Thursday, March 29, 2007

Addendum,
(This blog will start looking more like a product innovation focused crib blog in the near term) (Till I get bored of that issue).

Pulpy Orange should seriously consider giving some air space in the bottle, instead of filling it till the brim, the fun of the juice is the pulp and it is usually settled down and I cant shake it up as it filled till the brim, some space would allow a good shake up and the 'pulpy' orange juice from sip 1.

Friday, March 23, 2007

If you are having trouble coming up with the intent to blog interesting thoughts or in general not having ay interesting thoughts, you should consider piggy backing.

Here goes another attempt:
One of my favorite quotes of all time, no clue where I heard it first:
Your eyes cannot see what your mind cannot imagine.

Another one in the same direction:

"Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees."
Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788 - 1860

I always wonder the innovation glut that we see in consumer products as opposed to the breakthroughs that we see in technology products. The key difference is that Technology companies sell what the consumers never really missed but post introduction and adoption, you look back and say how the hell did I live without all these years. Ex: Wireless networks in the office.
Compared to that the consumer products that we are sold, leaves much to be desired, companies are keen on jumping on competitor products and making minor changes and using stupis ads in hope that people might buy it, very few products really create their own demand. One of the recent products is Pulpy Orange introduced in India by Pepsi?/Coke? (cant even differentiate them, same values, same colors, same products, same models, same brand ambassadors and same controversies). I would absolutely go to a supermarket and go straight to that shelf and feel like opening the cap and drinking it up right then and there. Now, that is creating demand. I never knew I had a need for that product. The Real or Tropicana based orange juices tasted like medicines and tonics. Pulpy orange in contrast is extremely tasty. You dont even need significant ad spends for this one, just ensure that it is available everywhere and you will see a billion dollars flowing in just out of India.

I was at my uncle's place yest night and inevitably there was a power cut, my uncle brandishes a gadget looking thing and gets starts winding it, i thought, what the heck is he doing in the dark!
He turns on a switch and voila, we have a radio and a torch light, which only works on a few cranks of the dynamo. Nice? Yes. Sad part, these were made in the U.S. and sold for camping. Imagine.
Think about the utility of mass marketing these little things in villages with little or erratic power supply.

So, finally, imagine.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Wow! I dont even remember the last post on this blog!

Did I miss it? Nah.

Will this be Balaji's return to the active world of blogging and continuoulsy looking for bloggable thoughts?

May be not. But lets see, there is no dearth of bloggable thoughts and situations and issues these days!

Here is one:
Researchers develop biotech mosquito to fight malariaU.S. scientists developed a species of mosquito resistant to malaria, and its infection-blocking ability could make it the dominant species if released into the wild. Scientists believe that interbreeding would allow malaria resistance to spread through the mosquito population over several generations so fewer insects carry the disease. The Times (London) (3/20)

Imagine if this new strain of mosquies can carry AIDS or worse can impregnate women (as you can imagine, my sense of humor has gone to the dogs!