Why Mahfuz Anam's job is easy?

In a bid to encourage me to learn better English, my late grandfather used to urge me to read the Daily Star on a regular basis from when I was as young as 15. So having read the leading English daily of Bangladesh for an ardent 17 years, I have now realised that the job of the editor Mr. Mahfuz Anam has been very easy – almost tantamount to a walk in the park (Ramna, Chandrima etc.). A few hypotheses to support my assumptions are here.

Musa Mama conquers Everest - Now what?

Certainly a red and green salute to the first Bangladeshi for making us feel literally on top of the world for the first time. Musa Ibrahim is a common and heroic figure in Bangladesh now after his conquest of the Mount Everest as the first Bangladeshi. It goes without saying that we badly need role models for our youth, brand ambassadors to hold our country image high in the global stage. Musa has just done that risking his own life in the treacherous slides of the mighty Himalayas. He has started his descent and have been honoured with accolades in Kathmandu by the Bangladeshi high commission and the expats. Before he continues his return to Bangladesh, I thought to express my hope and fears regarding how this great man could be branded well and bad - by Bangladeshi corporates.

I would sincerely hope that –

If you are a telecom brand of Bangladesh, then please don’t put Musa Mama on top of Keokaradong, making him claim that he can get the network from the highest point of Bangladesh, only and only with your mobile network. Also please don’t make Musa make a roaming call from Kathmandu to his eagerly waiting mother and fellow villagers in Thakurgaon, to break the news of his mountain conquest and the news of his return – by echoing the promise to ‘stay close’ with your near and dear ones. If you are an energy drink producer, then please don’t insist Musa Mama to pose with a can of your energy drink like a shark or a bull or a tiger and claim that it was this great energy drink which gave him the so valuable energy when he was climbing the gigantic Sagarmatha. Similarly if you are in the business of making chanachurs or noodles, please spare him from claiming in a product endorsement that it was your greatly delicious instant noodles or spicy chanachur that kept him going when he paused for a break on his way up to the prestigious mountain top.

Either there is a high possibility that some brands can approach him to endorse their products and services and turn him into a paltry commodity. Or there is a possibility that we will comfortably overlook the tremendous potential this man holds to inspire the youth to aim high against all odds. The most prominent job adverted on bdjobs.com should be for a brand ambassador for Bangladesh. Luckily we got Dr. Muhammad Yunus and I am sure even though he possesses a sparkling, wide smile capable enough to have landed him a role in a toothpaste advertisement, he must have declined such offers as he has other priorities and better means to support himself. I am not sure about Musa though. It is to be seen how the young dynamic man who is a journalist by profession, handles this new found fame now.

Bangladeshi brands would be better off if they decide to join hands to host this man and his unique feat to celebrate a common achievement and preach a common message of pride, self-belief, ambition, perseverance – as a Bangladeshi youth. I hope Musa sees the bigger picture, as he must have seen from the top of Mount Everest, that he has a game at hand to inspire those who breathe Bangladesh around the world. Going above and beyond representing any particular business brand, he should rather convert himself to a national brand and set out in a mission to carry the brand of the red and green. Actual business brands who might take part in making this happen for Musa and for us, would be treated as true heroes in the long run.

Business blogging in Bangladesh - three years on

As this blog enters three years into existence with a view to promote the use of business blogging by Bangladeshi companies, I made a few quick phone surveys to a few contacts working in various industries there to find out how they are perceiving business blogging to start the conversation with Bangladeshi consumers. Following is a summary of the present state of unofficial views from a few Bangladeshi executives.

Lack of knowledge

Many Bangladeshi companies, infact most of them, seem to be unaware about the use of business blogging as a marketing tool or social media as a matter of fact, to engage with their customers. The general impression is that since the companies have websites up and running so that should suffice as far as online brand management is concerned. Moreover, the companies are confident that the existing business functions such as customer services, market research, media etc. are good enough to 'engage' customers through various surveys, ATL and BTL activities. Moreover, since there are dedicated personnel to liaise with the press and media, they are not interested to anything which is untried and uncommon in Bangladeshi business landscape.

Difference between business journalism and business blogging

Those who are aware of corporate or business blogging are still not sure whether business journalism and business blogging are the same thing and who exactly does what. They expressed satisfaction that they are getting required hotspots in TV, radio and print media to convey their brand communications to their existing and potential clients, moreover business journalists are already 'doing a good job' by regularly publishing updates and news on various aspects of their businesses, so there is no need to confuse the situation by experimenting with business blogging.

Issues of transparency and lack of rules

The 3rd category of Bangladeshi businesses have adequate knowledge of various game-changing technologies such as blogs and social media but they are unsure about protocols, regulations in their companies about how much of business information can they divulge in public space. Most are fearful of backlashes from within the company. For example, an engineer from Robi voiced his embarassment with the new brand name, is aware of the recent conversations in online space but not sure whether or not someone from Robi should engage in the conversation in the same social networks with people or not. Moreover, according to him, the management is simply not interested to pay attention to unofficial forms of communications customers try to have with the companies. Its not a priority.

Lack of defined roles and resources

Since brands attempt to share control with customers in the social media space, Bangladeshi companies can't fully stop customers from setting up fan pages and groups for the brand, either to sing praise or do brand bashing. Groups in Facebook for Aktel (Robi), BRAC Bank, GrameenPhone etc. exist but what is not clear is whether these are official representations of the brands or not. It could be the artworks of a loyal employee who thought to make a mark on behalf of his/her employer in the social media space by setting up pages for free and attempting to start conversations with consumers. But unless there are no official roles assigned, its difficult to ascertain who the official spokesperson is. Most of the time, brands discover accidental spokespersons in social media who prove to be efficient mouthpieces for the company, Bangladeshi companies are yet to wake up to this reality. So the companies would prefer to keep blogging and social media 'to a personal level and for fun only'.

A formal media survey by market research companies would be useful to provide more concrete views on this topic. Feel free to share your views and the views of your businesses on this.

The future is Purple

We recently took a phone interview with Mishu Rahman, Editor, Purple Magazine, the increasingly popular Bangladeshi monthly. Please listen to the phonecast and read the supporting transcript below. You can join the Purple group in Facebook here.

1.What is the vision of Purple Magazine? Why do you think Purple is different?

PURPLE was started with a dire need to represent Bangladesh positively to a global audience in an exciting way. Most Magazines in Bangladesh are catalogues of lifestyle shopping and those which offer good reads are presented in a boring format, or else involves stale ideas and people repeating the same things across various media platforms.
PURPLE dared to take a non-political, social research based trend tracking approach which we call tracking “the Pulse of Bangladesh” The presentation in world class, language is international magazine standards and interaction with readers happen at state of the art platforms. PURPLE gives ample space to new and fresh ideas, avoids commercialization of issues and creates excitement about Bangladeshis and Bangladesh to a global audience. The vision is to bring in international recognition of PURPLE as a platform to initiate conversation on things affecting Bangladesh and the region. Already PURPLE has been distributed at a Cambridge Leadership summit as a Pre-reading for a session on Global environment to 110 young global leaders and our Agriculture Issue last November was distributed to all international dignitaries who joined the World Food Summit in Rome as a complete perspective of work being done on Agriculture in Bangladesh. These are small steps but we are getting there with each step.

2. How do you classify yourself i.e. lifestyle magazine, leisure, entertainment?
PURPLE’s mission is to enlighten, entertain, enrich inspire and interact and initiate. It celebrates the Bangladeshi Spirit. We call ourselves a Contemporary issues magazine and we have various segments catering to business, entertainment, lifestyle, culture and politics.

3. Who is your target audience? why do you target them? how do you target them?
Our target audience is anyone in Bangladesh who feel the need to be engaged with the times – and we believe everyone needs to be, so that we our cumulative contribution to the development of our country can be that much greater. We have seen that various cover stories of PURPLE appeal to different segments of the society. For example one cover two years ago on the brash lives of urban school and college students from wealthy backgrounds got a lot of urban parents writing to us asking for more details. On the other hand our issue on Agriculture generated interest of a lot researchers and analysts from across the region. Even Hugh Brammer from London who has worked in Bangladesh for over 35 years in agricultural development emailed us a writeup as a follow-up of that issue. Another Cover story on Looking at Bangladesh 30 years from now created a phenomenal participation of University students who will be middle aged citizens of Bangladesh after 3 decades to get together in workshops and send us their dreams and aspirations. Our Initiative in raising funds for the social victims raised a lot of interest among celebrities, artists and development workers. So through various features we try to engage with different parts of society which gives PURPLE an element of freshness and excitement

4. What is your opinion on the English publishing sector in Bangladesh and how PURPLE fits in there?
The English Publishing sector suffers from a dearth of readers. However, with a rising involvement of various institutions and Corporate houses, Universities and even the government in promoting the familiarity with the language, the scenario may not be the same 5 / 6 years down the line. Today we as editors suffer from a huge crisis of good writers/ reporters in English. And thus most magazines who look to become ‘English’ language magazines get away with mediocre articles, downloaded plegiarised materials and no one is the wiser.
On the brighter side, English publications with insightful articles and engaging presentations can attract a global conversation and has a wider appeal. PURPLE intends to lead in this arena over time. It has been in Publication only since July 2007, so this has been so far experimental learning. We are ready to take on bigger challenges in 2010.

5. Do you make use of internet, mobile phones, social media to promote, inform, communicate and mobilize your readers? How?
What are we today without social media? PURPLE’s facebook group gets a lot of our message across. The online version is a large platform for non-resident Bangladeshis to experience PURPLE. We are aware that as more Bangladeshis go online and use internet enabled phones, online and mobile versions will become more popular. However, the print version will never really go extinct. If this was to be, then when TV came in, the newspaper would have gone out of print!

Status Renting, Status Bites and a range of status categories

Many status conscious Dhakaiyas think that if you manage to reside in the Bermuda triangle of Dhaka city i.e. Gulshan-Banani-Baridhara, you possess a 'higher' status than the rest who live outside, or even on the periphery. However Facebook, the most popular social networking site in Bangladesh too, is poised to make this status vanity blurred, as apparently, everybody and anybody has a ‘status’, as long they are registered with Facebook, or with Twitter as a matter of fact. This certainly implies that these status-savvy digital netizens of Bangladesh have acquired the power of being micro-publishers for free, to start influencing their smaller sphere of acquaintances, through their frequent updates about own situation, feelings, news, etc. From my observation, I could categorize the status-mongers in Facebook according to the following categories. See if you want to add some more and think how each of these could be mobilized to spread the word-of-mouth regarding you, your business, brand. (read more)


1. Stato-holics
This group of people are status addicts, they prefer to update their status as frequently as possible. Most interestingly, even if they are ‘busy’, they somehow manage to get the time out of their busy schedule to update their status as ‘Abdul is busy’ or ‘Abdul is buzzzeeeee’ etc. making others wonder whether that person is busy with work or busy Facebooking!

Tip:
This category of users may be good brand mouth-pieces for your product/service. Riding on their urge to frequent status updates, they need to be equipped with enough information and right incentives to help spread the word-of-mouse for your brand.

2. Status-stalkers
You might be having 500+ friends in your friend list but in reality you might be interacting actually with not more than 50 through personal messages, wall posts and seeing each other’s status updates. Then what happened to the rest of your colourful and long friend list? Have they suddenly turned their face off Facebook? I reckon not. This category of people prefer not to update their own status but prefer to have sneak peaks on what others are doing. Partially it could be because they don’t want their ‘friends’ to know what their own secrets plans are for job, holidays etc. lest their friends exploit this information and race ahead. So they prefer to keep a check on everybody else’s status regularly and remain themselves in a hidden mode. That’s what friends are for huh? In many case’s some stalk a handful of people genuinely to acquire more knowledge, contacts etc. They are Facebook introverts.

Tip:
Good type for market research may be, who keep a check on what other people are upto, or may be saying about your brand, business or even you…and then reports back to you.

3. Stat-vertizers
My favourite type. Those who can happily rent out their status space as a micro-bill board to advertise about your business, either for free or for fee for a certain duration of time may be. I have been investigating with this lately and am keen to get in touch with Facebook to figure out if the idea of ‘Status Renting’ could be made a reality. So if I could convince say 10 of my target Facebook friends to update their status about my custom-made-status ready information on my business/product, then it would be made visible to their own friends, with whom I might not be connected. The audience of your audience is my audience that I am trying to reach here through status messages. Its short, crispy, share-able and more importantly you would be more influenced about anything if you read it in your friends’ status updates rather than hearing it from any unsocilited ad campaign, or from me. In exchange, if its possible to track the clicks from each ‘rented status space’, it would be used to may be pay the interested stat-vertizers for their favour.

Tip:
--Friends and family might be bullied for a while to behave like stat-vertizers for a while but not for long, as there are no binding agreements. But if contextual status renting becomes a reality, it would be interesting to see how this works for businesses in a social media environment.

--Don’t let money ruin friendship.

4. Stat-wasters or Stat-blankers
This type of users are not always sure why they should use their status updates for. So sometimes they publish statuses such as ‘Abdul is …’. I really never understand the meaning of this ‘…’. To me, it’s a complete waste of space. Rather stay quiet and stalk other people than saying three dots. Also, some ignore the basic principle of brevity in status messages and opt for writing long epics in their status messages which certainly gets ignored for a skim-through status surfer.

Tip:
Wish them happiness and wish them well.

5. True socialite
They are bit of a mixed bag. They actually share nearly each of their conceivable feeling/emotion i.e. ‘Abdul is happy, sad, sick, tired, sleeping, eating, walking, thinking etc.’. They talk about food, movies, politics, life, love, pretty much everything being social requires and enjoys status messages just because they themselves are genuinely like that. They also send each other virtual gifts, play games etc.

Tip:
If a true socialite could be converted to a part time stat-vertizer, then it would be bthe est combination for your business/brand word spread. As people tend to rely more on the candid opinion of a True socialite than on the dry and monotonous updates from a stat-vertizer.

Other than ‘status-renting’ I am also researching with a concept I coined as ‘status-bites’. Inspired by what soundbites do, I think status-bites are the next best thing to educate your audience on your business/product on a slow and scheduled status release format. I am applying this specifically for reports that other teams produce for public consumption at my present workplace. It is argued that in times of information economy, attention is the currency, which no one wants to spend too much. So not many people have the time or interest or the access to go through a full report of 30-40 pages. But they would not mind to have a surface level idea, gist of the actual content in small chewable chunks, right through their status feeds so that they can be informed about the key aspects of the issue at hand through the screens of their smart phones or desktop screen. Think about it, is there anything about your business/brand, which can be released through status messages in a planned way over a period of time? May be a week or so?

Lastly, something I call ‘status-serials’. Can you tell a story about your brand/business in 10 status messages in a serial fashion? So that I have the urge to see what your next update is? Can it keep me interested in your sticky status for a week or so? However, none of these terms are in Google yet.

That it, time to update my status about this post now.

Bangladeshi owned Indian Restaurants in the UK : a brand crying for renaming

I think its high time we stop hiring bigger country labels from the neighbourhood to promote our businesses, which has been built up over the last few decades by our very own sweat, tears and hardwork…all in the shape of the £4 billion curry industry in Britain. Read here to find out how Bangladeshi businessmen brought the British curry industry to where it is today. Also, please read the latest news article here to find out about potential ‘revenue avenues’ we could reap from this industry.
However amidst all this merrymaking, my thoughts lie elsewhere. I ask myself,

1. Would this industry be in its present place if it were without the bold and brazen ‘brand India’ label sitting proudly on the signboards outside those 12000+ restaurants?
2. Now that the contribution of British-Bangladeshis to the UK economy is getting noticed and acknowledged day by day, can we risk stripping off the hired country brand from those signboards? Will this have any negative impact on the brand loyalty, brand perception etc. for those resturants?

Some scattered incidents, trying to relate them somehow.

You will get to see only a few restaurants in the UK which proudly claims in its exterior that it serves ‘Bangladeshi cuisine’, notably Kolapata in Whitechapel is one of the very few and some others in Bricklane. Ofcourse they don’t serve any Indian (North Indian to be more precise) food there and what they serve is much closer to what we actually eat in Bangladesh. Now its also true that we eat a lot of North Indian food too in our day to day occasions, but when it comes to doing food business overseas, are we letting go an opportunity to uphold the country’s brand (Bangladesh that is) or we are rightly giving the due credit to the actual originator of the food (India), even though the lion’s share of the business are held by Bangladeshis? I don’t know. Please also note that the report in bdnews24.com successfully and tactfully avoids the term ‘India’ or ‘Indian restaurants’.


My colleague once shared a ‘bitter’ experience he once had during his trip to Delhi a few years ago. In a bustling South Delhi restaurant, he once asked the waiter to bring in a ‘balti cuisine’, much to the confusion and uncertainty of the young Indian waiter who had no freaking clue what the white (nearly pink), fat, grey-haired British man was willing to eat. He explained meticulously that it’s that special type of pot in which he used to get served Chicken Tikka Masala in the Indian restaurant in Finchley Road in North London! He was also rather embarrassed thinking of any potential cultural gaffe he could have committed. The waiter remained indifferent to ‘balti’, thinking of how the shower tool ended up on the bewakoof gorey’s table in London. He could however receive well the Chicken Tikka Masala bit and moved on to serve him that, ofcourse not in any ‘balti’ or ‘bodna’ (no Wikipedia entry for ‘bodna’ yet) but on a simple brass made plate.


Moral of the story is, what they eat in North India is not actually what is served generally in the Bangladeshi owned Indian restaurants. Its somehow a mix of whatever that is, a best effort perhaps. It could be because of the fact that none of the chefs or their ancestors were born in or hail from North India, rather they are from the Golden Bengal, from the coast of the mighty Meghna, Surma, Kushiara..United Kingdom of Sylhet that is. Now whether they claim themselves to be Silotis first and foremost and are different from Bangalees/Bangladeshis would require a different blog post from this end. Its very likely they, like you and me, have been fed and bred on a lot of rice, fish, bhorta, dal, shatkora etc. and not on chapati, roti, and the curry-vaganza every day. Nevertheless, these businessmen have certainly brought about a revolution to the curry industry in the UK with their hardwork. Its good that the British government appreciates this fact, but I am sure that the British-Bangladeshi chefs don’t recceive any formal ‘thank you’ from the Indian High Commission in the UK or the diaspora, as other than ensuring a livelihood for themselves, they have ended up pumping up a different country’s brand muscle in the end of the day. I have come across a few Indian restaurants trying to woo European customers claiming that they ‘are not fake Indian restaurants (restaurants owned by Bangladeshis claiming to be serving Indian food) and they serve true Indian food…the taste of India!’. Now what do you say to that?


Amidst all this mud-throwing…balti-throwing etc. between country brand names, I think we should not spoil the food, or let it go cold and stale. In my opinion, the time is here to call a spade a spade. What would possibly go wrong if 12000+ Bangladeshi owned ‘Indian’ restaurants in the UK would decide to put the name of the red and green on the face of their businesses? Food fanatics can go fasting unto death that that food is not actually ‘Bangladeshi then’, but aren’t we in a good position to override those facts and establish the brand Bangladesh on 12000+ physical establishments in the UK? You call it a brand hijack or whatever, I am still all up for it. If the Bangladeshi businessmen were the first ones to have taught the British how to taste curry (Indian curry that is), then I am sure they can be frontiers to treat the British tastebuds to something more authentic, genuine, unique and truly ours….a dose not of dosa…but that of bhorta, dal, bhaat and the likes. Gelam. Khida lege gese.

New TV Channels for Bangladeshi media...what about businesses?

Congratulations! We have 10 more new TV channels vying for some space in our television sets and living rooms. Check out the list here to find out what these new channels are called and who the 'visionaries' are behind setting up these.
Personally I have got over those days when we used to follow McGyver or Ayomoy or any other Humayun Ahmed drama serials in the Bangladesh Tele Vision (BTV), as we as viewers did not have any other choice. Until the day when satellite TV made its entry and till now when we have a plethora of TV channels springing up, imagine how fragmented our attention has become and how shorter our attention span is becoming day by day. How many programs you actually follow in one or more Bangladeshi channels these days which is sticky enough to make you come back and follow it week after week? Ofcourse I am not against allowing newer TV channels to come up, its just that the trend shows the genre of people who are setting these up, what their agenda might be in future and the audience they are going to target soon with their broadcasting prowess.

Its all either ruling party or opposition politicians, controversial businessmen who have cases of corruption and political affiliations against them or religious opinion leaders who have the required money and the contacts to come up with new TV channels. It reflects the general interest of viewership of our audience perhaps, or the intention of those who are in power and who hold the money to influence that viewership. So we get to watch a lot of political talk shows, religious shows and a whole range of drama serials pretty much based on same plots and banalities.

What is still missing from this rising trend of TV channels is undoubtedly any dedicated source of information, edutainment and infotainment based on business topics of Bangladesh. Wonder if its too early to dream of a TV channel promoting Bangladeshi business issues, entrepreneurship, innovation, achievements, skills development shows, company profiles, business debates, corporate culture shows, interviews of business champions, entrepreneurs etc. Is it too early to ask for a special focus on Bangladeshi corporates and brands in the form of a full fledged TV channel? With half of the population full of young and would be business leaders and entrepreneurs, do you think there is no market for such a channel?

Its common knowledge that the media of a country plays a pivotal role in shaping up the national psyche of a nation. First and foremost emphasis on politics, religion and entertainment only are required ofcourse to fill up the whole gamut of services, however, I wonder why Bangladesh corporate would be deemed so negligible so as not to deserve any attention in terms of a specialised media channel? Its imperative that we make use of the media (traditional and new) to raise awareness of our business topics, brands, culture, challenges and opportunities and make it cross the border please.

Digital Bangladesh: Are you and your business WEBFFYT ?

As the saying goes 'Charity starts from home', going digital should start with yourself and your business first. Ask yourself if you and your business have a digital presence in the internet or not, try the WEBFFYT scale and figure out how 'web fit' you and your company is and how each of these internet tools could increase your online presence.

Web:

Having a website has become pretty much ordinary. It can be safely assumed that if you have a business or are employed in a company, it surely has a website address and a web presence. However, if you are an individual you can always have a personal website with www.yourname.com but having a profile in http://www.linkedin.com/ seems to be doing just the same or even more ro create your professional brand in the internet.

Email:

Pretty much like web site, having one or more email addresses has become part of life now, no surprise there. There is no need to explain how and why emails are essential for communicating these days.

Blog:

Very few Bangladeshi companies have taken up the idea of setting up their corporate blogs, be it internal or external. Either they are yet to come to terms with it or they are reluctant to let go the control of the company actions and the consequent reactions to these as it takes place in the interactive environment of a blog. Mostly some newspapers have opened up their web spaces to have a blog to allow conversations with their readers but Bangladeshi businesses are still experimenting with the idea. Other than having a company blog, CEO blogs could also be set up and maintained so that ordinary consumers could interact directly with the head of departments and/or the top people of the company. Similarly individual blogs are also a great medium to express your own thoughts, interests, expertise and create a group of readers surrounding it. Its very strange that our Bangla blogging community is so vibrant, we have live blogs such as http://www.somewhereinblog.net/, http://www.sachalayatan.com/ etc. but neither we have bi-lingual (Bangla and English) websites of Bangladeshi companies nor we have even Bangla blogs to encourage interactions from those consumers who are more comfortable to express themselves in Bangla.

Facebook:

If you argue that the largest social networking site in the world is meant only to 'socialise', check out each other's photos and status messages, then think again. There is no harm that your company cannot be 'social' and interact to its customers through a group or a 'fan page' in http://www.facebook.com/. Many companies have started hosting house networks and social networks have become increasingly flixible so that you can 'commute with your communities' meaning you can merge your different friendlists from different social networking sites into one large mesh of followers and networks. Also keep in mind that this is free marketing in the internet.

Flickr:

Does your company have any image gallery in http://www.flickr.com/? Why not showcase your products, services, your expertise, interest in your own personalised flickr page? Pictures are worth thousand words and videos are worth million words, so nothing like a flickr profile and even better a channel in Youtube.

Youtube:

Does your business have a dedicated channel in http://www.youtube.com/? You could publish your TV adverts, other commercials, jingles, brand music videos, corporate event videos, etc. regularly into your Youtube channel. You could always host these in your own website but the kind of flexibility and analytics that is available with Youtube, its better you start using these free services to spread the 'word of mouse' for yourself and your business. Individually, if you are a teacher, a good public speaker, anchor, performer, you can always publish your own performances in your own Youtube channel and interact with your audience, friends, well-wishers etc.

Twitter:

The microblogging platform at http://www.twitter.com/ has crept up slowly but pretty successfully especially in developed world. Its a matter of time that the craze, like Facebook, hits Bangladesh. Personally I believe Twitter is ideal for breaking news, referring to other interesting websites etc. And Facebook is more on the social and personal front. Twitter is increasingly used by companies to release product information, event information, regular updates about the business etc. to the followers. As an individual, status feature of Facebook and Twitter should be used differently, as its perhaps OK to have complete strangers in your follower list, as long as they are resourceful. However its perhaps not the safest idea to have complete strangers as your 'friend' in Facebook, checking out your private photos and other messages.

The bottomline is, Digital Bangladesh starts from you and your business first, depending on how WEBFFYT you are.

Is your business a corporate netizen yet?

I realised pretty late until today that none of the websites of leading Bangladeshi companies have a website in Bangla language. Do you think why or why not companies should have websites also available in Bangla? Open for debate.

Do our companies still consider Facebook to be a tool to connect with 'friends and family' and not with consumers? Do our companies maintain any 'fan pages' in Facebook and other leading social media websites? Why or why not?

Do our companies have a video strategy in major video sharing websites such as You Tube or Tube Mogul?

Do our companies consider Twitter as the tool to send periodic updates (Tweets) straight to consumers' handsets (of the followers?). What about bdjobs.com sending tweets as job updates to its followers? I note that some intelligent people have already booked the user names of grameenphone, banglalink in Twitter. I hope they are company insiders, hoping to formulate a digital media strategy for their companies in near future.

Do our companies consider maintaining an internal employee blog, CEO blog or a blog where consumers could interact with them directly?

Just putting up a static website has become so obsolete for today. Interaction and individuals are at the core of today's internet based business strategies. The sooner and the quicker companies can leverage internet for their business objectives, the better they can outperform the competition.

So why are you in Facebook?

So why are you in Facebook? Take this a sequel to the earlier post where the fellow blogger asked ‘Are you in Facebook?’. Since then, social media and web 2.0 have evolved drastically and social networking websites such as Facebook is increasingly used by individuals and businesses to brand themselves and their companies. And did you know that every one among five Bangladeshi internet users has a Facebook account? (total number of internet users in Bangladesh stands at 500,000). If so involved we are as a nation into the social networking site, ever wondered why and how are you using it in your day to day lives and business?


There is one group of users who use the site just to unwind, and update their friends and families about their trivial actions and thoughts of life. They use their status message tool as a mean to speak their mind out and get comments, feedback from their network of friends. We call this group the ‘pure socialites’. They usually spend long hours in Facebook browsing friends’ photo albums, commenting, taking quiz and inviting others to take part etc. They usually do not have any intention of building any self image and/or to promote any of their professional activities, they prefer to keep Facebook free of any work related matter. Many of them are not even aware of their privacy options and are open to the idea of adding or accepting friend request from unknown contacts.

The other group of users prefer to read others statuses and view their photos but refrain from updating their own. They use the site to know more about their friends, even competitors and would like to plan accordingly, or even just ignore it all together. They do not spend as much time in Facebook as the ‘Socialites’ do, we call this group the ‘undercovers’. These users are very strict about their privacy options and sometimes make use of private messages instead of wall posts to communicate with their network of friends.

Then there is another group of users who use the status message tool to strategically promote themselves and/or their businesses. I know a trainer cum consultant whose status message mostly concerns about his latest training events with different companies and consulting assignments. This way he keeps on signalling his existing, new friends about his business acumen and uses Facebook for free to increase the ‘word-of-mouse’ in combination with the traditional ‘word-of-mouth’. This group is called the 'business users'. A coffee lounge and a restaurant in Dhaka have received good response from its target audience by creating events and inviting guests, updating statuses in line with company activities.

Then there is the group of ‘stars’, having a friend list of couple of thousands and even if they write ‘….’ as their status message, they will get atleast 5 comments on a blank status. They are usually in a position to take great advantage of their ‘star’ status, however many of them still prefer to use it to express their ‘blank’ moods or news about their dogs and car only.

A corollary of this group is the ‘star gazers’, who prefer to keep commenting and ‘liking’ the status messages of the ‘stars’ they are friends with. They do so with the hope of getting noticed by the star in due course of time, to be able to attain any personal or professional gain, or just to be happy with the idea of affiliation with the ‘star’.

As web 2.0 and new media is changing the landscape of how we interact with others and how we do business over, through and by the internet, may be its time we rethink why we are in social networking sites such as Facebook? Could it be used to get recommendations for jobs? Could it be used to ‘crowdsource’ an idea for your produce, service? Could it be used for self or company promotion? Or shall we just use it as an alternative of watching TV or playing sports? Just some food for thought.

Whose festival is it any ways?

Since a special festival is just 4 days away, wonder if it would take a big guess for you if I ask you the question, “What is the biggest festival of Bangladesh?”


I have thought about it for a while, asked acquaintances and friends. Some did say it must be Eid, but majority of the persons I asked opted for ‘Pohela Boishakh’, the Bangla New Year celebrations that take place every year on the 14th day of April. This is the time to remember and realize our Bengali heritage and our being ‘Bengali’. One time of the year when the Bangladeshi Bengalis make merry irrespective of their being Muslims or Hindus, Christians or Buddhists. One time of the year when the national culture takes pride beyond and above shallow bias towards ‘I am from Comilla and he is from Sirajganj, she is from Sylhet and they are from Khulna’, useless group-ism based on tiny districts of a very tiny country in the first place. So ‘Pohela Boishakh’ is the largest and widely accepted and celebrated festival of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Agree of Disagree?

Volley of questions yet again.

1. Tell me what is the biggest festival of the planet Earth?
2. If you have answered ‘Christmas’, why is this?
3. Why is ‘Christmas’ celebrated and cities and malls are decorated even in ‘Muslim’ countries like Malaysia, Indonesia? Or even in India?
4. Whose celebration is Valentine’s Day? English, French, Christian?
5. Can you guess how long will it take before we start celebrating Halloween in Dhaka? (some have already started donning the ghost masks in Gulshan and asking for a ‘treat of trick’)

The argument is, there seems to be an increasing trend of commercialising and commoditising festivals around the world. Those who have money and some brain and even very little religious or cultural affiliation to the festival in question, are making sure that the ‘rest of us’ celebrate it in a big way and help increase sales and merchandise before, during, after and surrounding that festival. This also has a psychological effect to consumers like us. Have you exchanged Christmas wishes to your friends last year through Facebook and other means, even though neither your nor your friends might be Christians? Pretty much like Valentine’s Day, does Christmas make you feel that ‘it is not only meant for Christians only’, rather it is the festival of the mass earthlings like you and me? Santa is so much fun isn’t it? What about the parties with Santa cap and wearing red and snow white? Please note that the argument is not against celebrating one particular festival by discarding it as alien, rather personally I am interested to have fun and make merry in each and any festival as long as there is an element of ‘fun’ in it. What makes me wonder is that till when shall we keep on dancing to others tunes? Lets be fair, if this is globalisation and internet has the power to blur geographic boundaries of cultures and nations, why not ‘others’ also start dancing in our tunes during ‘our’ festivals?

Great Grand Indians have already made sure that they have their footprints in every corner of the world (not sure about Antarctica though). They have carried with them the tradition of celebrating unique festivals like Holi and Diwali, nicely labelled as the ‘Festival of Colors’ and the ‘Festival of Lights’. That day is round the corner when the whole world (that includes mainly non-Indians) would play colors with each other in Times Square and Trafalgar Square and light up candles in their households on these ‘originally Indian’ festivals.


The argument is, it does not matter if the festival itself truly holds potential for branding as a ‘global festival’ or not, it all depends on the ‘merry makers’, bearers of that tradition to spot the global reach of their festivals and then spread it around the world, so that it not only becomes a global festival, but it also creates scope for merchandizing surrounding it, and promotes the nation, the culture throughout different channels and places.

Coming back to what we have.

1. How could Eid be celebrated so that it could create the mass appeal pretty much like other religious festivals? If you think its only meant for Muslims, and Islam in general advocates a toned-down festivities, then focus on the next point only.
2. If we have festivals like Pohela Boishakh, Nobanno Utshob, Pohela Falgun or even Shaheed Dibash (International Mother Tongue Day), what have we done so far and what more could be done to elevate these festivals to a global level and brand them as a ‘global festival, ‘originally celebrated by Bangladeshi Bengalis’?

Perhaps you are reading this article from Sydney, or Camden Town or Bricklane Brooklyn. Ask yourself what you have done during these festivals when you are on ‘foreign’ soil. Probability is very high that you 1) dressed up in traditional costume (controversy exists even there what our national costumer actually is) 2) drove to a community center or park 3) met fellow expats 4) ate ‘deshi food’ 5) listened to some Bangla songs, dance performances by wards of Bengali families, even by those of yours 6) took a lot of photos and uploaded it to flickr or Facebook 7) went back home happy. Right?

I tell you something, if we don’t brand our festivals first and fast, ‘someone else’ will certainly do it and due to their size and power and money and patriotism and branding techniques and whatever you say…we will not be left with much options.

Say what if

1. the Bangladeshi students abroad bring out a grand combined carnival (not separate ones based on political beliefs and districts) on Pohela Boishakh, emulating what happens in TSC (Charukala) on 14th April?
2. the expat Bangladeshis convince the Mayor of London or New York that the celebrations take place not only in our ghettos of Bricklane and Brooklyn, but we bring it on big time at Trafalgar Square and Time Square? This way the festivals will have a global exposure.
3. we arrange ‘speech games’ for foreign nationals on 21st February, we arrange language games, quizzes in universities and open areas involving a lot of foreigners, so that we can not only celebrate the day but also could promote ‘our’ brand of festivals to others, so that they eventually start practicing it as their own festival some day.

Word-of-mouth is being supplemented by ‘Word-of-mouse’ these days. Its good to see that Bangladeshi netizens making use of their social media profiles and making the best use of web 2.0 tools to atleast sing in one rhyme and rhythm on special occasions. But we ought to do more.

You might argue that cultural imperialism is directly related to economic imperialism and prowess. However, if there remains any rooms for branding blended with patriotism, lets turn the board around. Lets make sure Jim, Jack and Jane ALSO carry out colourful masked processions with dhak-dole, ektara, dotara on Pohela Boishakh, I am sure we are equally exciting if not more comparing with Mardi Gras and Nottinghill Carnival, true that we are devoid of flesh and lager, but we hold the chance to present the world a ‘cleaner’ version of festivals.

Shubho Nobo Borsho.


image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pohela_boishakh_2.jpg

'Whats Up? with Nazim Farhan Choudhury

Nazim Farhan Choudhury participates in the 'Whats Up?' series of email interviews arranged by the Bangladesh Corporate Blog to find out the current snapshots in business activities of Bangladeshi managers, entrepreneurs and executives.

1. How is your business performing during global recession these days?

There are two answers to this. Good and bad. Our advertising business has been hit by the slow down. Clients are cutting back spends. However our graphic services outsourcing business is doing well as more companies are looking for a more value driven proposition for their pre-press solutions.

2. What is the new venture you are looking into now?
Urban door-to-door
Rural activation and distribution
New media strategy and management
Branded content


3. What is your core competitive advantage? Has it remained same or have changed over the last few years?
It has evolved over the last few years. We are basically in the process of moving from being an advertising agency to a complete communications solution provider.

4. Which external factor in the country, economy, market you are concerned with now? How your business plans to tackle it?
A slow down in the garments sector, coupled with the freeze in manpower exports will result in unemployment increasing and thereby affecting the purchasing power of our client’s consumers. That in turn will lead to drop in investments.

We are fast diversifying our offerings so that the value proposition we offer our clients in significant. Instead of going to multiple service providers they can concentrate their relationship will us and as we can manage the entire value chain, we can reduce their investments


5. Do you use any online social media platform (Facebook, Twitter, blogs) to promote your business, yourself? Which ones do you use and how often do you use it?
Yes we do. Some of our newer businesses are on FB (AktiVision, Screaming Girl, Northbrook, amarpotaka, etc) However I must confess; this is really something new for us. Interestingly we now have the capability to manage new media strategy and implementation for our clients.

6. How do you describe your business in one line?
Providing appropriate communication solutions to our clients.


Nazim Farhan Choudhury
Deputy Managing Director
Adcomm

Ad some local on me, or dub some ad on me?

One of the everlasting debates in multinational companies is to decide between local ads vs. dubbed versions of global ads. Although both school of thoughts enjoy a loyal fan base, the answer to this lies with specific situation based on which, the client can determine the way forward. Following are few of the issues to ponder while selecting any of the solutions.


- Creativity ideologically is beyond the language barriers. Which in turn allows it to convey its messages to anyone and everyone irrespective of their knowledge base and language preferences. Visual communication should carry the ease of understanding across any region without verbal aids. Foreign ads are favorable in this respect. Case in reference, Coke/ DHL has long enjoyed running foreign ads successfully due to their strong visual communications.

- Literacy plays a major role in the communication development phase citing reasons as “level of understanding”, “language preferences” or even “choice of wording”. In a country like Bangladesh, where literacy rate stands at 46-50% on an average, any English copy is sure to bomb in the effectiveness market. Many brands have switched to dubbed pay-off lines to convey their message (e.g. Tang) while other keeping the original (e.g. Warid Telecom and “be heard”) have drastically failed to make a connect with the consumers. Notable in this regard, a mix of Bengali and English words (commonly referred as Banglish) has worked wonders lately, i.e. Frutika “ektu beshii pure”.

- When a global communication is usually developed it keeps in mind a broader set of issues that helps in wide acceptability and usage across various languages. However, a fundamental issue is found to be lacking in most global commercials. While we all strive for providing a more personal, a more customized solution to all out customers, enticing them to buy our products looking at a global ad is a risky business. Communications that involve human interfaces and emotions are less likely to be taken positively since every nation/region has their very own style of expression.

- Many a country lacks the creative powerhouse or local know-how to develop a local ad for a global company that will be true to the original brand message. This lack of credibility also drives the clients to depend on foreign aids for their communication purposes, too. However, a country like Bangladesh, which has grown leaps and bounds in terms of creative ideas and executions, is unlikely to be such a destination. Over the past few years, the unprecedented growth and success the local advertising fraternity has enjoyed makes the choice of going ahead with a global communication in a bigger limbo.

I have tried to put in place, a few of the reasons, I find it obligatory to go ahead with a locally developed communication, but all said and done, it’s a value-driven decision and numbers, I would rather leave it to experts to comment on.

By

Sabih Ahmed, is a free-lance business blogger

We have bought the media

Some 70 employees of Grameenphone, a private sector mobile phone company, yesterday alleged that they were victims of 'illegal mass retrenchment' by the authorities.
Addressing a press conference at Dhaka Reporters Unity in the city, they alleged that the authorities concerned sacked them illegally on December 31.
Barin Ghosh, one of the retrenched staff of the Grameenphone, said that Abdus Salam Bhuiyan, representative of the Human Resources Division of the company, asked some 70 staff of the Grameenphone to attend a meeting on December 31 when they were asked to sign on a white paper.
But, he said when they questioned as to why they would sign on a white paper without knowing about its contents then the official told them that they were sacked from service of the company.
Barin Ghosh added that they protested the action and told the official that they would express their grievances to the media convening a press conference. Then, he said the official told them that they would not get any benefit by letting the press know about their retrenchment as "We have bought the media by providing advertisement to the tune of lakhs of taka. So, your news would not be published or telecast in the print and electronic media".
Barin Ghosh informed that 1200 to 1500 staff of the company were sacked illegally over the past one year.
They alleged that the Grameenphone company was involved in various types of corruption including scandals relating to housing society, high officials' involvement in parallel business, construction of installations and mass retrenchment of its staff and illegal voice over internet protocol (VoIP) business.
The retrenched staff of Grameenphone demanded of the authorities concerned for reinstating the sacked staff members within seven days, handing over the management of the company under government supervision, constituting a neutral judicial investigation committee to investigate into the corruption of its high officials and their punishment.
They also urged the Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate into the internal corruption of the senior officials of the company. Otherwise, they warned that they would wage a legal fight against the action taken by the company against them.
The press conference was also addressed by Nargis Sultana Parvin, Sikandar Abu Zafar, Alok Kumar Biswas and Mohammad Mosharraf Hossain.

We all knew it was in effect, but how long did it take a newspaper to mention it? It was published in The Independent. Maybe people will start to rethink all their choices when its packaged in Grameenphone gift wrap.

And thou shall not lie under the influence of alcohol

Not a blog post about the merits of alcohol. I don't drink much, partly because its not readily available in Dhaka, secondly even if it is, I cannot or don't feel like affording it. The thought of getting on a high with such an exorbitant cost never lets me get on a high in the first place. However, all free things in this city come with much excitement and curiousity from ordinary people like me, alcohol is also no exception. Atleast it proved again that its lets you let loose, it brings down your inhibition, either you are at your 'devilest' best, or at your 'pervertest' best, or at your funniest best. Whatever state of mind you experience fuelled by alcohol, the journalist friend of mine spoke his heart out and expressed his true self that evening when we met for the alumni dinner at the posh Gulshan hotel.

For quite some time, I had been chasing this acquaintance of mine, who happens to be a well-connected journalist, to give us some coverage. Us means, this blog...I had been trying to convince him during our previous encounters about the uniqueness of this blog, how it established an alternative platform for consumer-led business journalism, how it gives us a voice to speak about Bangladeshi companies, why and how the google ranking of the blog is high, what are its objectives and future plans blah blah blahs. He always seemed very scatter-brained whenever I used to engross myself passionately about how he or his team could come up with a tiny feature on this blog. I also tried to convince him by assuming that the media is always on the look out for new content to publish, something that might draw the readers attention and interest, so why not give this blog a try? However, all my advocacy and promotion for a little bit of mention finally landed on deaf ears as he ended up with airy assurances and 'bepar ta dektesi' type gestures. I didn't lose heart, somebody gave me a tip once that one should chase journos as they chase you otherwise. However my chase kind of met a premature stop during that alcohol-powered gala dinner evening, when I was hopping from this circle to that circle, with a 'forbidden drink' wrapped with Bashundhara tissue in hand. I could spot my journo friend who seemed to have given in to temptation too early too soon. one peg, two pegs, three pegs and bingo....he was nearly flying...from this crowd to that, from this conversation to that, from this mix to that. I thought a happy moment for him such as this, could be the right occasion to play my persistent record..the 'ek dofa dabi'...I approached him and after a casual introductory chit chat, I again repeated my plea. He slowed down, looked at me with his sparkling eyes and in a lower tone asked me, "Ok ok, I will look into it, how much will you pay?". I experienced some momentarily lapse of quick reflex, as I never took any bribe myself in life, and never tried to bribe anyone, did think of doing it a few times though, it never realized. I recomposed myself and responded like a pro, "Arey that is what I have been waiting to hear from you Bhai!, so YOU tell me what suits you well!". He gave a professional sip at the Smirnoff and told me, "10,000", he will make sure its in the press. This time round, I gave him a 'bepar ta dektesi' gesture and proposed him yet another drink. He extended his ear to ear grin and nodded.

I was wondering what stopped him all this while to just say it in the first place that 'its all about money honey', 'paise fek, tamasha dekh'. Perhaps I was bekub enough not to have received his crafted hints during non-alcoholic times, perhaps I was too naive to realize that this is the way things are done in media here, or everywhere in the world. But good that I realized and learnt, thanks to the 'pagla pani', my journo friend could not hold back his true intentions any further, it came out laughing and rolling through his drowsy eyes and clumsy gestures. He laughed like the happiest person on earth and told me like a sage with utmost composure shortly afterwards that you pay me, you are in tomorrow's dailies, arrange a few foreign trips, you will be regularly in dailies and on air, arrange some free 'refreshments', I will make sure your entrepreneurial efforts, or whatever kind of thing you are into is brought into limelight. I smiled back and nodded, and pretended to be drawn to other acquaintances...slowly getting out of his sight, hoping and believing sincerely that he must have been an exception, taken over by alcohol...and failing the lie test. Hope there are not those who can outplay the intoxicant and keep playing the games they play with the most pwoerful tool of our times--the media.

And thou shall not lie under the state of alcohol

Not a blog post about the merits of alcohol. I don't drink much, partly because its not readily available in Dhaka, secondly even if it is, I cannot or don't feel like affording it. The thought of getting on a high with such an exorbitant cost never lets me get on a high in the first place. However, all free things in this city come with much excitement and curiousity from ordinary people like me, alcohol is also no exception. Atleast it proved again that its lets you let loose, it brings down your inhibition, either you are at your 'devilest' best, or at your 'pervertest' best, or at your funniest best. Whatever state of mind you experience fuelled by alcohol, the journalist friend of mine spoke his heart out and expressed his true self that evening when we met for the alumni dinner at the posh Gulshan hotel. For quite some time, I had been chasing this acquaintance of mine, who happens to be a well-connected journalist, to give us some coverage. Us means, this blog...I had been trying to convince him during our previous encounters about the uniqueness of this blog, how it established an alternative platform for consumer-led business journalism, how it gives us a voice to speak about Bangladeshi companies, why and how the google ranking of the blog is high, what are its objectives and future plans blah blah blahs. He always seemed very scatter-brained whenever I used to engross myself passionately about how he or his team could come up with a tiny feature on this blog. I also tried to convince him by assuming that the media is always on the look out for new content to publish, something that might draw the readers attention and interest, so why not give this blog a try? However, all my advocacy and promotion for a little bit of mention finally landed on deaf ears as he ended up with airy assurances and 'bepar ta dektesi' type gestures. I didn't lose heart, somebody gave me a tip once that one should chase journos as they chase you otherwise.

However my chase kind of met a premature stop during that alcohol-powered gala dinner evening, when I was hopping from this circle to that circle, with a 'forbidden drink' wrapped with Bashundhara tissue in hand. I could spot my journo friend who seemed to have given in to temptation too early too soon. one peg, two pegs, three pegs and bingo....he was nearly flying...from this crowd to that, from this conversation to that, from this mix to that. I thought a happy moment for him such as this, could be the right occasion to play my persistent record..the 'ek dofa dabi'...I approached him and after a casual introductory chit chat, I again repeated my plea. He slowed down, looked at me with his sparkling eyes and in a lower tone asked me, "Ok ok, I will look into it, how much will you pay?". I experienced some momentarily lapse of quick reflex, as I never took any bribe myself in life, and never tried to bribe anyone, did think of doing it a few times though, it never realized. I recomposed myself and responded like a pro, "Arey that is what I have been waiting to hear from you Bhai!, so YOU tell me what suits you well!". He gave a professional sip at the Smirnoff and told me, "10,000", he will make sure its in the press. This time round, I gave him a 'bepar ta dektesi' gesture and proposed him yet another drink. He extended his ear to ear grin and nodded.

I was wondering what stopped him all this while to just say it in the first place that 'its all about money honey', 'paise fek, tamasha dekh'. Perhaps I was bekub enough not to have received his crafted hints during non-alcoholic times, perhaps I was too naive to realize that this is the way things are done in media here, or everywhere in the world. But good that I realized and learnt, thanks to the 'pagla pani', my journo friend could not hold back his true intentions any further, it came out laughing and rolling through his drowsy eyes and clumsy gestures. He laughed like the happiest person on earth and told me like a sage with utmost composure shortly afterwards that you pay me, you are in tomorrow's dailies, arrange a few foreign trips, you will be regularly in dailies and on air, arrange some free 'refreshments', I will make sure your entrepreneurial efforts, or whatever kind of thing you are into is brought into limelight. I smiled back and nodded, and pretended to be drawn to other acquaintances...slowly getting out of his sight, hoping and believing sincerely that he must have been an exception, taken over by alcohol...and failing the lie test. Hope there are not those who can outplay the intoxicant and keep playing the games they play with the most pwoerful tool of our times--the media.

Image courtesy:

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/EPH/9077~I-Get-Totally-Drunk-Posters.jpg