Tag: foo

Owning a Car or taking an Uber

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

Travis Kalanick, founder and CEO of Uber, built his cab-hailing startup with one ambitious goal: to stop people from buying cars. And while his ultimate goal could well be achieved globally, India would remain an exception. New research by Swiss investment bank UBS says that ride-on-demand (RoD) apps won’t stop Indians from buying their own…

via The simple reason why Uber and Ola can’t deter Indians from owning cars — Quartz

The investment bank UBS research might be saying that Indians still want a car, however, I still prefer taking an Uber ride over driving. Here’s why –

  • I can sit and read while the car is happily en route to my destination. Taking calls and thinking through things is a breeze.
  • Labor as well as Time & Material are saved
  • Dependency on cash is more or less removed. After demonetization, I have reduced my cash dependency completely, and I am loving it.
  • Whereas, its great to have a car and a driver handy to do on random jaunts like drop the kids to school, go for shopping, et al … however, an on the spot Uber is almost as good

Indians would treat the car as a status symbol, perhaps in the interiors they still do – however, with parking space coming at a premium (last I checked, a parking space in Nariman point as expensive as a 15 Lakh INR) taking an Uber is just more convenient.

Redefining Purpose

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

I do not call myself a Content Marketer. Heck, my language skills are not that great nor have I managed to keep honing them so as to write waxing lines of prose.

Most of the blogging I do on this blog, is always incidental in nature. Incidental in the sense, it’s almost always as a reaction to things. If this happens, and if I feel tempted to blog about it, I will post it.

However, this email newsletter by Avinash Kaushik is making me question the way I am writing this blog. Should there be a definitive overarching purpose to the blog … I think so!

What should the purpose be?

Let me think on this!

What Women Want

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

LinkedIn had done a survey among career women and came out with this brilliant infographic. It’s encouraging to see these trends … stuff such as around half the women surveyed considered their appearances did not play a major role in their career. Was this questionnaire designed by an MCP sexist? Jokes apart, I really like the fact that a majority of the problems faced by women are pretty much the same as that of men.

What Women Want at Work

So, if the answer to this post is what Men want … well, then every one knows that all offices will have a giant screen TV airing cricket/football, a fridge full of beer and a comfortable sofy at every desk!!

Yes, I am still clueless about what they want :-|

Rising Cost of Higher Education

Prasad Ajinkya4 Comments

Came across this infographic in my email, worth sharing and something to mull over.

Cost of Higher Education

Interesting to note that the incremental costs of a higher capitation does not necessarily translate into commensurate incremental benefits. Is brand value in education at such a premium?

I remember when I was in IIM Indore, the fees were fairly low and I was happy to get into a first grade b-school at less than 4 lakhs INR. These days when I see the fees, I tell the MBA aspirants that forget a b-school degree, the opportunity cost would be too high. Shouldn’t this rising cost of higher education consolidate somewhere and correct its ever rising trend?

What do you think?

As the World Ends

Prasad Ajinkya2 Comments

As the World Ends

Today is the D-Day, the day when the Mayan calendar runs out … and thus, leading us to think that the world has ended. What were they really thinking?

In almost all civilizations, this day has been predicted. We Maharashtrians have an end of the world known as pralay. This literally translates into the great flood (Noah! Where art thou?). Interestingly enough the reason for this is pretty much the same across civilizations, that mankind has become decadent and corrupt in its glory and technical superiority and the gods have decided to end all mankind. Think about the mythical continent of Atlantis and how it ended. Yes, it’s a myth … but stories are told to enforce beliefs.

Another source of media supporting this idiotic notion is Hollywood movies. With movies such as Deep Impact, I am Legend, The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Day After Tomorrow making big bucks, it simply makes sense to talk about the end of the world to get attention in the media (like this post for example!).

I still have not seen the retail brands out there taking advantage of such an event. If I were the owner/marketing manager of a retail brand … I would declare a sale and call it the End-of-the-world Sale!! Yes, its an original thought!

So, what are you going to do to handle the end of the world? I just celebrated 4 years of happy marriage with my wife yesterday. I intend to continue doing so for the next 40 years to come! End of the World … phhh … not for me. I use Google Calendar.