CHRONOS IIT Delhi Management Webzine
NOVEMBER 2009
Vol. I Issue I
To Our Readers, We perceive time in terms of eventuality. At the very beginning, eventuality was considered synonymous with ‘Fate’ and a definite inevitability was associated with the flow and direction of time. No wonder then that one of our first conceptualization of it was that of a God. The early Greek culture, for instance, represented time as a primordial divinity called Chronos. Irreproachable and Implacable, he like all other Gods was part of the supposed perfection that governed us. There were some individuals though who refused to accept that the status quo is sacred. These individuals defied notion of any inevitability that was not created by their own selves. History books are full of them, because as the curious habit of history goes, it remembers only those who completely changed it. If we try again, if we try to take all this human enterprise, dreams and daring and put it in one vision of what our times look like to us then what would this new human Chronos look like? That’s the question that we pursue through the pages of this web magazine. In this first issue we thus interact with people who are playing significant part in shaping our times such as - Tarun Tejpal, CEO of Tehelka, a company that was persecuted for trying to improve the way our system worked. Followed by that is a chat with Mr. R. Sadasivan, director of Wall Street Journal India, detailing WSJ’s foray in India and the unique challenges that it continues to face. All that and then various other articles and features to have some other phenomena explored, some more problems attacked and some intrigue extended to you.
Wishing you an engaging read.
The Editorial Board: Chaos.
What’s Inside… Rise of Icaraus Tarun Tejpal discusses Entrepreneurship, Politics, History and of course, his company Tehelka. By, Deepu Narayan.
WSJ in India Mr. Ramakrishnan Shivadasan shares with Chaos team, the vision of WSJ and its strategy to face the unique challenges that the Indian market poses.
We, the social networkers. We know that man is a social animal. Question is, how social? By, Harsh Pradhan.
The Chalk Board- Case study section
We kick off this new section with an ecological solution case study of Nokia won by DMS students. Synopsis by Akshat Shukla
The Quiz. Fun time. Use Google freely in this picture based quiz. Afterwards, discuss it on our online community
 
Macro-scope Interviews and articles
The Rise of Icarus. By, Deepu Narayan
“Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.” Perhaps no other quote would have best befitted the purpose of what Mr. Tarun Tejpal, the CEO of Tehelka and his organization exists for. As Mr. Tejpal walked toawards the podium as the keynote speaker of entrepreneurship summit organised by EDC of IIT, everyone awaited to listen to the words of a hardcore entrepreneur journalist who rebuilt his empire in one of the most adverse environments in the country and one can happily recall he delivered more and yet more.
“Corruption is a symptom of Inequality that infects the system, steals its resources and drives people towards communal violence”
Beginning with the company's purpose, he stated that Tehelka exists for the perfection of Indian system. He dwelled on the various facets of the India’s evolution as a country. Looking at where we are today and where we started from eras ago when we were a collection of 550 disoriented princely states that were brought together by some of the greatest minds the world had ever seen. At that time we crafted out an equalitarian political system for our nation when a much‐developed country like the United States practiced segregation of African‐American people. Mr.Tejpal said that today India is tainted by a dual problem.: Inequality and communal trouble. India is an evolving heterogeneous organism in which numerous micro communities exist among more than a billion hindus. Corruption , he said , is a symptom of Inequality which infects the system , steals its resources and drives people towards communal violence.
Tehelka has reemphasized its existence against corruption in all possible ways. Be it through operation west end in 2001 that revealed the decadency in arms procurement or be it the exposure of match fixing in professional cricket by Tehelka .He said that judicial system is a plinth of every society, but India has one of the slowest of all judicial system. The consequent corruption thus can not be much of a surprise. Recollecting the tough times that Tehelka witnessed after operation West End, Mr.Tejpal compared it with the Landscape of the Fall of Icarus. The imagery is of Icarus falling into the ocean in an attempt to escape from Crete ,while a ship sails by, farmer ploughs, and a shepherd looks on. An unparalleled tragedy and an apathetic background. It just puts forth the fact that some terrible things can happen under what we consider to be normal circumstances.
“After operation West End, Tehelka was reduced from a 124 member strong workforce to a mere 4- member team.”
After operation West End, Tehelka was reduced from a 124 member strong workforce to a mere 4 member team. The Indian political system had turned against Tehelka . After Tehelka was considered to be successfully destroyed, he started rebuilding the organisation from a single room apartment in South Extension, New Delhi . They were difficult times, he said. He contacted entrepreneurs, friends, businessmen who loved tehelka, everybody who could have helped, but they did not want to have any legal binding with the organisation, fearing the wrath of the State. Tehelka eventually restarted without a single major initial investment but with only the capital from its 200 initial subscribers. Ruminating on his experiences with people during the difficult times he said that he always upheld his admiration for “people who acted beautifully”. He said that due to such challenges and others, the single most important quality for every entrepreneur is perseverance. Perseverance‐ that is perhaps exactly what the man called Tarun Tejpal personifies. As he left the podium leaving behind a cold blanket of silent admiration , if the author may take the freedom to indite the thoughts in every IITians mind in that room then it would be a lot similar to these five lines…… I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.” These lines have been adopted from the opening passage of the book “The Invitation ” by Oriah.
WSJ in India A conversation with Mr. Ramakrishnan Sivadasan Compiled by Navdeep Jain.
The advent of media giant Wall Street Journal into the Indian Market has opened up a plethora of opportunities and possibilities. Recently Mr. Ramakrishnan Sadasivan, Director (India) Dow Jones was at DMS to inaugurate a seminar on Cloud Computing. Excerpts from the interview:
Chaos Team: First of all we would like to welcome Mr. Ramakrishnan Sadasivan, Director (India) Dow Jones, which owns the premier business publication Wall Street Journal, to DMS. Ramakrishnan: It’s a pleasure being here. Chaos Team: First of all we would like to know what are Wall Street Journal’s plans for India and what is it looking at? Ramakrishnan: As a global publication we already have good readership from India. The plan has to be India specific so we need to figure out our goal that is to use devices and platforms that are more common in India and package the content better.
“If we come here, then we want a bigger share in the game.”
Chaos Team: WSJ had an Asian edition way back in 1976. You have a Chinese language WSJ. So why the late entry into India considering the fact that the press is very free in India?
Ramakrishnan: I think that is again a very strategic decision. We did enter India but not alone. We partnered MINT and that was one way of entering the market. As we enter a new market we need people on the ground and investments. This was our way of doing so. Now that we see that the growth story is sustainable we are here.
Chaos Team: NewsCorp has maintained that it won’t be investing in India until the FDI cap is raised from 26 percent to 49 percent. Hence it has not committed to a print edition. What are your views on this? Ramakrishnan: Well the views have come from the highest level and Mr. Murdoch has conveyed it many times. What views do I have are in complete line with the views of the company. If we come here we want a bigger share in the game.
India has a policy whereby foreign newspapers are not allowed to publish here, thankfully such restrictions are not on the internet platform. So right now that’s the area we are concentrating upon.
Chaos Team: A usual problem with Indian sites is that the volume does not necessarily gets translated into revenues since the average revenue per user is pretty low. How do you see WSJ taking money out of here? Ramakrishnan: Well I wouldn’t put it as taking “People in India are value money out. As you must have read my blog knows that the digital penetration in conscious and not just price everybody India is very low. Everyone has been commenting on it. So I feel it’s the right time to be conscious.” in the market knowing that at some point more users will join and there will be greater digital media penetration. And secondly, with the market size of 40 to 80 million India offers a decent market opportunity. The current revenue model of WSJ.com is partly subscription partly advertisement. Globally it gets around 25 million visitors daily with around 1 million subscribers.
Chaos Team: With Wall Street Journal offering paid content in a price factored market like India do you think WSJ will be able to make an impact? Ramakrishnan: I think people in India too are value conscious and not just price conscious. We see brands like you use Lenovo laptops and people who go for quality. We have just started our journey to find out if it works and what needs to be done to make our model work. Chaos Team: How does WSJ seek to differentiate itself from the established players ? Ramakrishnan: Since India is a market with lot of potential, the biggest differentiation comes from our content which has helped us in other markets and will help in India as well. People in India are smart. They can distinguish between good content and not so good one. That will be the biggest differentiator. Secondly how we package our content and how easy we make it for our consumer to use and consume that content will be the second differentiator. Chaos Team: India has been associated with the mobile telephony revolution and WSJ has been providing mobile based services in foreign countries. So how are you looking at the Indian market in this regard? Ramakrishnan: The mobile space in India has lots of potential that is around 400 million mobile subscribers. However the number of GPRS users is less than 10 percent. Though there is a big market but it is mostly for communication. Hence there is a need to do a good job to adapt. Like U.S. people here also use smart phones and hence are a market for us. But there is a need to provide simple solutions that reach a wider audience. So in India it will be more of a diversified strategy.
Chaos Team: There is a growing population in India on social networking. Bloggers who form a part of social media may not necessarily subscribe to WSJ content only for the reason that its content is paid. So how is WSJ seeking to address this issue? Ramakrishnan: A great question since we at WSJ had to answer this question, a few years ago, on bloggers becoming more and more mainstream. However I would like to tell that only close to 50 percent of the content is paid. But for the content that is paid we have a couple of people working proactively to monitor the flow of content online.
Chaos Team: Sir, being in niche industry what is your message to MBA graduates joining the industry? Ramakrishnan: I think this is the best time to be in India. It’s being challenged and at the same time exciting. With digital media access is not an issue. This was a problem with cable and newspapers too i.e. distribution. However with the reach that WSJ has of 25 million visitors access is not an issue. However the flip side is that people have lower attention spans and they are less loyal to one brand. Hence it’s a challenging and “But there is a need to provide interesting time to be here in India especially with advertising downturn a lot simple solutions that reach a of media companies are looking at wider audience. So in India we alternate sources of revenue. So that is a problem or case study the will have more of a diversified business world is closely looking at. So if MBA strategy. students are looking for something challenging digital media is the place to be.
Chaos Team: Thank you sir. It was great talking to you. Ramakrishnan: It was my pleasure too.
Mr. Ramakrishnan Sadasivan is responsible for developing and managing The Wall Street Journal Digital consumer business in India. Check out http://india.wsj.com. Also for insight into several thought provoking issues you can visit his personal blog at http://www.adospados.com/ .
WE,
THE
SOCIAL
NETWORKERS.
By, Harsh Pradhan
Man is a social animal. He can be a loner for a long time. His need of being social is identified and utilized by the websites like Orkut, Facebook and Linkedin etc. These websites provide man a platform through which he can create desired reflection of himself. One can have multiple reflections according to the roles that he plays. Professional role is nourished in the environment provided by LinkedIn, Philosophical aspects of one's persona are explored through blog sites such as wordpress , Playful roles of our we act out on the walls of Facebook. The virtual world makes it easier to search for like‐minded people, record conversations, convey opinions. Everybody gets the chance to speak, as the hesitation levels are low. Many people can speak at the same time and all are audible.
“Everybody gets the chance to speak. All can speak at the same time and all are audible.”
Let us see the effects of these multiple reflections. There are more dialogues and discussion amongst people. Minds become porous to the thoughts of others. More and more opinions are expressed through the status messages, forums et
al. We have international friends round the clock. Our various reflections conversing with so many reflections devoid of limitations posed by time and space. People are eager to reply, to update tweets, scribble on their Facebook wall and exchange their Orkut scraps. The virtual world is easy to enter, to modify, connect with and then to exit. All these factors are increasing the population of the virtual social world. The growth is apparent if we look at just few of randomly chosen facts regarding these communities ‐ Twitter is growing at a rate of 1382 % per year. 13 hours worth of video is uploaded on Youtube every single minute. In India alone, 40 million users are online at any time. Net is now five time more accessible than largest selling daily.
Apart from the exponential growth, there is considerable change in userbehavior. 78% of people trust recommendation of others like them. One can get feedback from large number of people, something that has obviously had considerable impact on clout of traditional advertisement. According to the study, only 14% of people trust ads compared to the 78% for recommendations, as mentioned earlier. Clearly recommendation wins over advertisement. Companies are identifying viral marketing's role which has been showing exponential growth as a vital factor affecting customer response. The companies now also realize the need to track their Brand Image using online forums. For example Cadbury's Dairy Milk 2007 Gorilla advertising campaign was heavily popularised on YouTube and Facebook. As the ad got viral, the company was forced to look into the medium which was till then ignored. Changes brought by Web 2.0 have been many. The revenue models have changed, the product and applications have changed. Online games like FarmVille, Mafia Wars have been both fun and lucrative. Corporations (Marketing division aside) have identified Orkut, Facebook as a workplace evil and have blocked access to these websites in offices. Despite all these efforts, social networking is changing the "culture off the job", which eventually will become the "culture of the job". Social networks are here to stay. The early adapters may have been just the technology geeks and the carefree youth. Yet social networks are now soon acquiring an importance that is comparable to our real life social relations. One way or other, companies have to look for ways to harness this phenomena rather than ignoring it. For individuals its much more simple though. Addictive and useful. One couldn't ask for a better mix. So let the socialization play on. Let more and more reflections jump in with different moods, thoughts and backgrounds. Possibilities and consequences are unimaginable!
Foot Note
Metcalfe’s Law: Getting invitation of too many social networks? Search for what Metcalfe’s Law is. It defines why we choose to join some networks and not others. Here’s the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law
The Chalk – Board Case study section
DMSites were upto their usual best when they finished first ahead of 250 teams from top notch Bschools. This time it was Sunny Kapoor and Umang Jain 2nd year MBA (Telecom) students who did DMS proud. We share with you the case study and the solution provided. Please note that the solution given is copyright material of the Mr. Sunny Kapoor and Mr. Umang Jain and is being implemented by Nokia as part of their green initiative. Synopsis compiled by : Akshat Shukla.
The Case: Nokia’s vision is a world where everyone being connected can contribute to sustainable development. We want to shape our industry and drive best practices. Traditionally, Nokia’s environmental work has been based on life cycle thinking. This means that we aim to minimize the environmental impact of our products throughout our operations, beginning with the extraction of raw materials and ending with recycling, treatment of waste, and recovery of used materials. We achieve this through better product design, close control of the production processes, and greater material reuse and recycling. Nokia’s vision is a world where everyone being connected can contribute to sustainable development. We want to shape our industry and drive best practices. Traditionally, Nokia’s environmental work has been based on life cycle thinking. This means that we aim to minimize the environmental impact of our products throughout our operations, beginning with the extraction of raw materials and ending with recycling, treatment of waste, and recovery of used materials. We achieve this through better product design, close control of the production processes, and greater material reuse and recycling. A life cycle approach highlights the main areas of environmental impact, which may have previously been hidden upstream in the supply chain or downstream at product use or disposal. For example, a range of environmental information is now available through Eco Catalogue in the Download! Service of Nokia devices to raise awareness about sustainability. It includes links to environmental and conservation information from WWF, access to recycling info – where to bring your phone back for recycling and also includes the We:offset service. We:offset is the world's first CO2 emission offsetting tool for a mobile
phones. It enables people to off‐set carbon emissions from their flights against environmental projects. The offset payment goes to support projects from our partner Climate Care, which save or absorb the same amount of CO2 as was emitted Mobile technology, can offer many practical ways to help people to reduce their environmental footprint and live a sustainable lifestyle. Question: How can the eco‐behavior of customers be made more environment friendly using mobile solutions, specifically in India? The Solution Drive to create awareness: Primary areas of focus will be cities with tele‐density greater than 50%. Rallies and intra city races/marathons can be one medium. Information about these will be dissipated through e‐mails, promotion at happening spots and Nokia’s distribution centers. The focal issue is that despite presence of awareness how to motivate and stimulate people to start acting for green drives. Some ways can be: Monetary incentives, Fringe benefits, Psychological, Social Status and innovative “Green Points” Role of Nokia for mobile tech based environmental solutions: Mobile phones have an outreach to 400 million users growing at a staggering 10 million people/month. Out of this Nokia has a massive market share of almost 50%. The critical aspect here is that Nokia mobile sales peak in the sub‐5000 segment. However due to monetary constraints this segment cannot really be expected to contribute to green initiatives. Proposed Mobile solutions: 1‐ Software based,“optiLumeno”: A light detection system which detects if more than the needed light is there in the room and intimates the user to turn them off. It is configured with the light sensors present in mobile phones. 2‐Hardware based, “CarCheck”: Software to check the oil consumption and co2 emitted by your car. Can be hardware based or simple calculation based on distance and mileage. Also reminds you when to change your car’s filter and engine oil so that efficiency improves. 3‐Other Ecosystem/Systemic changes needed: Leverage projects and other initiatives by institutions such as the Government of India or the World Bank, TERI, IPCC etc: Additionally the government should boost R&D in greentech, raise awareness and provide incentives such a subsidies on green handsets.. Reminder: This article is only a partial synopsis of the solution.
Q
U I
Z
1. Connect the following pictures to a recent event involving a celebrity sportsperson, Identify the celebrity
2. Seldom will you see an ad like this nowadays. Identify the Iconic Brand
3. Identify this innovative product that was in news a couple of months back.
4. This logo may cease to exist after October 2010. Identify
5. Sitter. Connect the following.
6. Identify the common element.
7. Identify this newly named company
8. A ride for the lady ….. ride? Connect
For answers, visit CHAOS community on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php ‐ /group.php?gid=176814304368 and Orkut : http://www.orkut.co.in/Main ‐ Community?cmm=94944488
Team 2010 from left to right,
Harsh Pradhan, Saiba Kataruka (Co-ordinator) Deepu Narayan Team 2011, in alphabetical order
Akshat Shukla  
Navdeep Jain
Parvinder Singh
Team Chaos Email: chaos@dmsiitd.org