Saturday, June 30

Friends, Romans & Sponsors

Oftentimes a drift from tactical to strategic management is, though stirring, more difficile than forseeable. Yeah, I'm sure there are ingenious likes of Johann Sebastian Bach's in the management circle who would be austere in saying "There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself." But it needs not much evidence to say for certain that most other mere mortal souls like me wished that strategic thinking process was a science. I think most of us, when faced with such decisions, often succumb to bondage of self-incurred tutelage.

One such instant which required a strand of strategic thinking process was here this week when Digital Empowerment Foundation, a Delhi based non-profit organization operating in the ICT space, approached us for sponsoring their Manthan Award 2007 initiative. This apparently notabe award is aimed to recognize e-Content practitioners for development at the grassroots level. With 14 award categories, 250 nominations last year and a projected 500+ nominations this time around, Manthan certainly seems to have come afar since its humble takeoff 3 years back.

It is interesting to trace the HiWEL- Manthan tryst over the years. In the very first year, we as an award nominee, did not end up winning one in any of the categories. It is kind of ironical that in the same year, we ended up winning the esteemed Dewang Mehta Award instituted by the NASSCOM foundation. Last year, we as a pioneer in the Minimally Invasive Education space, were approached by DEF to sponsor one of the award categories. This year, DEF recognises HiWEL as one of the leaders in the Computer Aided Learning space and wants to take the partnership to a strategic level in the areas of common interest.

Well, when the sponsorship is looked into in isolation, it surely seems to have a potential to contribute to HiWEL's branding in variety of ways - by creating brand exposure and from developing brand associations with UNDP and AIF. But, looking at the participant mix which has barely any skew on our customer base, i.e. state and corporate, the cost benefit analysis would indicate that any monetary sponsorship would not add much value. However, at times, given that we stand for innovation and leadership values in digital empowerment space, it becomes imperative that we be a torch bearer to other emerging players who rarely receive any recognition or support in their journey.

As of now, we are contemplating on having a HiWEL member on the jury board and therewith sponsor the entire jury process. We are looking into areas where we could involve HiWEL staff throughout the entire award process. I think the event would provide a platform to both mobilize HiWEL organization internally and demonstrate our technology to other players in the field. But the affiliation effect is yet to be carefully penned down.

Apparently, this is one occasion where I get a chance to use the frameworks -brand identity, brand relationship spectrum and brand architecture - that I professedly crammed in the Branding class. How I wish I was wide-eyed in the 8am sessions and, with all due respects to fellow section mates, not listened up to those gibberish, ad infinitum CPs. Some of the CPs (Courtesy: Major) still reverberate in my mind and hardly make any imperceptible sense :)


... Santosh

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good day !.
You re, I guess , probably very interested to know how one can collect a huge starting capital .
There is no need to invest much at first. You may begin to get income with as small sum of money as 20-100 dollars.

AimTrust is what you thought of all the time
The company represents an offshore structure with advanced asset management technologies in production and delivery of pipes for oil and gas.

It is based in Panama with affiliates everywhere: In USA, Canada, Cyprus.
Do you want to become an affluent person?
That`s your choice That`s what you wish in the long run!

I feel good, I began to take up income with the help of this company,
and I invite you to do the same. If it gets down to choose a proper partner utilizes your money in a right way - that`s the AimTrust!.
I take now up to 2G every day, and my first investment was 500 dollars only!
It`s easy to join , just click this link http://tujegujo.virtue.nu/ilywizih.html
and lucky you`re! Let`s take this option together to get rid of nastiness of the life

Anonymous said...

I give birth to interpret a few of the articles on your website at this very moment, and I extremely like your line of blogging. I added it to my favorites web period muster and disposition be checking stand behind soon. Please repress into public notice my orientation as approvingly and fail me be acquainted with what you think. Thanks.