Loved her perspective.

Stride Gum, chanced upon Matt Harding’s dancing and decided to sponsor him to do his dance around the world. It became viral because of it’s pure simplicity and the rest is history….. and all they did was mention their name just once at the credits….

Matt danced a lot and has done three videos. I don’t know anyone till now, who doesn’t smile while watching him do his funny moves…

This was him in 2006…

…. and the recent one in 2008

You can get to know him better at his site …..

So where are YOU today?

And what are you doing today to smile

Hope you are chewing gum

Luxury Retail in India has always been wanting of a destinantion that is true to itself. The answer till now was the tried and tested five star hotels, borrowing their prestige and catering to their well heeled cliebt base.

Welcome to DLF Emporio!!

Highly visible from Nelson Mandela road, in Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, the “DLF Emporio Experience” begins when you enter the property. Palm tree lined drives lead to a cobbled driveway, with a sensational fountain in the centre, creating an elegant sense of arrival. the landscape design provides a lush, inviting compliment to the building’s architecture, incorporating blooming bushes and plants. DLF Emporio raises the bar in retail development by transforming shopping into a multi sensory experience through its beautiful architecture and distinctive design. Conceptualized around two dramatic atriums with palm trees, a courtyard with an egraved stained skylight, a sense of openness is the central theme. Public spaces offer wide corridors, rich materials like Italian marble, brass detailing, artful lighting and larger than life chandeliers. retail spaces are generously proportioned with high ceilings and large display windows to showcase merchandise.

DLF Emporio offers a dazzling selection of International retailers, including Louis Vuitton, Dior, jimmy Choo, fendi, cartier, Burberry, Giorgio Armani, salvatore Ferragamo, Tod’s and Gucci and many more on the Ground and the First Floor, as well as some of the most in demand Indian designers, such as Tarun tahiliani, Rohit Bal, Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla, Surekha Jain, Alpana Gujral, Ranna Gill, Ganjam and many more on the Second and Third floors.

Finally, we are there, DLF has re-defined the luxury retailscape in India and I’m proud to have brought this baby upto its feet. From the time we did the soft opening in August to now, it was a whirlwind of store openings, promotions, activities and setting up the entire marketing plan, it was great fun. Some earlier photos.

Besides the Kingfisher Calendar 2009 launch tomorrow, I’m getting busy to accelarate the mall to its next level of opening.

With a promise to myself to be back to blogging in 2009 and a desire to understand the luxury space in India, I’m back in action!!

It hasn’t been easy as work has kept me travelling and busy through and through.

So today when I came across the cool creative space blog where Carl talks about cultivating our creative skill set, I had to pen it down. Coroflot is a great space I discovered while checking a portfolio out, where one can make a creative space and talk about it. Flaunt it and sell it as a portfolio and even earn some moolah. Worth a check out, if you are looking for design jobs!! Similar to 99 Designs but more interactive. They even have an e-zine!!

Happy Designing!!

No, these are no lines from an upcoming sci-fi movie, it’s just a cool thingie I looked up on the internet the other day, but just couldn’t blog earlier about. Last month’s been pretty busy travelling and doing feasability studies!!

Back to the Rasteriser!! So, you have this cute photo of you and your loved one, or this great picturesque travel photo and would like to enlarge it, say to cover up an entire wall or a portion of it…..seemingly impossible or cumbersome or expensive. Hmmmm enter the RasterBator, which can let you just that from your small office or home printer. 

Some background. Images can be of 2 types, Raster and Vector. Simply put Vector images can be enlarged without pixellating unlike Raster images. However, you could use a Vector image; pass it through a RasterBator which ratserizes the image (breaks it up into many smaller multi parts which when joined together make up your entire image). To get an idea, check out the biggest done rasterbation ever!!

I did just that with the free Rasterbator and you can see the result in my office below. Pretty Cool huh!!

The Original Picture

The Result

Its just started but I guess it should become THE place to pop by when you want to find out “all the masala” in the digital marketing world out there.

All the best to them and thanks for inviting me in!!

This ain’t new. But, definitely, it’s worth a being part of. I am talking about Pecha Kucha.

Pronounced as peh-chak-cha, literally meaning ‘the sound of conversation’ in Japanese, it was started by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham as long back as 2003 in Tokyo.

An idea presentation concept which is quite simple and effective.

Each presenter is allowed a Powerpoint show of 20 slides for 20 seconds each (Think Twenty Twenty here too) This gives a total presentation time of 6 minutes and 40 seconds and your time is up. Usually, the prsentation is pre-set to move each slide after 20 seconds and one doesn’t have much choice in the matter. What a great way to communicate. Don’t you wish all your office presentations were like this?

The cool thing is that anyone can present anything, though it originally started out as a forum for young designers to share and showcase their work. Incidentally, the Pecha Kucha virus is spreading to the business world too, with some companies trying the format.

You too can participate in the Pecha Kucha night at Delhi, the last happened at the British Council Library. I will be there on the next PKN.

Lets Chit-Chat or Gup-Shup = Pecha Kucha!!

It was real cool, considering this was my first time there. To start with…I met an old friend, Aseem and his wife who run Big Chill in the flight. Took some traveller tips from them, and landed at Candolim and lazed about the beach. Scootered off to Anjuna to check out the flea market. Plain old Janpath style stuff, overpriced to try to fleece all the firangis there. It had its own surprises though….what does business make us do…imagine this pallu and saree clad lady standing next to her stall chewing beetelnut and traditionally dressed suddenly saying “Hello Sir Afternoon maa’m, please have a look at my shop, excellent stuff…nothing cheaper anywhere else…why don’t you at least take a look etc etc .. I was dumbfounded…..the best part was trooping to Cafe Looda where Mr French was singing ‘sarv mangalam’ et all with the drums being played by a goan, the bass by an israeli and the guitar by mr iran….the place was packed and kingfisher draught was doing the rounds.. the breeze was scented and cool and we even had an opportunity to watch a well decorated cow…. yes a cow…do a kinda tap dance..with some head banging thrown in for extra measure that also on the beats of some old bollywood number….whoaaaaa

Jimmy gave us an excellent evening meal with some great a santoor version of ‘Hotel california’ and an awesome rendition of Chris Rea’s ‘Road to Hell’ back at Candolim. Had crabs at Amigos, saw Old Goa, Drove to the Fort and even managed a beautiful view from Jimmy Guzder’s palace. Went to the cashew market, and chanced upon some guava papad!!

The latter part of the time was spent lazing in South Goa at Benaulim. Smooth slow waves, butter garlic prawns, cycling on the beach, cadlelit dinner by the waves, playing volleyball and plain snoring away to glory after lots of beer….can’t  paint a better picture.

All in all, t’was great fun. Even found a shop which said – No other place to buy “Genuine Fakes”

I’ll go back soon!!

Improv (improvisional theatre) is essentially theatre where no script is used. Even if you are not a theatre person, it’s a fantastic tool to think differently, ideate and generally have loads of fun in a group. Remember “Whose Line Is It Anyway??” It could be a pre-cursor to training workshops etc however, I see it more as a tool to collaborate, learn and grow.

All of us use improv in some part daily whenever we interact with people. Words, Tones and Body Language leads conversations to be interpreted by all of us; in our own ways and we distill this information to reply or react. However, we don’t do this in an active coherent postive way always, because we don’t think about it. Wouldn’t it be great if you could use “improv” techniques / games to lead sales pitches, interviews, daily interactions to your advantage. Improvise or perish….where did I read that?

A absolutely awesome place to start is The Improv Page which lists the history, meaning and fab links to get to know Improv. Dan Goldstein offers some great tips on how to be a great improvisor. Some fun games and loads of exercises can be found at Improv Encyclopedia!!

Reminds me of the time we used to make “clever satirical talk” (hehehehe) in college with Sid and gang and later in hotels with Chef Mandaar. Oh boy, we sure had loads of fun with language and how it could be mis-interpreted for humour.

Lets Improv-e!!