also evolving with Digital Inspiration, Pluggd.in, WATBlog and MediaNama building a large Indian and international readership and some of us are beginning to build a global reputation as thought leaders in the web 2.0 space. There is increasing interest in finding and highlighting startup success stories from the emerging world, especially India and China. The world is eager to listen to us and we have more means than ever to tell our stories. Not only that, these social connections can even help startups find international employees, partners and investors.
4. Viral Loops: Social media doesn’t only help startups leverage social connections; startups can also tap into the viral loops created by social platforms to build buzz. Aggregators like Techmeme and Tweetmeme and virality machines and platforms like Facebook Connect enable startups to grow virally by tapping into Facebook’s 350m user base.
5. Support Ecosystem: Social media and web 2.0 tools can also help startups convert and support customers. Startups can use Twitter to find prospects and track customer complaints and then use Skype to convert or close them. GetSatisfaction is emerging as a strong customer-driven support platform that can enable tech startups to offer support at scale without building a big support team.
At one level, ‘Made in India, Made for the World‘ is a manifesto to encourage more Indian startups to build web 2.0 offerings for the global market. At another level, it’s also a reminder to myself as I try to build 2020 Social into a global social technology firm, based in India. The journey has just started, for all of us, and I hope that we’ll have the will to go all the way.
Cross-posted at Gauravonomics: Social Media and Social Change.
My Talk on Digital Activism at Social Media Club Delhi
Posted on 15. Dec, 2009 by gaurav in Events, Ideas
In my previous post on three lessons entrepreneurs can learn from activists, I wrote about the importance of building a partner and volunteer ecosystem and mentioned how we use this principle in our own work at 2020 Social.
Over the last three months, Dave has been working with several other social media practitioners and enthusiasts to start chapters of Social Media Club in a number of Indian cities, including Delhi (Facebook, Twitter), Mumbai (Twitter), Bengaluru (Twitter), Chennai (Twitter), Kolkata (Twitter), Hyberabad (Twitter), and Pune (Twitter). Several of these aren’t yet active, so if you want to take the lead in your local Social media Club, write to @evansdave on Twitter or volunteer on the Social Media Club wiki.
The Delhi Chapter of Social media Club held its first meetup at Hauz Khas Village on November 21, 2009 (the first Social Media Club meetup in India?) and some 40 odd people turned up.
I gave a talk on digital activism in India and China to emphasize the idea that social media goes beyond business and marketing.
In the discussion that followed, I suggested that we keep the focus of Social Media Club meetups on big ideas so that not only social media enthusiasts and practitioners but also marketers and non-profits are interested in getting involved. I would love to attend talks that teach me something new about social media in India, for instance —
- How are Janaagraha, Breakthrough and Cry uses social media in India.
- How are Zoho, Deskaway, Uhuroo, Cynapse, YouSuggestand Remindo are building SaaS-based collaboration products out of India?
- How are startups like Quippy, Fachak and Lifeblob building consumer focused social networking platforms from India?
I hope Dave and the other good folks who are setting up Social Media Clubs in India will keep their eye on the big ideas and make the Indian chapters some of the most vibrant communities in the Social Media Club ecosystem.
Cross-posted at Gauravonomics: Social Media and Social Change.
2020 Social builds and nurtures online communities for Indian and international clients, connects their customers, partners and employees, and helps them achieve their business objectives.
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