Opening Ceremony BWSL Mumbai Ishtyle

This has been tweeted, long hard & fast….renamed PeeLink etc.

A lovely Mall, with ample of space, set in one end of Pune near the golf course is a very nice piece of architecture. And there ends the good things.

Some points that one notices….

• Directions are a bit vague if you go from any other road
• Security is a bit lackadaisical
• Lots of Parking
• Mall seems to be only 1/3 full

Desperation seems to be evident, because renting out the space in the atrium to churan stalls & some low competition is just not happening.

Yes, the recession can be blamed but there is a lot of catchment driven activity that the mall authorities need to undertake now especially to make it happen for the tenants.

With a bit of asking around on twitter, found Zara - The Tapas Bar.

Directions were a bit lopsided, however reached there quickly. Drizzling, we were happy to find parking, peaceful with OK music, something we were looking for.

Zara, the chennai based new Spanish restaurant, tries to look exactly like you expect with photos of matadors, flamenco dancers adorn the walls. Menu pretty nice, but not quite there, maybe we did not order extensively though it serves nachos, lasagna, Stroganoff. Service was attentive without being intrusive.

We ordered Queso Frito Con Salsaq Pica; Vegetable Nachos & found all of them equally good.

For drinks, we tried Royal Smile (Very Good); Revival (Good) & Old Monk (Best:))

A total of Rs. 1300/- for all of this.

AND yes definitely on my to visit place when in Pune

Lunkad Skycruise , Near Symbiosis International School, Off New Airport Road, Viman Nagar, Pune Tel:40159511

]]> http://www.anaggh.com/2009/07/01/zara-the-tapas-bar-in-pune.html/feed http://www.anaggh.com/2009/07/01/kalyani-in-pune.html http://www.anaggh.com/2009/07/01/kalyani-in-pune.html#comments Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:02:44 +0000 Anaggh http://www.anaggh.com/?p=919 A lovely location; right across the road from Gold Adlabs, is a fairly large place, but the AC section is comparatively small.

Standard Shetty stuff with quick service. Tried out a bit of south indian & north indian.

The mocktails were pretty decent to begin with, but the starters were not too happening. The rava sada dosa was crisp, with good chutney & hot sambhar.

The Amritsari Chole could have been spicier but Dum aloo kashmiri was pretty good. It went just right with pudina & methi paratha.

All in all a nice place to have quick lunch/dinner, but parking can prove to be a nightmare; though the Pay & Park guys can be of help with a tenner.

Fortaleza, Opp. Gold Adlabs, Kalyani Nagar, Pune Tel: 64004965

Channa Masala
Lachhedar Paratha
Aloo Cheese Roll
Egg Roll

Delivered in 20 minutes; HOT & amazingly fresh. The order was perfect - where without onions - was remembered, et all.

Try it out because it is surely now on my redial list for my visit to Pune.

Shop No 12, Hermes Paras, Opp Fortaleza, Kalyani Nagar Pune Tel: 020-65226806

After exploring but deciding against the usual suspects, decided to try Masalacraft out - in the worst case - Candies is right next door:)

But turned out to be quite a surprise - Not too full at 1.30pm also, we quickly got a table, ordered F/L soda & water, which was served quick enough.

On perusing the Menu, decided to try out starters, main course together as we were short of time. So we ordered

1) Afghani Fish TIkka
2) Burrah Kabab
3) Murgh Lahori
4) Naan & Laccha Paratha

All of them were extremely delicious….in fact as my friend said, it was a long time since he liked meat, chicken & fish all at the same place & time.

The only regrets:

Service: Needs to be a bit more attentive & this when it is not full.
Ambiance: Afternoon had some lovebirds & a group of ladies imbibing, shouting at the top of their voices. In spite of us & another table requesting, no attempt to speak to them was made.
Time: The lovely starters should have been eaten with beer in the afternoon or nice rum when it’s raining outside, but alas Time did not allow us to do so.

But, return I shall with some more friends….

21-B, Santhal ONGC Complex, Opp. Lilavati Hospital, Bandra West, Mumbai Phone: 26452031/26439239

Traveling back from Parel today (Visa on arrival) flickering through Twitter, saw a couple of RT (retweet) on what is now being termed The Kiruba incident by ClearTrip itself; The ClearTrip episode: my experience Part I by Kiruba Shankar and as ClearTrip resolution of a neo-influencer complaint is a case-study by Rajesh Lalwani of Blogworks; besides other comments being tweeted so on & forth.

At the outset let me clarify the following:

• I do not know Kiruba Shankar personally, except having exchanged some tweets & mail some time ago
• I do not know Rajesh Lalwani in any capacity - never having met him, hired him or been hired by him.
• I do not know ClearTrip as an Organization, except Matthew Spacie - One of their founders with whom I worked in the distant past.
• I have not bothered to read/book anything on ClearTrip except Domestic Hotels long ago but found my personal direct rates were superior.

Having read all the three blogs; been on both sides of the Fence not so long ago myself think that there are many facts said & left unsaid by virtue of which people with half baked knowledge have just piled on to the band wagon on all 3 blogs with a view to put in their two bits in whatever form as a means of so called social media or online activism. Crap. The expectations of a few are simple - convey support maybe since they know one of the two parties personally, for the others use the medium to comment & expect a reply or track back - cleartrip has to answer or get accused of not being customer friendly; Kiruba may not care either way; Rajesh may get one of his people to monitor & use it later to add to the study.

One tweet that I recall quite vividly was @Kiruba asking where would you book an international ticket or similar & my reply - offline, travel agent - surprising is it not coming from someone who ran the combined Traveljini.com sites for ICICI VentureJ

Then the forum tweet from Kiruba sometime ago & a friend offline asking what would happen to Kiruba & a couple of others laughing ‘ClearTrip would make a call & it would be sorted out’

Today having read The ClearTrip episode: my experience Part I by Kiruba Shankar some thoughts occur to me:

1)    When the email comes, why rush to the Malaysian Embassy? Pick up the phone blast ClearTrip for not being clear. (Here I presume that the website, mail make no mention of requirements to book an international ticket, in which case there is a contradiction regarding Name on Passport & Ticket)

2)    Typically, a website has auto generated mails based on Time Limit for bookings - wonder how this did not happen - maybe filter put them in Spam?

3)    Casual approach - asking for additional money is a complete NO NO as unless there is heavy overbooking (a laugh this year) & even if there were, there is no reason for them to do this to a regular customer.

4)   Solution - BULL - There is no way this money needed to be paid & paid for what? Which class of ticket was issued, that such a heavy penalty was levied?

5)     Received the PNR - It has to be the new one, since in an automated system as soon as the fresh booking (presumably) is carried out & a click is sent for email, there is no way the old PNR is sent automatically. Somebody is pulling a real fast one here.

6)     At the airport VOID - Hey Hey What did I say earlier? If the ticket has expired then it should not reflect & the new PNR would reflect in the airline sheet, does not matter what class or what name.

7)     And BTW if 2 tickets were booked simultaneously, both without Visa, WTF generate 2 PNR when one can work just as easily

   This IDEA business of counter & agency is very good SIRJI & exists worldwide:)

NOW for The Kiruba incident by ClearTrip posted by Hrush Bhatt. I would say a Response & a good one at that - the other transparency etc. I do not know their business model hence cannot comment. However some thoughts here:

1)    Written extremely passionately, which is definitely a must have for a founder.

2)     You are in the online space, a Brand, who also claims to use social media in whatever form quite successfully in which case accept the speed at which a Backlash comes, particularly when one of the leading limelight with 00’s of followers’ updates his status. And remember Negativity always flows faster.

3)    The other point about customer centric etc. is a basic template that is nice.

4)     And there are no 3 parties, there are only 2 - ClearTrip & Kiruba

a.     In point 1 it is clearly your fault, the email should have specified all requirements etc. And if you had not ticketed but made a reservation on time limit basis, why ask for additional money?

b.     Point 2 contradicts Point 1 in terms of ticket issuance.

c.     Airline had no role to play if ClearTrip had given the right PNR & as suggested earlier have a single PNR for both tickets, unless the airline has discontinued doing so.

5)    Your recovery of the problem created including paying out of your pocketJ is extremely admirable & well executed.

6)     Twitters asking explanation is warranted based on ClearTrip being a transparent customer centric business, so why worry about it.

7)     Is the media, people not screaming for Dhoni’s head? Does it mean he shall retire & stop playing cricket, NO Life, Business goes on?

   On a lighter note, your social media manager actually has the time to count for & against tweetsJ Please remember Negativity always travels faster…

Finally ClearTrip resolution of a neo-influencer complaint is a case-study by Rajesh Lalwani of Blogworks. My thought here is that it is a nice balanced PR post because that is how the case study has been evaluated.

Some common questions that probably may remain unanswered from an outsider perspective:

1) What would have happened if Kiruba was not a power blogger, twitter with followers etc?

2) What would have happened if it were an offline travel agency?

3) What would have been the case if Hrush Bhatt did not blog, did not have a forum, did not have person (social media manager) who tweeted & kept an eye open?

4) Would it have become a case study that Rajesh wrote about or Kiruba presented today at the PR association of Bangalore?

So YES, the online community (or the oft used Social Media) if networked or used works. More power to it.

I agree with Rajesh when he recommends that ClearTrip tops it with something that screams ‘We Care’. This will only add to the mystique of online & prepare a case study with findings that has helped you change the internal processes to overcome such lapses in future for everyone not only power bloggers.

On the other hand, Yes Kiruba has every right to be royal pissed off, but at the same time, being an entrepreneur accepts the fact that there was an element of lapse on his part that could have avoided the problem in the beginning - which he graciously accepted. And yes this has added to your repertoire of case study so that acceptance along with the way ClearTrip has accepted should be laid to rest.

The biggest Learning which this episode leaves behind:

• People - online/offline - love to talk about the negative things first & take unholy pride in doing so. Accept that
• Media & other publicity is always a bonus & can reap rich dividends if harvested with honesty & transparency.
• It does not matter what business & how you conduct it, customers will only become more demanding as knowledge & information grows.
• Accept that mistakes shall happen & as volume grows, more so, however as long as the % is manageable & action taken immediately it should not be a problem
• Mistakes, learning from them are the cost of doing Business!

I had written about @Cleartrip here and hope that it shall give me an opportunity to change my view soon.

]]> http://www.anaggh.com/2009/06/16/kiruba-vs-cleartrip-a-win-win-for-all.html/feed http://www.anaggh.com/2009/06/15/recession-ipl-kya-idea-tha.html http://www.anaggh.com/2009/06/15/recession-ipl-kya-idea-tha.html#comments Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:12:38 +0000 Anaggh http://www.anaggh.com/?p=781 I had been meaning to write this post a while back, but got sidetracked with my daughter’s results, experiment with Twitter so got delayed a bit.

A lot has already been written about how much money all the Franchise, BCCI et all have made; but the common refrain being India did not benefit much.

Whilst, this may be partly true, let’s try to examine some questions:

• Advertisers - FMCG, Service Providers etc. who were cribbing got a good deal
• Agencies on the verge of  giving pink slips managed to get better margins & stay afloat for another 6 months
• Merchandise manufacturers - originals or ripoffs - who did not have enough orders good business
• Travel agents who were cribbing about airline commissions, no travelers did roaring business.
• Restaurants, Pubs became lively
• Home Delivery everywhere became the norm
• Film Industry & Multiplex managed to save money by curtailing expenses

And that is how IPL contributed to the economy in India also:) Next year shall be another story.

Read more about Recession, Is India going thru one, The shine is still here, Reducing Manpower, Recession is still on, Correction.

Trying to find out the methodology got me nowhere, but I decided to run an experiment myself rather to amuse myself and if possible understand what makes Twitter tick here.

From the 5th May 2009 to 13th June 2009 whilst the experiment continued I was No Rank - 90’s - 60’s - 20’s sub 10’s with a final high of sub 03 for nearly 5-6 days.

As @90di commented that “Usual Suspects” contained ShaaqT Gul Panag Keeda Shashi Tharoor amongst others; so was in real august Indian Tweeter company.

Now here is where I presumed the following:

• Some of the names on the list came up, due to followers talking about them
• Some of the names on the list came up because they followed norms laid down by twitter:)
• Some of the names came up the list because they were trend setters/followers like Keeda

Doodle by @keeda on Twitter Trend

My experiment was divided into 3 parts:

1)  Break into the first 100 Indian Twitters

2)  Break into the first 30 Indian Twitters

3)  Finally, break into top 10 for a period of week or more.

1)  Break into the first 100 Indian Twitters

• After analysing my tweets - used some of the applications - but could not make head or tail out of it so finally relied on myself.
• Realized that Twitter advocates being yourself, which is fine but so does Indian Democracy - then why in spite of cribbing et all we elect the same politicians - because in spite of voters changing the politicos remain the same.
• But, how do you be yourself - if the nick is something else & your name is something else - luckily that did not affect me.
• Having been a hoarder of some text; thoughts; jokes or all bundled as gyan decided to share this with the tweeters, of course hoping for a couple of shoutdowns.
• Parallel started following some known names that looked good from their bio - this helped in retweets
• From April 3 to May 25 I jumped from 150 to 400 odd followers that included a whole lot of bots & people based out of India who did not have any kind of interaction with me.
• Slowly I found myself inching up the scale to speak till I finally broke in on the 5th May

2)  Break into the first 30 Indian Twitters

• Then it became tougher to break in with a wide variety of variations floating around.
• Started tweeting seriously - bit of gyan; news with comments; interacting; replying.
• Finally I thought I was ready to conclude the experiment around the 30th May & so the final push began.

3)  Finally, break into top 10 for a period of week or more.

• Had prepared a fair amount of interactive tweets for different days
• Worked on the background that would make people want to RT
• Some completely new thoughts that could be shared with a variety of groups
• Heavy interaction in terms of replies; help; DM everything.

And, hence managed to conclude it successfully. My personal findings:-

• Irrespective of how “be yourself” you are, perceptions matter
• Most of the followers do not read your bio, go thru your blog before deciding to follow you. Only your Tweets matter.
• A great Blogger may not be a great Tweeter & vice versa
• Common searchable knowledge is tweeted by everyone; try something that is personally relevant.
• The pareto principle applies here also.
• Whilst PR; Advertising - online & offline; media; brands talk about Social Media & recently Twitter, fact is how relevant to daily life, work environment are the top 100 twitters that is crucial
• If a chunk keep talking about just technology, crib about government & civic the feeling is ‘Hey we read & listen to this all the time’ Tell us how Twitter can help us.
• Irrespective of whether you may live it, love it, hate it fact remains that it is MLM, with of course no transactions involved.
• Everyone eventually manages to create a pyramid or a banyan tree which helps them & all their connections, mostly always in a positive manner.
• Embrace it as another channel, medium - it shall deliver results. Remember as somebody said “The use of electronic networks and associated technologies is to enable, improve, enhance, transform or invent a business process or business system to create superior value for current or potential customers.”
• AND Finally remember with the right approach, attitude & bit of hardwork you can overcome the System i.e. Twitter:)

Approximate data has been taken from Twitterholic & 90di I hereby acknowledge that I have not been guided by any Social Media Agencies, Gurus; but am thankful to the everyday tweeters who made this possible.

Immediately on entering Pune, we had to drop off some stuff at Neil’s aka Colonel sister’s place; but we decided to stop by Marz-O-rin on the way for some nice cold coffee (not cold but still tastes just as good) & chicken sandwiches (why O why can bombay not learn). Upon completing reached her place, woke her up from her snooze, delivered the stuff, chatted for a while before reaching our final destination Sunil Rogers (Neil’s Nephew) at Mudwa Road; Next to Magarpatta City. It was nearly 6.30 pm by then, so opted for a snooze before getting up at 8.00pm ready for some action. Since a couple of more friends were already there, opted for some kolhapuri food from Kaveri (unfortunately closed that day) so had to settle for some butter chicken & naans from another place preceeded by some Haig & budhani wafers & samosas. All in all good stuff. During this time, had got in touch with CNB aka Freegeek who introduced me to the Visa system in Bombay. And so cajoled him also into coming over.

The next day, Colonel had wanted to go on Satara road for some misal & vada, but was over ruled. We slept a little late & then on his insistence finally left for Post 91 where the Pune Jazz Club was meeting. Reached there much before time & except the projector plus the speaker were there. However, soon it started picking up with the who is who of Pune joining in (photography was frowned upon) but managed to get a couple of them.

At nearly 3, with Colonel buzzing thanks to Koch insisting on one more beer, we made our way to ABC farms. The idea was Sheesha - where jazz lovers meet up. Lovely place, though pathetic service - we had to get everything replaced with fresh stuff - they were keen on the firangs rather than serve us. And back home, via a dekho at Magarpatta city interiors. A power nap & we were ready to rock & roll again. Freegeek had called up to plan out something, but visitors had landed up, so had to communicate regrets.

However I had not counted on Colonel & Sunil his nephew, who managed to clear up the house by 8pm. Then pushing me to drive rushed to Kaveri to pick up Kolhapuri Mutton Rassa & Chicken Fry. On the way Freegeek was also asked to report quickly. And the evening commenced. Keeping an eye on Freegeek & Sunil’s age we called it a night early by 1 (the previous day was 3 am & Freegeek had gone to office straight:))

Monday dawned bright & early. With a list of things to pick up from Praveen (some achaar, masala); Budhani; Marz-O-rin; Kayani & bruns from some other place & we were ready to hit the Expressway!!!