Soft talks about SoftExpo2012

Anderson: Rob how are you? What’s new?

Robertson: Busy times mate, I am travelling again, this time to Bangladesh next week.

Anderson: Bangla what? And why? What’s happening down there?

Robertson: Bangladesh. They’ve got a software expo coming up next week, supposedly their biggest and getting bigger every year…

Robi gets a Bangla website for itself

Secret cables from @Robileaks confirm the fact that senior management of Robi (erstwhile Aktel) have secretly taken into heed the request from Bangladesh Corporate Blog to have a Bangla version of its website. Irated with the akika from Aktel to Robi, we did give them quite an earful in this post here, which also included a tip to have a Bangla website. Although we haven’t received any note of thanks from senior Robiuls as we Bangalees usually prefer not to acknowledge our sources of inspirations and ideas and generally claim all to be our very own. So never mind.

Hats off to Robi for taking the lead to have a Bangla version of its website, not only as the first Bangladeshi telecom operator to have done that but also the very first Bangladeshi leading brand to have done that I believe. Please let me know if you are aware of any other Bangladeshi companies who have a website in both English and Bangla. Although just having a website in Bangla may not have any direct impact on increasing its popularity and profitability, it goes without saying that those 1. in rural or urban Bangladesh 2. who are more comfortable consuming information in Bangla than in English 3. who want to know through internet more about Robi - would find this initiative to be very timely, locally sensitive and culturally adaptive.

Robi sets an example for companies in other industries too. Say for example if you are an IT company and if you are trying to woo new clients, partner companies in Denmark primarily – then try having a Danish version of your website too. Just having a target market language version of your website will not be a clear cut guarantee for winning new business but somewhere there is this social element regarding languages in business that it creates a first impression if you attempt to communicate or represent your credentials and expertise in the language of your customers. In the end of the day, you will not win any IT outsourcing business if you have a great Danish version of your website, but your programmers and management included are incompetent and unnprofessional.

Its going to be even more important to have business content in local languages available online. Not only will this increase the outreach of that content to an audience who are more comfortable with local languages, it will also push up local language search engine optimisation, which I guess is still in its infancy.

Renaming for a Digital Bangladesh

Do you have a new born? Do you know someone who has a new born? Do you dream of a Digital Bangladesh? Do you believe that names have an impact on how the baby would behave when it grows up? Then waste no more time, go nowhere else...some of our creative brains have proposed some innovative Digital Bengali names for our new borns, the future Digital Generation Bangladesh...shall we call them Gen-D?

Since the primary audience of this blog targets English speaking (and reading) Bangladeshi and non-Bangladeshi business readers, I have transliterated the Digital Bengali names. Here is all we have for your naming pleasure.

1. Mouse Choudhury

2. Monitor Alam

3. Mozilla Akhter

4. Opera Khatun

5. Cable Dewan

5. Modem Khandker

6. DVD Khan

7. Google Mia

8. Profile Choudhury

9. Schedule Alam

10. Folder Sheikh

11. Refresh Mahmud

12. Email Patowary

13. Laptop Haider

14. IBM Chattopaddhay

15. Ipod Kibria

16. PC Sarkar

17. Kamruzzaman Excel

18. Intel Chakraborty

19. Asus Majumder

20. RAM Mohan Roy

21. Apple Khan

22. Casing Akhter

23. Duel Rana

24. Audio Hawladar

25. XP Singh

26. Device Adhikary

27. Undo Mia

28. Zafrullah Sharafont

Amazing piece of naming convention and innovation isn't it? Let me know which one(s) you liked the most. I still believe that we as a nation naturally possess great sense of humour, however if we also had put our brains and time in the right places in right time, we should have become more developed than Malaysia by now (sigh). Nevertheless, I hope the policy makers and spoilticians (spoilt politicians) of Bangladesh would greet these digital Bengali names and the act of renaming babies with arms wide open, as they love renaming almost everything in Bangladesh, depending on whoever is in power. So if they are dreaming of a Digital Bangladesh, what best a way than to start renaming the future generation in the true digital way.

I wish we could rename a donkey as a horse and it would soon start running faster and win important races for us. Only and only if it were so simple and easy. Hardly anything would be achieved other than a good laugh and some time wasted, by naming or renaming babies, bridges, hospitals or airports. There is a reason why every programmer is not called 'Bill Gates' or 'Steve Jobs' in the US and why they still lead the global software powerhouses. Rather than renaming, we better relook at the way we go about doing our business, revise our perceptions towards branding, entrepreneurship, innovation, refresh our knowledge about Bangladeshi brands and businesses and rethink the way we want to portray ourselves to the business world.

Promoting Art through IT

When Pohela Baishakh comes we see Dhaka get painted with different shades. We know who do this great job to make this colorful spectacle. They are the students of Art College. Every year a good number of students are passing from the CharuKala Institute. We know they have quality but do they really have a chance to prove it? Currently, they don’t have an effective enough platform to do what they do best and earn money in doing so. But a simple idea can change all that.

How many people of our country buy painting or creative works? Its minuscule compared to how many people buy it globally. Who says Bangladeshi aspiring artists need to sell to Bangladeshi buyers only? If we get rid of this notion and apply the wonderful world of World Wide Web in the selling process, it can really do wonders for the aspiring artists of the Art College.

Introducing marriage of IT and Arts to create a promotional website for CharuKala Institute. When a student at CharuKala Institute enrolled then s/he will get a user ID and password from the Institute to access the website and upload his/her portfolio on there. This way each and every student would get a chance to upload the images of his/her works. Then there would be option for adding price, postal change (FedEx, DHL, UPS local EMS and so on). When someone would purchase something then the amount could be divided in two parts. XX% of the total income could go to the owner of the art work and the rest YY% could go to the account of CharuKala Institute as a service charge or so.

Globally web 2.0 sites like Flickr are doing wonders for the art and photography world. We can replicate the same model here.