Showing posts with label Ashok. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ashok. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Another Business Pitch?

It’s really encouraging and heart warming to read all the passionate posts that have been put up so far. There are posts by the new Ignitees talking about how they like the place, how it’s not just an office, but a learning ground; and how they look forward to each day at office. There are posts by the older lot talking about how they have seen the undying spirit of Ignitees in good times and bad. And then there are posts by Ignitees talking about how they have embraced the digital media and how the digital media has touched every small spec of their life. And of course there are those entertaining posts and musings from Nihal after almost every post .

So what’s new about this post? Well, this post is about a business pitch at Chennai. (At this point, I’m sure you are thinking, what the hell? but just humour me)

It was in the sweltering May heat that three of us (Sandy, Ashok and I) had landed up at the Chennai airport for a business pitch. We were very pleased and confident of the work that we were carrying and therefore the usual nervousness and last minute fixes were missing. We gorged into the Masala Dosas and the Idli Sambhar at Suvarna Bhavan, courtesy our hosts (Priya and Arun). In our excitement, we landed up early at the client’s office. The client was also quite accommodating. We had a good meeting. Came out and celebrated at Kalakuddi with some awesome prawns, mutton, chicken and fish. Shopped in the bylanes of Chennai, saw the Marina beach, waited for four hours for our flight at the airport and reached home at 1:00 AM.

Sounds like any other business trip right? So, why am I telling you all this? Because, when we entered the client office, the client politely told us that he had shortlisted another agency and that the deal was done. But we insisted on presenting our work. Thirty minutes in that conference room and the client promised us more ‘eyeballs’ in a follow-up meeting to see the great work that we had put together! We made a client rethink his decision about signing up an established local agency, purely on the merit of our work!!!

And that’s what this post is all about—the pride I felt to be part of a brilliant team, a team that is
So passionate and so hungry for winning that it opens up even closed doors
So full of ideas that it there are ideas flowing in even at three in the morning
And so full of life that it doesn’t miss out on its food parties and IHE even in the midst of handling the biggest three campaigns in the last six months of digital space!

I’m sure I echo the sentiment of all of us when I say, “Proud to be an Ignitee!”

Monday, June 15, 2009

What’s on my mind? I don’t know!

I have started to type this sentence without any knowledge of what I am going to say in the next 300 odd words. This is a familiar situation to most creative people who sit and stare at the white blank paper everyday of his/her life while cracking an ad. A blank paper is scary at times; you don’t know where to start, what to draw or what to write.

The Facebook status asks ‘What’s on your mind?’ And I find it extremely difficult to fill in that blank. My mind is constantly churning thoughts. And they happen to be random every moment. Good, bad, meaningless, philosophical, childlike and wicked. And the list is endless. Information, Messages, Words, Images, Sounds gets tattooed on the brain. And this hard disk is storing everything I think or not think? Where am I heading? Why am I thinking in the first place? Why can’t I stop thinking? Shut my brain. Was it like this a few years ago? I ask this question to myself. I don’t think it was. Life was definitely not like this.

So, what has made this change? Not long time ago someone helped me open an email account. It was simple; writing a mail to a friend. Today, I don’t have the time to reply to any mails. Too much is happening in the virtual world which I have been part of it knowingly or unknowingly. I am sucked into it. It’s like I live another life in the virtual space. Can I discover a new dimension of myself? Am I the same person who is in the real world? I have noticed, otherwise unassuming, shy and quiet person suddenly showing completely opposite personality on the social networking sites. Should I call this double life?

We are social animals. But today we want to be even more social in a new world.

We like to know what is happening in other people’s lives, we want to share, we want to comment, we want to chat and we want to give our opinion. We want to sell, we want to buy and we want to get entertained. We have the option of changing our identity. Live vicariously. Will it stop here or is there something to be unraveled; something different and bizarre. Is life getting simpler or complicated? I don’t know. I don’t understand. I am not a psychologist.

We (Ignitees) live in one world and work in another. Isn’t it fascinating?

A project developed by American scientist for the United States Defense way back in 1973, known to us as Internet is now become part of ‘our’ DNA. And everyone’s too.