Appreciate the good in the bad

Ever since I started my blog, I’ve written nothing but bad or horrible things about my life. But this time, it’s going to be a bit different. This is going to be one of those positive thinking and grateful posts.

Since the time I graduated, I’ve been through so many hardships including loss of jobs, bad boyfriends and messy family relationships. The list goes on and I’m pretty sure that I’m repeating what I’ve written already.

After waiting patiently for so long, I met the man of my dreams. The one person who was meant to me, my one and only soulmate. Believe me when I say this, I’ve been waiting for him forever, adhering to my positive thinking rules and imagining how I would meet him, but of course it didn’t manifest overnight, it took so many years of being hopeful and bearing through many lonely nights. During that time, something else happened too. I met so many idiots. Plenty of guys whom I had a crush on or liked but not at all worthwhile to be a decent boyfriend. However, in my time of desperateness and self-doubt as to whether I'll ever be married or whatever, I pursued them, understanding fully that they are not worth it. Every time, a person would show their interest, I would always think that they might be the one for me and I wasted a lot of time thinking about them.

There were many nights where I was bowling down with tears in the bathroom or in my room unable to cope with my loneliness or there would be days where I would shed tears over a man I liked but who didn’t like me back or over someone who hurt me. There were days where I wished that I would die because I couldn’t cope with the pain and scarily there were days where I lost faith in my religion.

But this is what I want to tell you guys. All those idiots, those bad boys, taught me a lesson. They made me appreciate the wonderful man I have now. The not-so-worthwhile men taught to me appreciate and respect myself and to understand what’s good for me and to understand what I deserve. If not for the difficult lessons I learnt, I would take this person for granted and I wouldn’t appreciate him or love him like I do now. I know what an amazing, wonderful, caring and an honest person he is. I love him deeply because I’ve associated people who are the opposite of him and I understand the difficulty in finding a similar person as he is out there in the world.

So, the bottom line is that there might be a reason that we are put through difficult struggles. It may sound like preaching and you might wonder how the hell that whatever you are going through can be a good thing. Trust me, I’ve been there. My hardships are not over yet. I know there will be plenty of obstacles to face but I have faith that there might be a higher purpose or a reason as to why I have to go through them. But I have to say that not all obstacles will have a purpose, there were certain things that happened that had no possible explanation whatsoever, so I guess they are just our fate or how we’re supposed to live. Finally, what I wish to say is that, even though you can’t see the silver lining yet, there will be. It’ll take few days, months or many years (like me) for you to really look back and understand why it had to happen to you.

If only I could give it all up

It is the custom for majority of us to work and try to prove ourselves in the corporate world. To  “achieve success” or to be a better man. Saying that, working is the only way to earn a living. But for a few of us, I mean a very very few struggle their assess off trying to do this and I am one of them. I belong to the pathetic category of all time strugglers who cannot find a stable job despite the butt load of qualifications I have. So far I have not come across any person who had faced my struggles but I’m sure there are. If so, I would really like to meet them.

I keep thinking that maybe one day, one fine day, there would be a time that my problems would magically go away but for 3 years, it hasn’t been the case. I keep waiting and hoping for that silver lining, but I don’t see it. Maybe it is yet to come or maybe it will never come. I guess for me, it’ll be the latter.

My parents belong to the middle class. I live with them and I’m still a dependant. We are not rich and we are nether beggars. We get by from an average income. No matter how much I want to stay at home, I know I can’t do it. Even though my parents look after me, I need to manage my expenses. Plus, my parents are under the perception that I’m a strong career focused individual, when I’m bloody not. All I want to do is to avoid all these God damn corporate issues. I know it sounds pathetic for me to ramble on. But I’ve had enough of it. I’m so much happier staying home. It is my comfort zone. I’ve stayed unemployed before and I honestly do not mind it. True enough, there have been times where I was bored out of my mind but I’ve somehow figured out how to keep myself busy.

I wonder, if only we were rich enough, I’ll use it to my advantage and stay home. I also know that being unemployed is not the answer to everything. But why should anyone go through what I go through? Why should anyone have so much issues? Why should anyone put up with crappy bosses and pathetic people? If I had the option of staying home, I would not think twice. In a heartbeat I’ll say goodbye to these assholes and fly away. My head is spinning right now trying to keep my head above the water. Trying so hard not to give up and break down in tears.

I do not have the support of my parents. They are from an entirely different era. I do understand what they say about them spending so much money in educating me. But the harsh truth is I DIDN’T ASK FOR IT!!!!! I only wanted to be qualified enough to find a decent job, not chase after a bloody career. Of course, I’m grateful for all the sacrifices they did for me. But I only wish that I they understood what I’m going through and sympathize with me. I only wish that they understood that I’m not one of those career focused individuals.

Why can’t I take the easy way out? Like marry some random man and get it over with. But then again, I’m going to be in so much trouble if I’m suffering from a bad marriage as well.

I do not see a solution for my issues anywhere. I need to go through this alone. I need to suffer through this alone. This is what God gave to me and this is what I deserve. I’ve learnt so many lessons in this life and I’m still learning. I just simply wish that if only my lessons could be a little bit more bearable, a little bit less harsh.

I am who I am

I wanted to write this article a long time ago but I did not find enough inspiration to do so. It's the beginning of the 2017 which people make so much of a fuss about. I guess, that also pressurizes others who take life as it goes, to do something bigger, to make it the “best year” of their life.

Out of jokes, 2016 has been the most unpredictable year of my life with so much ups and downs. The beginning of the year was so tough to the extent where I almost gave up living. I was under immense pressure trying to deal with unemployment, family issues and relationships (by this, I mean friendships), but then towards the end of 2016, I started to see the rainbow after the heavy rain. Everything sorted out itself and I ended the year in a high surrounded with much love from my parents and friends.

Well, the issue now I have is, the lack of change. I’ve gotten used to this mundane routine of mine, I’m finding it very difficult to change. But the biggest question is “DO I HAVE TO?”. I know who and what I want to be, even though it is not what others perceive as “life”. True enough, I have a lot of pending dreams that needs to become reality. My friends are getting married, giving birth, getting promoted and finding new horizons and here I am stuck in the middle of nowhere trying to prove to others that I am doing well both professionally and personally. I know I do not want to live life based on others' perception and I'm not the kind of person who follows trends, be it fashion or otherwise. But it makes me think twice about what I'm doing right now, whether it is the right thing or whether I am taking the easy way out.

Ok, so let’s analyze my situation further. I have this job which pays me well compared with others with less work pressure and less crappy people to do deal with. I am happy with it so far, after trying my luck in the typical corporate world, I wanted something easy. But now that all the other issues have sorted itself out, I’m thinking whether this is the best course of action to me. Am I justifying myself by hiding in a shell? Can I do better? Why don’t I want to do better? Why should I change? Do I need to change at all? The biggest concern I have is that, this career, this experience is not valid in my home country. So, unless I somehow pack my bags and go to a foreign country, this effort will not count. So, for that, I need to either get married or try my luck again with another avenue. Believe it or not, I’ve given my best in trying to migrate. Or else, the other most difficult solution is to, bite my tooth and nail and try my luck in looking for another job. This is the most difficult thing I will have to go through given my past experiences. 

I do believe in the saying “whatever is meant to happen, will happen”. But saying that, I will not give away my power of decision to God or whoever is above. I will try to seize an opportunity when something of the sort arises. In the meantime, the best I can do is to make the best out of what's been given to me now. To be happy now. To ignore or let go what others are doing. To be grateful for all the things I have. To mind my own business and to look after myself. To be healthy.

Living a life of regret

I usually do not regret the decisions I take because I consider all the factors before I take one. But this one decision, what might have been the make or break of my career and life, will be the biggest regret I will have in life. There is no telling whether that would have been the real case, but right now, with what is happening around me, with the information I have, I utterly regret it. I have never dealt with situations like this before. I have been through a lot including family issues, unemployment, relationships etc, but this is unchartered territory to me. I have never gotten a chance to deal with regret.

Will I ever get through this? Will I ever stop thinking about “what if”? I do not know. Maybe this is the Universe’s way of teaching me a whole new lesson or maybe, just maybe, this is His way of punishing me for taking a wrong decision. I want to come out of this, I want to move past this and think about the future. They say time is the biggest healer, yet so far, time has not been on my side, ever. People say that bigger and better things are yet to happen, but nothing good has ever happened to me in the last 3 years.

I know I got to stay positive throughout the days. That is the only way to attract positive things. But how can I look at the positive when the negative is right in front of my face? How can I look at the positive when I’m pretty certain that the decision I took is a wrong one? Was it wrong one really?

Shall we analyze it and see? Ok..imagine that I got the job after going for that interview. Imagine I’m working there. What guarantee do I have that it’ll be the rosy picture I imagine it to be? What guarantee do I have that I won’t have any issues there? What if I don’t get the job after all? Only time would tell, only God would show me.



I have learnt so many things over the last couple of years. This is one more lesson to learn isn’t it? How to deal with regret. I usually come up with a way of dealing issues, but for this I’m yet to find out the magical formula. Or maybe there are no magical formulas to help with this. Maybe the only way to live through this is to believe that things will be ok down the line. I want it to be. I want to be able to move past this. I do not want to be thinking about the lost opportunity. What can I do? Can anybody help me with this?

Life is hard, We know it

I’m writing this blog as a professionally qualified unemployed person listening to an old album of Evansescence. It feels good to listen to old rock music and I’m feeling good after a long time. It took me four crappy jobs to be really thinking whether I’m capable in working. I doubted myself, my education, my future etc etc. But here I am feeling positive and enjoying my days of unemployment.

My parents lost their faith in me and I think I did too to a certain extent but then again I accepted that maybe this is how it was meant to be. I never ever in my wildest dreams thought that I would be grateful for all the hardships that have come way. I’ve been through shitty breakups, shitty jobs and met shitty people and learnt quite a lot. Throughout all those experiences I’ve become stronger. Every bad thing that happened to me, I’ve learnt, I’ve grown, I’ve become stronger.

There was a time that I was questioning as to why life was so hard on me, why things never work out, why can’t I be living a simple life, why my friends have it easy? But then this amazing thing happened.

The job that I thought to be good enough for me turned out to be a disaster. Within just one month I had trouble. People whom I thought were my friends became my enemies and I was humiliated for things I never did (If by chance a foreigner is reading this, please understand that Sri Lankan private companies do not have proper regulations to protect their employees). The freaky part was I was OK with it. I WAS OK!!!! Without myself knowing I have made peace with how my life was meant to be. I’ve made peace with my circumstances.

I came to a point of desperation where I was full of jealousy towards my friends, my acquaintances because they had it easy or so I thought. I’m sure they’ve their share of shit but my problems and issues were more than theirs and I envied them for that because I didn’t want to be strong. I didn’t want to be struggling. I wanted to be happy and simple like them. But now I look back and I know that I’m so much stronger than any of them. I know that whatever comes my way, I have the strength to face it and I’m proud of myself. I’ve accepted the simple phenomenon “what’s meant to happen, will happen”, good and bad both.

What I got to say is for everyone who’s going through their fair share of shit is, face it, don’t run away, don’t give up, don’t breakdown; it’s going to only make you stronger. You won’t feel that way now. You won’t feel that way in a year. But with time to come you’re going to look back and say thank you even though it sounds stupid. Accept the fact that this is your life; this is how it’s supposed to be.  

Power of positive thinking

When I was bored at work, I was going through some files and unexpectedly I stumbled on a video which was named as “The Secret”. I have heard about this concept before but I never really bothered about doing any more research. So out of curiosity I took the video home and watched it. That was the most memorable and life changing one hour I’ve ever spent.

The video was a bit exaggerated but the underlying concept was so significant, it really opened up my eyes. I was the most pessimistic person anyone could ever come across with. I would imagine my life in terrible circumstances and imagine all the crazy ways my life would become a living hell. So that was my life. While watching “The Secret” I was slowly realizing what a horrible mistake I’ve done and how unfair I treated myself.

It took me a few days to really grasp the concept of positive thinking and gratitude but from the very next day I took baby steps in being an optimist. I found old magazines and made a “mood board” cutting and pasting all the pictures that would mean something to me. I pasted pictures on what I wanted and who I wanted to be. Then I made a journal for myself, to record my day to day lessons and things that I wanted to remember.

I started making objectives for myself and I would spend all my energy on focusing on only those. And this amazing thing happened. Little by little without my knowledge, the things I pasted on my mood board started to come true. They happened in the most unexpected ways and it takes a few days for you to realize that you have actually done them. For example I had a picture of a girl riding a bicycle and during the days of my unemployment I actually learnt to ride a bicycle with my relatives. After a few days while I was looking at my mood board I noticed the picture of the girl and then it dawned on me.

My life is and was a struggle. I had quite a few boyfriends but none of them worked out. I’m well qualified but it took months and months of struggle and pain to find a job. My friends are living their own life with their loved ones so the girls days outs only happens once a month or so. I spent all my energy focusing only on positive things and my objectives. Whenever I was losing faith or starting to doubt my own existence something good would happen that would remind me that I shouldn’t give up.

So to some up this simple yet powerful concept, is to stay positive. Focus only on the good things, make objectives for yourself, surround yourself among people with positive energy and believe it or not they will happen. To quote “The Secret” – “Whatever it is you are feeling is a perfect reflection of what is in the process of becoming”.  

My Most Influential Book List

There was a bucket challenge that was going viral on Facebook so I thought I would share my 10 most influential books.

Kite Runner – Really opened my eye to show that there are books other than Princess Diaries. Was shocked for the most part of the book coz it was just unbelievable. It’s shocking what guilt does to people.

The Handmaid’s Tale – read this with friend's recommendation. Shocking story about fertile women carrying children for other people and this specifically done with the particular couple’s husband itself!

The Atonement – read the full book recently only. I still cannot imagine why Briony did what she did. Is it out of jealousy or childishness?

The midnight’s children – I read this coz of best friend's constant reminder that it’s a superb book. After reading that, every book I read no matter how great it was, couldn’t come up to this standard.

The God of Small things – both of you wanted me to read this. It’s such a simple story from the outside but has a lot of meaning between the lines.

The Godfather – My first and probably my last underworld story. Don’t think anyone can write about the happenings of the underworld as better as this book.

Life of Pi – got this from the library a few weeks ago. Loved the part where he starts believing in all the religions. Goes to show how narrow minded people are when it comes to things like religion and being different.

Pride and Prejudice – started this coz I wanted to get a taste in classics. Found it to be really interesting and the olden traditions.

Rich dad, Poor dad – Awesomely simple way to understand the difference between making and wasting wealth.

The Pilot’s Wife – the first book I got from myLibrary. Gosh, the cheating and living a double life with two families is just shocking. Read the book within a day or two coz the suspension was too much.

Hopefully I'll be able to add more to this list in the time to come....

Sri Lankan Marriage Proposals

I live in the Capital city of Sri Lanka which is more westernized than other parts of the country. People are more educated and independent. With people focusing more on their studies and career the pressure on parents on finding a partner for their children heighten. However there are many who finds their own partners despite the constant rat race whereas there are some who still haven’t found their “soul mate” (whatever you can call it).

I am one of them. I was first pressurized to excel in education, find a job and now I am under tremendous pressure to get married. I find this very disturbing because I do not want to be forced into a marriage I really don’t like and I very well know that I’m not at all ready to be someone’s God damn wife. This doesn’t mean that I want to live the rest of my life single and lonely but I do have hope that someday I will find the right one for me. I have tried my very best in explaining to my parents that I’m not one of those girls who would do as they say and that I want to excel in my career first. However my parents being the dumb, typical, traditional parents they are, turns a blind eye for my arguments thinking that I’m naïve, stupid and stubborn.

I’ve been a rebellious kid my whole life because I constantly fight for what’s right and wrong and this factor itself has harmed my relationship with my parents. Our parents want to do what’s best for us, but what if the best they think is actually NOT the best thing for us? Does it mean that we have to satisfy every wish of them? At the moment my parents are putting pressure on me to be with a guy they found for me and that I should be married to him as soon as possible. But what if I DON’T WANT THAT? Don’t I get a say in what I want?

As far as options go to, I got two. One is to keep on fighting for my life and the other is to go abroad. I want to fight for myself but I’m worried in giving up. I don’t want to make their wishes come true, I want my dreams to come true.

My definition of dumb blonde women

I have a very few handpicked number of friends. Why’s that? Because I hate dumb, blonde women. Gosh, those insecure women who need constant reminders from their loved ones how pretty and beautiful they are and the regular selfie pictures, aren’t they the most irritating and useless to hang out with? I hate them. I really do. I cannot tolerate them.

These women does not have any depth in them, doesn’t know how many people in this world suffer even from the basic things like food. The only thing that matters to them is their boyfriends! I’m not against falling in love, I mean something totally different.  If they have a phone and an internet connection (why I’m highlighting only internet? Coz whatsapp, facebook and viber have replaced all other things) they can survive. Even without Food!

Why can’t they grow up for once? Why cant they learn that there’s more to life than wasting time in digital things? They are too dumb to even realize that. As soon as they upload a facebook photo they need to know how many likes they get, how many comments? The more the better. Their self-confidence depends on the number of likes and comments they get. For example:

• ·         0 likes – my God! I’m ugly, no one likes me, no one cares about me
• ·         10 likes – is this all my friends can do? Aren’t I looking sexy enough?
• ·         50 likes- I’m feeling good and pretty
• ·         More than 100 likes – Oh my Gawd!!! I’m so damn sexy, everyone likes me.

So this is the story of most of the girls. It’s pathetic and sad to see people in my same gender suffer from this “selfie obsession”. I’m not against them but I definitely don’t want to be with them. Its torture to see people taking selfies in every damn place they go to. They take pictures with their towels, panties and what not and this attract all the perverts. And then they finally blame the guys who come after them telling that they are actually perverts?? I mean, isn’t it the same girl who posted those pictures? We shouldn’t blame the guys; it’s not their fault for being attracted to makeup, boobs and asses.

I found this article randomly from which I have taken this quote “American Psychiatric Association (a real body) had classified “selfitis” as “the obsessive compulsive desire to take photos of one’s self and post them on social media”, further defining three strands of ‘selfitis’: ‘borderline’, ‘acute’ and ‘chronic’ - depending on the frequency with which individuals’ indulged.” There are no proof as to which this is actually true or whether they have actually done this research. But I believe that is true. 

What do you guys think?

Interesting facts about M2M

For people who have read about M2M or for who haven’t, this post will give an idea as to what the future holds when it comes to technology. M2M is a simple concept where two machines communicate to each other to achieve a common objective. The communication is done through complicated sensors that are installed in the machines. Here are some interesting user cases of M2m I found;

Entertainment
iLuminate essentially takes a simple M2M concept and turns it into art: dancers wear bodysuit and costumes that light up wirelessly to match the music and choreography. The difference with the iLuminate platform is that performers wear illuminated costumes that can be controlled without having to keep pressing buttons. Based on the sources they further said that, “the software's accuracy means cues can fire every 5 milliseconds, which is 1000 times faster than a human hand clicking a button.”

Home appliances
I think we’ve all seen this part of technology in future oriented movies where the entire household can be controlled by a click of a button. However in reality this kind of technology is coming true bit by bit. The introduction of Smart TV’s is one example. At a recent Consumer Electronics Show, LG has showcased a "Smart Refrigerator" prototype demonstrating various M2M-based "smart home technologies". One unique feature was a food management which allows consumers to check food items stored inside the fridge such as location and expiry dates via their smartphones or its built-in LCD panel. The appliance even recommends dishes that can be cooked using the ingredients that it happens to be storing. How convenient!! 

Big Data and the Telecom Industry

Mobile phones are already well on their way to replacing cameras, cash, tickets, calculators, maps, notepads and many more and they are becoming ubiquitous. Within the next five years smart phones are going to become the center of our world. The smart phone will start the car, make phone calls, check bank account balances, make payments and track locations. Literally people will not have to carry anything else but the smart phone. 

In the mobile network there are more than 6 billion mobile subscriptions in the world, and every day, 10 billion text messages are sent. Thus to facilitate great customer relationships, enterprises will want near real-time information on every kind of data emanating from consumer mobile devices in order to sharpen their understanding of consumer demographics and buying patterns. Not only enterprises, mobile operators can use these real time analytics in delivering a superior customer service. 

Based on a new IBM study on how telcos are using Big Data “85 percent of the respondents indicate that the use of information and analytics is creating a competitive advantage for them – a 124 percent increase in the last two years.” 

For example one of US major mobile operators is combining its customer record data with sentiment analysis where they are able to determine what type of people pass by a billboard at a particular time of day and what products they are interested in. This allows them to precisely target its billboard advertisements to the demographics.

What's so Big in Big Data?

Organizational leaders require analytics to exploit their growing data and computational power to be smart and get innovative in ways they never could before. Consider retailing for example. Physical bookstores could track which books they sold and which did not. They could tie some of those purchases to individual customers if they had a loyalty program. These bookstores had limited information and thus could not make informed decisions. Then the online shopping and e-commerce gained popularity moving transactions to the internet. This transformation resulted in businesses gaining better insights of who their customers are and their behavior. Now online retailers can not only track what they bought, but can gain information about what other items they looked at, how they were influenced by promotions and reviews. 

Every day business and consumer life creates 2.5 quintillion bytes of data so much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. This data comes from everywhere: posts to social media sites, sensors used to gather climate information, purchase transaction records, and cell phone GPS signals to name a few. This data is called big data. 

Big data is more than gathering data; it is about finding useful insights that can be used by organizations in making decisions. Leaders across countries consider big data as a management revolution where enterprises analyze massive amounts of data to identify valuable information. Senior executives now prefer to run businesses on data-driven decisions. They require scenarios and simulations that will provide guidance on the best actions to take. 

Children and Mobile phones

I accidentally came across this research on mobile phones and children carried out by GSMA. The statistics of the research are particularly shocking for a person like me who finally managed to buy a Smartphone at the age of 23 (my current age). I will list down few of the most interesting statistics;

• 65% of all children surveyed currently use a mobile phone; of those, 81% have a new handset.
• 12 is the most common age for children to get their first mobile phone.
• Nearly 24% and 20% of children in Indonesia and India respectively, send over 51 messages a day.
• 70% of all children who use the internet through their phone access it at least once a day.
• 70% of children have met or started to communicate with ‘new friends’ online.
• Over 70% of parents have concerns about children’s mobile phone use, with viewing inappropriate sites and overuse sharing the highest percentage at around 82%.

Well, these were only the few stats I selected as interesting for me. To discuss more about the parental concern over mobile phone usage of children, it states that parents allow their kids to use mobile phones is for the purpose of staying in daily contact. As mentioned before 70% of the parents are concerned about their kids’ phone usage. Well, the first question that comes to my mind is “why do they give a phone to a 12 year old kid first of all”. Maybe I live in a culture of closely knit families where parents are constantly looking out for us, but I still don’t get it. 

As always there’s an upside and a downside to any situation. But in my opinion the downside of kids using mobile phones is far greater than the upside. Ok, I agree in a case of an emergency you can call your parents and let them know that everything’s alright but what about the negatives? When I go a friend’s house I tend to go out and play or do whatever. But the latest generation of kids has almost forgotten how to play. They go for a play date and end up playing games on their phone or iPad. They do not get any physical exercise and fall into the category of “children with diabetes or obesity”. 

How will it be in another 5 years time? Will kids come out of a mother’s womb holding a phone? or will they be so mobile phone literate that at the age of one they will know how to use their dad’s iPad?

Here is the link for the research I found. 

http://www.gsma.com/publicpolicy/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/GSMA_ChildrensMobilePhones2012WEB.pdf 

Benefits of using loyalty as a service

The benefits of using loyalty-as-a-service will not only be in financial terms but they will also be in the form of non financial long term benefits such as improved customer loyalty and satisfaction, strong referral market and excellent reputation.
Strategic and tactical benefits of Loyalty-as-a-service are;

Greater productivity
The business can benefit from superior productivity because the level of investment is inferior when compared to the output of the program. The output far outweighs the monthly payment or fee when adopting a loyalty-as-a-service platform. The capital expenditure and operating expenses will be significantly lower since the company will not be purchasing any dedicated hardware components for the program.

Differentiation
The organization can differentiate its loyalty program because it can address and reward customer needs real time with unlimited amount of flexibility to test and implement far more superior campaigns than its competitors. This is done because of the use of Cloud technology.

Integration with third parties
Loyalty-as-a-service has the capability to integrate with third parties when offering a loyalty program. For example in a points system the members can redeem points with selected merchants and this service can be used to integrate with such merchants and communicate with them. Moreover the amount of third parties can be extended based on the company’s requirement.

Loyalty as a service continued...

The loyalty program can be viewed as a service to the firm and this enables organizations to gain competitive advantage because the loyalty program will grow to be more robust, more creative, and more intuitive. Cloud services provide infinite amount of flexibility and this gives the businesses the capability to be more creative by testing different types of campaigns that appeal to its customers. Further, with the popularity of the program and growth, the firm can extend the capacity of its package without much effort. It also has the capability to connect to businesses’ backend systems and deliver real time campaigns. Real time campaign creation facilitates companies to identify a sudden change in consumer demand and modify its loyalty program to address such changes.

For example Virgin America provides just one example of how Cloud services can be used to create competitive differentiation through their frequent flyer program. Its frequent-flyer population of 1.8 million is the industry’s fastest growing at over 40 percent a year and they are also the most engaged.

Loyalty as a service

Businesses can use Cloud services to deliver new capabilities and experiences. The potential of Cloud based solutions is unlimited. Thus, IT savvy organizations seek to gain a competitive advantage by improving their efficiency and overall profitability. Cloud services can be used in numerous ways to improve customer care, information sharing, and sales transactions. Companies turn to loyalty program service providers for support across the loyalty value chain from program strategy, technology, and program management.


One way of delivering new experiences for both the customer and the business through the use of Cloud services is to adapt loyalty programs that are hosted in the Cloud. These are called as “loyalty-as-a-service”. Organizations can implement loyalty programs without the need for heavy infrastructure. All necessary hardware and software components will be hosted in the Cloud. Any business irrespective of the size can execute customer loyalty programs with the benefit of Cloud computing.
All features that are available under traditional rewards programs will be available under this Cloud based service. Firms which offer loyalty-as-a-service have different packages, and businesses can select the package most suitable for them. This will require the business to pay a small upfront payment together with a monthly fee for the continuation of the service.

More information in my next post.

The reason for the chasm

My previous post was about the different types of customers that can be seen in technological industry. In this post I will be discussing about the so called "chasm" based on the book 'Crossing the Chasm'. 

The first crack

This is the difference between the innovators and the early adopters. The reason for the difference is that early adopters cannot easily relate or understand the benefit of the product. Technology enthusiast loves the product for its architecture, but nobody else can figure out how to start using the product. One product that has fallen from this crack is "desktop video conferencing". There were many versions of the product. However customers didn't really understand the purpose of the product.

The other crack

This is the difference between the early majority and the late majority. The reason for this difference is the differing demands of the end user. By this time the market is already well developed and the product has entered the mainstream market. For people who are not frequent users of the product / system, the protocols of that system was too hard to remember or use. Thus mature markets find it harder to cover up their R&D costs because the end user cannot capture the benefit of the product. 

The chasm

The chasm exists between the early adopters and the early majority. The below table will explain the reason for the existence of the chasm;

Technology adoption lifecycle

The concept of technology adoption life cycle needs to be understood by any technology related organization in order to survive in the industry in the long term. In this post I will be explaining a model for understanding the acceptance of new products.

Innovators
These are the people who pursue new technology aggressively. You can associate people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates to understand the characteristics of this category. They seek out new technology even before a formal marketing plan is being launched. Technology plays a significant role in their life and they would purchase technology simply for pleasure. However winning innovators for your organization is key because they will reassure other players in the market place that your product actually works.

Early adopters

People who belong to this category are not technologists as innovators. They understand and appreciate the benefits of new technology and relate these benefits to their organizational concerns. Whenever there is a strong match between these two aspects early adopters would base their buying decision upon it. However they do not place significant importance on references, thus base the buying decision on their own vision. Early adopters are the key to opening up the high tech market segment.

Early majority
The early majority shares some enthusiasm to new technology as early adopters, however they are driven by practicality. They require well established references prior to any investment decision. This segment comprise of one-third of the whole adoption life cycle, thus winning this segment is key to any substantial profits.

Late majority

As the book says "shares all the concerns of the early majority, plus one major additional one". This additional concern is because unlike the early adopters, people in this category are not comfortable is using technology. Thus, they wait till until the particular technology becomes an established standard. Also they require a lot of support and prefer to buy only from established companies. This group comprises about one-third of the total buying population in any given segment and winning this segment will be highly profitable for the company

Laggards
This segment simply doesn't want to take part in any technology due to personal and economic reasons. The only time they buy a technological product is when it is buried so deep inside another product. For example a microprocessor is embedded in a breaking system. They will not even know that such a product exists. This segment however is not worth pursuing. 

The new social marketing tool..

I came across this great social media tool which could be used for marketing and for personal use. It's called Pinterest and it's based on images and videos. It is the up and coming social media tool nowadays and businesses could use it to build brand image and awareness. Here are some of the things I found on how businesses can use Pinterest for marketing purposes;


1. Pin pictures of clients and their testimonials
2. Create Boards for your products and Pin pictures related to the product
3. You can turn traditional case studies into visually engaging stories, since images evoke emotion
4. Take pictures of customers engaging with your product or service, then develop an entire pin board dedicated to customers.
5. If you're attending a conference or a trade show, Blog about the event before you go—the who, what, when and why you’re going. Then take pictures at the event, and create a Pinterest board for them.
6. You can also use the tool for lead generation. The Pinterest account can be used to drive traffic to the company website. This could be achieved by creating catalogs of pin boards and pins based on your products.
7. You can encourage your website visitors to pin your content
8. You can also have "pin-to-win" contests in your Pinterest account and this can create a tremendous amount of viral excitement around your Pinterest presence.
9. Create a board that tells the story of your company and communicates your core values.
10. Allow your customers to join in on certain boards and pin ideas and suggestions about how to use your product, or themes that go along with your products and services
11. It can be used to promote the company blog

For all this to be done you need to ensure that all your social media tools are integrated. You should also add a Pin It button to your website to enable visitors to easily Pin your content.





 

Benefits of loyalty programs

These are some of benefits that businesses can get by having their own loyalty program;

Greater customer knowledge

A loyalty program facilitates a company to gain detailed knowledge about its customer base. The information will give useful insights as to the lifestyle of the customers and their preferences. This information could be used in creating targeted promotions or reform services around high-value customers’ needs.

83 percent of hotel guests say that personalized service and attention to their needs provides value while staying at a hotel

Customer retention

A well-defined loyalty program improves customer retention rates by increasing the member’s “switching costs”. These are costs associated with changing from one alternative to another competitor. Loyalty programs that create high switching costs to its members will have high retention rates because these members will be reluctant to move into another competitor due to the costs associated in the transition.

Differentiated Service and Brand Equity

While consumers agree that price is important, they’d choose a slightly higher rate for added service. – Forrester, April 2002

Most companies have identified that competing based on cost brings in no or less results. Rather, providing value beyond customers’ expectations is more rewarding. Even those businesses established upon providing a low-cost service (for example low-cost carriers such as Southwest Airlines and JetBlue Airways) find that focusing beyond factors such as price provides them better results. All of the benefits discussed above lead to improved profitability for the business.A loyalty program provides this detailed information on demographics, transactions and personal preferences required to successfully identify groups of customers and then develop products or services that suits those segmented members’ needs.

Improved profitability 

All of the benefits discussed above lead to improved profitability for the business. Greater profits are a result of;

·         Higher customer retention

·         Higher prices paid for products / services

·         Increased average purchase size

·         Reduced marketing costs

·         Decreased unsold inventory

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