Pakistan: In The Line Of Wire

What’s on the mind of one of the most networked professionals of
Pakistan’s IT Industy? Jehan Ara, President of P@SHA,
shares her insights!

Why do you feel so passionate about promoting the local industry?

The Pakistan IT and ITES industry is such a vibrant and exciting industry. There is a lot of cutting edge work being done here and companies have been growing and achieving their own levels of success. However there has been no concerted effort to support them, highlight their achievements or assist them in scaling up. There is a lot of creativity, passion and expertise that exists in this sector. I feel, however, that we have not been very successful in marketing ourselves to the extent that we can and should. Hence my focus on creating a brand and getting it out there. Read more

What’s In a Name?

Well, everything! And this becomes even more important when it comes to names on the internet. There are some domain names that aren’t part of your everyday lingua franca, but they still always get the repeat traffic because people can remember the name. And since there is such a fine science behind the art of naming, we asked a few active #ciopk and #blaagers followers on Twitter, to help us put these bits and pieces of advice together. Read more

POPism!!By Nubla Iftikhar

It is one of the oldest marketing principles. You build a better mouse trap and people will beat a path to your door. As a marketer, I often pop this question at myself: Is there is a thin line when describing the product-consumer entity? Does the consumer buy the product or the product buys the consumer? As a consumer I often ask myself: Do I own the product or does the product own me as soon as I enter an outlet to make a purchase decision? The latter looks more plausible now as the complete landscape of retail outlets transforms. This is where POP (Point of Purchase) display plays its decisive role. Read more

Aligning Growth: Arif Hussain, COO Multinet

Who do you think this is a description of? Name the company that has successfully expanded its long haul DWDM to cover a distance greater than 5,000km across 42 locations spanning Pakistan, using its own fiber to connect 107 cities across Pakistan, and can deliver broadband speeds of up to 100mbps over FTTP? Yes, we’re talking about Multinet.
Read more

Integrating Online into your Brand

Umair Naeem takes a look!

We’ve all been here before: writing or reading about convergence and how the next big medium is the Internet. Some have said that it could get brands penetration like never before while others contend that measurable metrics need to be in place and relevant target audiences within the Internet must be defined in order to meet a brand’s communication strategy. It is clear that for mass market brands like within the Telecom, getting online is a great idea, while for more niche brands, it is something that needs to be more seriously considered and the returns measured. I won’t get into the debate however I’ll assume that the brand custodians have decided to integrate online into the brand. Read more

Networking 2.0: Driving Networking Through the Power of Online

There’s a whole science behind it while others refer to it as an art. Knowing how to get the most effective utility out of a networking opportunity provided to you is tough work. Read more

STOP With the Satire!! A chat with Touseef Ikram

Here’s a scenario you’ve probably heard several times: a website is setup and out of the blue, it gets loads of traffic making the domain owner a millionaire overnight! Believe it or not, lots of sites have success, but the process is rarely ever overnight. Many developers often compare the entire process as a great labor of love or a longterm investment.
And that’s why for this issue of CMO, we got in touch with someone who has been at it for a while, has a lot of innovation in his approach and comes back with a pinch more of optimism than the previous email. Read more

Welcome to another issue of CMO

customized marketing content for the C-Level executives, from CIO Pakistan!

The concept of marketing is all about creating the right perception in the minds of your target, in order for the target to appreciate and buy your product. This is something that remains constant, no matter what the product is that is being marketed. In the case of the Pakistani software industry as well, image marketing will help fuel the industry’s growth towards a brighter future. In this issue of CMO, we have a look at how image marketing can work as a complimentary tool to create the right sort of perception in the minds of the buyers and users of the said product: the Pakistan software industry and its constituent software companies, both big and small. We speak to the president of PASHA, Jehan Ara, on the topic, and also hear the perspective of Arif Hussain, the COO of Multinet. Read more

Women In Tech

Marketing is tricky. Couple that with a company that has to serve its customers on a one-on-one basis, and the challenge becomes a something akin a demolition derby, with the risk of messaging and communications and efforts to strengthen the bottom line, often crashing into one another. In the midst of all this chaos, which, by the way, is critical for any company to grow, the only way the confusion inertia can be converted into a productive campaign is if you have a strong, focused professional heading it all. Read more

Life Casting and Micro Blogging

This is the definition of twitter when you log onto the Twitter website:

People write short updates, often called “tweets” of 140 characters or fewer.  These messages are posted to your profile or your blog, sent to your followers, and are searchable on Twitter search.

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

How it Works?
So what does Twitter do? When you sign up with Twitter, you can use the service to post and receive messages to a network of contacts. Instead of sending a dozen e-mails or text messages, you send one message to your Twitter account, and the service distributes it to all your friends. In case you’re saying to yourself, ‘oh! It’s a simple status change that let’s people know what we’re doing at that time – just like Facebook’, well, you wouldn’t be that far off. Twitter is something known as ‘micro-blogging’ because it has a character limitation members use Twitter to organize impromptu gatherings, carry on a group conversation or just send a quick update to let people know what’s going on.

Strategies:
Effectiveness and usefulness of twitter is explored in many ways and it is found quite convenient. Here are few examples:

Twitter is very effective to promote and spread  breaking news. News sources such as the BBC,  CNN, Al-Jazeera and other outlets are also using Twitter to disseminate breaking news or provide  information feeds for sporting events. During the recent Mumbai attacks or unrest in cities of Pakistan, Tweets have provided people with timely  updates on how, where, when and why things were  happening.

It is a very cost effective tool of communication and appreciated by the tech savvy. It could also be utilized by Governments, NGO’s, Hospitals, Rescue  Services, Law and Order maintaining Authorities     to spread useful information.

Twitter was in limelight when it comes to Social Activism and Citizen Journalism. It is playing an increasingly important role in awareness and   provoking the participation of people on many issues. More recently, the Gaza War is still being  debated and several cases were brought to light   against Human  Rights and War crimes.

Organizations can use twitter as a micro-blogging communication tool for both internal and external perspective. Its application can be considered in IT,   Economy, Human resource, management,  marketing, communication, human resource, sales,  logistics and product development.

Twitter in Pakistan:
Like many other social networking tools, Twitter is widely used amongst the tech-savvy community in Pakistan and gaining in popularity every passing day, in the urban cities. Twitter is not merely a communication – it is the concept of ‘life casting’ to your friends and family. It also enables you to engage yourself with forums, blogs, media channel and other sources to update you regarding hot issues, general awareness and knowledge areas. The Pakistani content is gradually attracted towards Twitter as many news channels and blogs are having their Twitter accounts.

Pakistani Tweeters have used this application in the World Cup 2007 to get ‘ball by ball’ updates and in Ramadan, when Twitter sent you a Tweet 15 minutes before Iftaar (Dusk, when the fast may be broken).

As researched from few sources, it is found that Twitter works on Mobilink, Telenor, Warid and Zong where you have to get connected by sending a message to +44 762 4801423. The fact that there is a UK number which enables Tweets to travel through the Web from the mobile phone, is the reason why Twitter through SMS hasn’t picked up as much in Pakistan. However, with the recent launch of iSMS (isms.pk), which is essentially a project that will enable you to Twitter via SMSing a local number, is something that will hopefully see a massive, accelerated growth in this trend… but more on that, later!•

Poll:
How do you use Twitter? Send us what your Twitter account is so we can FOLLOW you!

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