2nd edition of IndiaSocial Summit was organized on 4th Apr. 2012 and we at eventNu tried to analyse some data.

Total Tweets – 2400+ (last updated on 6th Apr. 2012 1 PM)

Total Number of Tweeters – 368+

Top Six Tweeters -

@indiasocial (149+)	@rajeshlalwani (62+)	@inkv (62+)
@kritzeln (60+)	@alakhsundaram (47+)	@amritochates (42+)

More interesting data coming soon.

TiE Pune as a part of NURTURE initiative organized a Full Day Workshop on Business Model on 31st March 2012. Prior to the workshop day there was a panel discussion on that topic on 30th March 2012.

Watch Mahesh Murthy speaking. It was just awesome.

Watch all videos recorded during the event.

PS: If you organizing/ organized/ attended an event and want to share your thoughts/ videos/ photographs do reach us at contact@eventNu.com. We would love to publish your thoughts at eventNu blog

Networking on a yacht with Luxus was organized by Luxus on 17th March 2012 and here is what the organizer, Ms. Suhasini Deshmukh has to say:

A friend of mine once wisely said “Good things can happen in case one opts for it”

On 17^th march 2012 a group of women entrepreneurs & professionals did exactly that. They opted for an opportunity of a lifetime & loved every minute of it.

These women boarded a luxury yacht opposite Taj Mahal Hotel for a 2 hour Luxury cruise along with high tea & a unique opportunity for networking. Our friend Nirmala Savadekar -an Art Photographer came all the way from Pune to be a part of this event. She even launched 2 books on our yacht which was fantastic & one of its kind!

Fenny, the owner of Jarvi Jewels showcased her designs which was stunning –after all Diamonds are a girl’s best friend & we all love them.

Tea, coffee & snacks were served by our very efficient crew & a lot of friends were made.

All of us were blown away with Anita’s Interior designs (Ideazz!) wherein she has used real gold & amethyst on the walls & floors of the house. Awesome!!

The editor of India Boating, a premier Luxury magazine was a fun sort of a guy who took a lot of pictures & ate a lot of food. Well, for all that he has promised us a feature in the next edition of his mag! (Yay!!)

Tasty bites were served on serving platters which are designed & manufactured by Priti Kanani of Cocktails fame. The icing on the cup cakes was Natasha Dsouza who runs a cupcake store called Cocolicious at Bandra. Those cup-cakes were the yummiest, moistest, & the most delicious cupcakes we have ever had. Even the editor who claimed not have a sweet tooth took a box full of cupcakes home!! She very generously gave a box to each of us as a take away gift.

Snigdha a Tea Sommelier-talked about the different varieties of teas & their food paring. She has this cute trunk wherein she stores her precious teas from all around the world & some her own creation. She calls it Tea Trunk.

All the ladies chatted, exchanged contacts & cruised all the way alongside Mumbai harbor to witness an amazing sunset.

All these very talented & enterprising women for once forgot all the stress of life & work and celebrated their success in style & experienced luxury at its best with Luxus.

View all photographs by visiting this link.

<<< Message from eventNu : >>>

Thank you for taking out some time and reading. Hope you enjoyed the post. We keep trying our best to bring best to you in terms of events. Kindly join our network by clicking this link.

If you planning/ organized/ attended an event and want to share your thoughts/ videos/ photographs do reach us at contact@eventNu.com

Disclaimer: The photograph(s) & logo(s) used in this post belong to the respective owners/ groups/ startups/ individuals/ companies. eventNu doesn’t own them and have used with owner’s consent.

Social Media Club Pune organized a panel discussion and the topic was “Using social influencers to get the customers attention”.

Date : 24th March 2012
Venue : Zomato, Pune

Panelists were Arun Prabhudesai, Neil Sequeira, Parag Dixit, Prasant Naidu, Radha Giri, Sandeep Saxena, Saurabh Sengupta, Sonali Brahma, Yash Sharma

Prasant Naidu, Founder, LightHouseInsights also attended the discussion and here is what he shares.

<<< Prasant Naidu >>>

Do Social Influencers Influence Customer Buying Behavior?

When a bunch of people who come from different fields sit and discuss on a common interest then it has to be an interesting time spend. One such event occurred last Saturday courtesy Social Media Club Pune (SMC Pune). SMC Pune, which is a non-profit club, had arranged a panel discussion to find out if social influencers influence customer-buying behavior. The meet up was organized at the cool office of Zomato and the panel consisted the likes of Arun Prabhudesai, Neil Sequeira, Parag Dixit, Radha Giri, Saurabh Sengupta, Sandeep Saxena, Sonali Brahma, Yash Sharma and even I was invited to the panel discussion.

After a round of some snacks and casual introductions, Shikha Pakhide the woman behind SMC Pune commenced the event. She was behind the camera recording the event and Swati Maheshwari was moderating the discussion. The discussion started with a simple question – do social influencers influence customer buying behavior? Arun who himself is an influencer as he has been running Trak.in for close to 5 years now said that there are no two thoughts on it. Yes it does to a large extent and gave the example of Alok Kejriwal. Alok is a renowned person in the Indian entrepreneur community and the thoughts expressed in his blogs are highly rated. Arun himself being an entrepreneur looks upto Alok’s thoughts as he is influential to him as well as lot many others, which is true.

However this would differ from person to person depending on their interests. For example as a blogger I consider Nikhil Pahwa, Preetham Venkky as my influencers. But then these are people who are busy and are hard to get a notice of yours. So how should one interact and attract these influencers. A question that was thrown to me.  No short cuts and you will have to build relationship over a period of time. However I think that one should take a step back and ask one that why should someone write or talk about you. For example if you are a startup and you want to be featured on Pluggd.in then one should ask why it should be done. End of day it has to be your content and core idea that will make influencers look at you. If that is good then you can go ahead and indulge in platforms such as Twitter and Blogs to create meaningful discussions.

With this we have also seen that brands have found a sweet way of pushing their products by attracting social influencers. Neil who has been running Buzz Factory for a while now said that he has not faced a situation where he was told to do so for other benefits but he is aware that this behavior exists. Parag, who is the co-founder of Sheep Stop echoed the same sentiments but he said that for them brand evangelists or people who love their startup do the job most of the time. Parag shared their recent example of Kala Ghoda where loads of people had come to them just because they knew them via online media. Small, personalized behavior of Sheep Stop has got them a set of brand evangelists and which is now an investment for the startup with an increase in sales too. Radha Giri who has been an online marketer also shares the common belief that people become evangelists in two cases. One if they like your product or service and two if they feel that they are the proud owners of that product. Radha also stressed that brands should scout for brand evangelists and nurture them. Saurabh and Arun both had a viewpoint that brands should not only look for positive reviews but also look more importantly for the negative ones.Saurabh who is in the food business where these situations happen daily said that dealing negative comments is an art. He thinks that if one could try to resolve the negativism then you have got a big brand evangelist. He also said that people who love your brand and care for it are the ones who will give you feedback barring the trolls and he also emphasized that no comment is negative. It is just a feedback and brands should take it that way.

Carrying the discussion further Suarabh was asked that, has brand evangelism increased sales for the business. Saurabh said that they are more than happy if people talk about their site and the apps that they have designed. Zomato has always loved the tech part more as earlier Saurabh has shared to me in an interview. He gave an example saying that today people love tech, apps, etc. And brand evangelists are talking the same with relevant feedback, which not only has helped the brand to improve but also has generated positive word of mouth. Parag also joined in the conversation and shared their story how at their end Twitbid has helped brand evangelists talk about it. Faasos was another brand that surfaced in the discussion as a brand that is often talked about positively because it cares for its customers and hence attracts social influencers too.

Moving on with the discussion Sandeep shared an interesting story when he was asked that, consider you are a social influencer for your domain, what points you would consider while participating/initiating conversations online. Sandeep shared that he believes in the pull method where he actually sat down and gave a thought to which are the fields he could be an influencer in and he finally found out that he could add value to genetics because that is his field along with startups and entrepreneurship as he is passionate about them. Sandeep’s example boils down to a very common point that is ‘objective’ to which everyone in the panel said is a must.

Sonali added that social media has been a boon to ascertain best influencers in the market. One needs to track both positive and negative sentiments to find out the best influencers. Yash who runs Change Republic shared the same thoughts and said that social media has helped them to spread the word and connect to interesting people. He shared an example where a person connected to him just because they had a social presence.

Social Media has given birth to social influencers however one should also respect the community that considers them as influencers. Nevertheless after a very engaging discussion the house was open for questions and yummy pizzas courtesy Zomato. SMC Pune has planned to upload the session on Youtube which I think would be great to watch and will update here too once it is uploaded.

In the mean time, you can share your thoughts on social influence and how is it affecting people. Do you think it does influence customer-buying behavior or is it just a hype?

P.S. Neil has also blogged about the event and you can check his takeaways for the event right here.

<<< Message from eventNu : >>>

This blog has been reproduced here by taking author’s permission. Visit this link to read the original blog post.

Thank you for taking out some time and reading. Hope you enjoyed the post. We keep trying our best to bring best to you in terms of events. Kindly join our network by clicking this link.

If you planning/ organized/ attended an event and want to share your thoughts/ videos/ photographs do reach us at contact@eventNu.com

Credit : SMC logo taken from Social Media Club Pune 

On 10th of March 2012 echoVME organized a full day workshop on facebook for marketing in Bangalore / Bengaluru.

Here is a feedback which has been send by one of the participant of workshop.

<<< Bharathi Palle >>>

I attended Sorav Jain’s seminar on using Facebook to market a company or services more by chance than design. When my manager asked me to sign up, I was a bit hesitant because I thought I had already figured out Facebook quite well. However, the seminar was to prove I did not know the new Facebook Pages as well as I thought I did.

Seminar day was bright and warm, and I reached the venue at the Ramada hotel in Bangalore well in time. Sorav greeted each participant and seated us at our premarked seats. This tipped me off that the seminar was well organized and the day’s proceedings proved me correct.

Overall, twenty people from MNCs, NGOs, education, film, journalism, architecture, accounting and financial services, and students attended the seminar. The biggest takeway from the seminar, for me personally, was the absolute variety of opportunities available to do business and the bustling startup environment in Bangalore.

Sorav went through several slides to explain the opportunities and growth of social media in India. He shared how companies and individuals are using Facebook Pages to innovatively market their products. He provided useful tips on using the new Timeline feature. He put us through the paces by dividing us into four groups and having each group create a Facebook brand page for an example company. We also had to create interesting content and advertisements to market the brand using his tips on using Facebook Timeline. He also featured case studies of companies and products that had successfully used Facebook to market themselves.

While the seminar and associated activities were interesting, I thought there is room for a little fine tuning. I felt it would be good to know how comfortable people are with basic Facebook features. There were some people in my group who had signed into Facebook just once. Secondly, I think a one page handout for activities and associated instructions would have helped the team members to be on the same page. Thirdly, more case studies of services and abstract ideas marketed via Facebook would have been useful.

All in all, an educational and entertaining experience packed into eight fruitful hours!

Visit this link to view all photographs taken during the day.

<<< Message from eventNu : >>>

Thank you for taking out some time and reading. Hope you enjoyed the post. We keep trying our best to bring best to you in terms of events. Kindly join our network by clicking this link.

If you attended an event and want to share your thoughts/ videos/ photographs do reach us at contact@eventNu.com

Disclaimer: The photograph(s) & logo(s) used in this post belong to the respective owners/ groups/ startups/ individuals/ companies. eventNu doesn’t own them and have used with owner’s consent.

TiE Pune organized a breakfast meet on 22nd March 2012 and the topic was Effective Business Across Cultures.

The session was be led by Laxmi Chaudhari, Senior Cross Cultural Consultant/ Trainer and was suppose to cover the following:

# Impact of Culture – why it matters
# Customer / Partner expectations
# Communication – The glue to business
# Real challenges of remote working

TiE Pune requested participants to share their views/ experience about the meet.

<<< Manoj J. Birje of S. M. Business India says >>>

I am thankful to TIE to host the TIE Breakfast meeting on 22-March by Laxmi Chaudhry from www.1stophr.com.

This was my first Breakfast meeting.

The entire session was wonderful. Laxmi talked about global cultural differences when working with corporates or interacting with global prospects. She insisted the meeting to be interactive and got a wonderful response from the attendees.

I personally benefited a lot and sincerely hope Laxmi takes another round of this wonderful topic.
Got some insights about Japanese, Chinese, israel, Thai, German culture.

Everybody shared their invaluable international experience. I met some good people to connect like Dr. Pradeep Wagh www.enterprise-education.in, Pallavi Bawaskar venturecenter.co.in, Vivek Gupta indoglobus.com, Manish Kulkarni, Anil paranjpe, etc.

When we as Indians go abroad or when foreign delegates come to India, most of us are ignorant about how to present ourselves and/or treat foreign delegates.
India is emerging as a global leader in technology and its high time every individual, corporate, Government should equip with all the necessary resources such as human resource, public relations, personal relations to interact successfully with foreign cultures, delegates, business, etc.

I strongly and passionately believe our next generation must be confident enough to handle any global challenges.

I work with schools and colleges as they are my clients and will start something for them hopefully in the coming academic year. Our next generation will come from schools and this is the best place where we need to impart cross culture awareness training.

I sincerely need support and help from all of you in any way possible, to achieve this great social responsibility.

<<< Manish Kulkarni says >>>

Highlights and notes on TiE Pune’s Interactive Breakfast Meeting  “Effective Business Across Cultures” with Laxmi Chaudhry, Friday 22^nd March 2012

1. Stereotyping is improper as not all fingers of a hand are same.
2. It is the Values that drive Businesses.
3. In conflicting situations, under stress people go back to their root culture, values.
4. Adapt to the local culture. Adaption is sustainable, Adoption is short-lived.
5. Japanese Meetings: a lot of background work happens and discussions take place prior to the meeting. Meetings are to reach consensus.
6. With changing times, cultures do change due to generational differences.
7. “Glocalisation”: Following the best global practices to suit local conditions and culture.
8. Our perceptions make us see things differently.
9. The Ice Berg analogy: We see only the tip, 10% (viz. Behavior, Language, Dresses, Architecture etc) of the ice berg. However the balance 90% is made up of Traditions, Values, Religions, Customs, History, Beliefs….
10. We must start learning about 90% of the ‘ice berg’ to get handle on the visible 10 of % i.e. behavior etc
11. Culture is NOT only etiquettes & language
12. A leading software services organization having presence across 72 countries has a practice of ensuring that employees working on projects in those countries have to take an annual ‘culture’ exam to stay updated.
13. Different countries have a mix of Rule-based and Relationship-based culture of varying degrees. It depends on the ‘value systems’ in those cultures. We need to recognize and accept it.
14. Cross cultural conflicts occur due to our lenses. We use our own values to interpret others’ behavior.
15. Edward T. Hall’s quote: “Culture hides more than it reveals and strangely enough what it hides, it hides most effectively from it’s own participants. Years of study have convinced me that the real job is not to understand foreign culture but to understand our own.”

We need to know our own self. The best way to communicate is to look at your own self first.

1. Differences between Meritocracy & Nepotism (relationship based) cultures
2. An interesting section on “Glossary of Terms” was conducted.
3. Importance of non-verbal communication was discussed: Body language, gestures, eye contact, silence etc.
4. English, Singlish & Hinglish terms and their meanings were explained.
5. Communication gaps occur since native language speakers speak @ 220wpm whereas listening happens @110wpm.
6. To avoid communication gaps, always check whether you are on the same page and it would be better to confirm over email/in writing.
7. Quick Tips:

• Learn to live with things
• Avoid assumptions
• Know your own culture ‘lens’
• Take time to establish rapport
• Recognize & respect cultural values
• Accept that there will be things you may never understand
• Treat generalities as generalities
• Each individual is different
• BE YOURSELF

<<< Ruma Agwekar says >>>

Ms. Laxmi Chaudhary from Tanzania was very comfortable to talk too. Her open nature and highly approachable mannerisms won the hearts of every body. The time assigned was less and we look forward to meeting her again and learn tips for effective work –culture.

What I found interesting the most is as follows:

“Right Culture Mix , Demands or Assigns Authority and Dignity to your Workprofile.”

New Learning for a New Environment – I have shifted from adoption to adaptability, I enjoy food  and and am effective with my team totally virtual. I follow Netconnect  which is 100 percent relationship oriented.

The right culture mix is Good Food, Local Language and Comfortable technology-Makes me a successful person.

<<< Message from eventNu : >>>

Thank you for taking out some time and reading. Hope you enjoyed the post. We keep trying our best to bring best to you in terms of events. Kindly join our network by clicking this link.

If you attended an event and want to share your thoughts/ videos/ photographs do reach us at contact@eventNu.com

Disclaimer: The photograph(s) & logo(s) used in this post belong to the respective owners/ groups/ startups/ individuals/ companies. eventNu doesn’t own them and have used with owner’s consent.

A startup MixxUp was organized in Bangalore on 24th March 2012 and the host was Mahalakshmi. Venue was  iReboot, Bangalore.

It was a networking event where entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs come meet each other.

[Pic. taken and shared by Nikita Upreti ]

<<< Madani Maddy says >>>

Well, it was indeed more than what i expected it to be. After the fabulous introduction round, we all got to interact with each other where i met a lot of interesting people interms of the business that they do and interms of expansion plans that they have. A few of them striked off a same chord as mine and i am hoping to do business with them in the future. So, all in all, it was not only a meet up but also a great place to look forward to network and look for future business associates.

<<< Raghavendra Satish Peri says >>>

First time for the start-up mix & i enjoyed every moment of this event. Met a lot of people & their stories, experiences are good to hear & learn from.

<<< Rashmi Ranjan Padhy says >>>

Thanks to all who turned up for this MixxUp … Soaked up all the energy in the group and all charged up now.

<<< Message from eventNu : >>>

Thank you for taking out some time and reading. Hope you enjoyed the post.

Special thanks to Nikita for sharing the photograph.

We keep trying our best to bring best to you in terms of events. Kindly join our network by clicking this link.

If you attended an event and want to share your thoughts/ videos/ photographs do reach us at contact@eventNu.com

Disclaimer: The photograph(s) & logo(s) used in this post belong to the respective owners/ groups/ startups/ individuals/ companies. eventNu doesn’t own them and have used with owner’s consent.

SME JOINUP hosted its 8th Mixer i.e networking meet at Pune on 14th March.

The purpose of the Mixer is to get together business owners, CEOs and decision makers of small and medium companies . Generally the mixer accomodates around 25 -30 participants to ensure each participant interacts with the other. The mixer was  attended by 26 participants from diverse fields, few of them having travelled from Mumbai to attend this.

Find some interesting details in this newspaper clipping that was published in Sep. mixer.

We got few feedbacks about the meet as follows:

<<< Parag Kandarkar, Director, Indi-Genius >>>

It was really great as you know this was my 2nd SME Business Mixer Meeting.

This mixer is really helpful for future business and corporate networking. Experience is really great to meet various professionals under one roof.

Looking ahead for upcoming mixer cheers !!!

<<< Aniruddha Bhagwat, Managing Partner, Ideosphere Consulting >>>

This was our first association with the SME Join Up platform, and it was a fabulous experience. It is great to know that a platform committed to networking for emerging and SME companies exists. The event gives an avenue for like-minded entrepreneurs to come together for possible synergies and associations. We thank SME Join Up for providing such a platform, and look forward to many more such events and initiatives.

<<< Shruti Deodhar, Imfinite Solutions >>>

I had a fabulous time, as this was my first meeting with business owners. There was a hug amount of learning about various industries and what people are trying to achieve through their cmpany products and Services. I think its a great platform to get various businesses together to interact. We are in business of recruitment and staffing and everyne is our potential customer, hence it was a great networking with everyone. Hope to attend more SME Mixer Meets.

Visit this link to view all the photographs taken during the meet.

<<< Message from eventNu : >>>

Thank you for taking out some time and reading. Hope you enjoyed the post. We keep trying our best to bring best to you in terms of events. Kindly join our network by clicking this link.

If you attended an event and want to share your thoughts/ videos/ photographs do reach us at contact@eventNu.com

Disclaimer: The photograph(s) & logo(s) used in this post belong to the respective owners/ groups/ startups/ individuals/ companies. eventNu doesn’t own them and have used with owner’s consent.

ACE BUSINESS CONSULTANTS (ABC) organized a workshop on 10th March in Pune and the topic was “Expanding Emotional Intelligence“.

<<< Here is what Mr. Abhishek Bhatara of ABC has to say: >>>

A recent survey undertaken by a leading Business Journal revealed that Emotional Intelligence is very low among Corporate managers in India. Self-Management and Emotional Intelligence are on the decline across all economic groups and across all cultures especially among the young people.

Emotional Intelligence contributes to 90 percent of performance success rate. It is also observed that the reasons for losing clients or customers are Low Emotional Intelligence. Low Emotional Intelligence among managers displayed low trust, low empathy and high aggression, as well as extremely high stress. Based on a study of 44 Fortune 500 firms, Salespeople in the top 10% of a sales force make more than twice the sales per person than the average sales person. It is in these circumstances, training in Emotional Intelligence gains significance.

Ace Business Consultants, a leading HR Consulting & Training organisation held a 1 day workshop on ‘Expanding Emotional Intelligence’ at Hotel Orbett, Pune. The facilitator for the workshop was Dr. Vipul Vyas, who is a doctorate in the subject of Emotional Intelligence and has more than 15 years of experience in the subject having trained thousands of professionals, students & academicians across the country.

 

The session was well received and had students, professionals, senior managers from some of the most respected organisations as well as established & budding entrepreneurs of Pune who attended the workshop. The workshop was a mix of theoretical as well as ‘on the spot activities’ that made the participants more aware of their Emotional Intelligence. The major highlight of the workshop was a ‘Self Improvement Plan’ after each session that was customizable for each participant for maximized gain. The speaker also guided the participants on Self Realisation of the body, mind & soul using a ‘Silence Exercise’. All the participants had a positive feedback on the same & become more aware of their surroundings.

Gaurav Bansal, a student at SIBM said, “ The program armed me an ability to look inwards & change onself, along with the understanding of a higher purpose of life”. Another participant, Apurva Sanaria, Director-HR& OD, IMRB International said, “ The enthusiasm & clarity of the trainer made the workshop an enriching experience”.

At the end of the workshop all the participants had a lot to take away & we at Ace Business Consultants wish that they raise their EI and it has a positive impact on both  professional as well as personal domains of their lives.

As a follow up to the workshop, we are also going to organize a 2 day workshop on Expanding Emotional Intelligence with more relevant role plays, discussions & On the spot activities.

<<< Message from eventNu : >>>

Thank you for taking out some time and reading. Hope you enjoyed the post. We keep trying our best to bring best to you in terms of events. Kindly join our network by clicking this link.

If you attended an event and want to share your thoughts/ videos/ photographs do reach us at contact@eventNu.com

Disclaimer: The photograph(s) & logo(s) used in this post belong to the respective owners/ groups/ startups/ individuals/ companies. eventNu doesn’t own them and have used with owner’s consent.

TiE Pune organized My Story Session with Saumil Majumdar on 16th March 2012. There is an event report and link to all the related photographs.

Here is the related video recording of the session