Category Archives: Interactive Channels

5 Questions With Warrent Buffet

Posted on August 11, 2008 by MyOrbit-Team| 1 Comment

Warren Buffet doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone because his performance numbers speak for themselves. And that’s what makes it so interesting to hear him take Q&A: “The nastier the better”… as he says!



It’s a long video… if you are in a rush, here’s our summary of the various Q&A:

Q1. What do you look for in the people you like to work with?
WB: I like to work with people I like. I don’t look at their CVs or Grades to decide who can do what. In fact, I don’t even look if they have a degree. If you are working with people you don’t enjoy, please do yourself a favour, and leave the job and work with people you like. You’ll do better.

Q2. What kind of businesses do you like to invest in?
WB: I want to invest in businesses that are stable and where I can visualize it 10 years from now. Companies like Coke (soft drinks), Gillette (mens shaving blades) are examples of my investment choices. There are many others like GEICO (automotive insurance), Nebraska Furniture Mart (maximum sales from a single store location in the US), Iscar Metalworking Company (an industry leader in metal-cutting tools from Israel). I don’t have the understanding of technology-intensive business like software etc, and I stay away from them.

Q3. How do you do business valuation? How detailed is it?
WB: I like to invest in businesses where I have great comfort with the business owner. A paragraph is often sufficient to know the business value. The example being Nebraska Furniture Mart owned by Mrs. Rose Blumpkin, who recently turned 101 years, who has no formal education but has great common sense.

Q4. Tell us some of your bad decisions and what you learned from them?
WB: I invested in US Air though it was a difficult sector. Call it Temporary Insanity. I have learned that my bad decisions have happened when I had more cash than necessary. The airline industry is one step forward for mankind, a giant step backward for capitalism! And then there are other mistakes that conventional accounting does not capture, like the selling of 5% stake in Walt Disney (at $6m) within a year of buying it (at $4mn) in the 1960s. Today that stake is worth over a billion dollars.

Q5. Why not split the Berkshire Hathaway share to make it more affordable to investors?
WB: I think of my investors as a club or an audience in my presentation and we want long-term investors not traders. I don’t want high trading volumes for our shares. In fact, I will be happy with no trading at all. Our share price ($25k per share in recent times) has helped us maintain that seriousness and attract long-term investors.

Thanks for coming by!
MyOrbit Team

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Posted in 5 Questions, Accounting & Finance, Airlines & Aerospace, Business Strategy, Capital Markets, FAQ, Finance, Geo-Americas, Industrial, Innovation, Insurance, Interactive Channels, Interests, Jobs & Careers, MyOrbit Blogs, MyOrbit Videos, People, Private Equity, Start-ups, Venture Capital

Amitabh Bachchan Blog -the Power of Blogging -Reiterated

Posted on April 21, 2008 by MyOrbit-Team| 3 Comments

If you are from India or having something to do with India – you will know one person for sure: Amitabh Bachchan. He’s a legendary actor, who’s been there for decades now, and continues to produce great movies – often with a strong social message.

What’s this got to do with MyOrbit and Online Business? A lot! He has very recently started his own blog, through which he aims to share his views on various things impacting his life and industry, and because he has earned the stature – about the society at large as well.

Here’s the link: Amitabh Bachchan Blog

You can consider Amitabh Bachchan as a company himself (in India, he’s called BigB), and he has just started using his blog as a powerful communication channel with his stakeholders, which considering his profession are: fans worldwide and fellow industry professionals, and of course media. And like true bloggers, he has started answering questions as well, which will ensure the most people become regular visitors.

As we have been advising companies — both early-stage and established — a blog presents a powerful self-controlled media that you can use to share updates of important projects (upcoming films in case of BigB), respond to customer queries (fans in this case), and media reports (where necessary).

And here’s his post from today: Day 4 Blog

Okay, while the post titles are not really descriptive – he has just started using this medium – the content is great – and that’s what really matters because the readers know him already!

But if you are a start-up or if people don’t know you yet, then it will help to write more descriptive titles, because that will then show your blog posts in relevant online search-engines like Google, and bring people to your blog.

If you are serious about business relationships, you must be running a blog. The benefits far outweigh the efforts involved. Because the voice of business leaders reaches those they actually need to communicate with.

So, if you have any questions in setting-up or running your blog, please feel free to ask us. We have helped dozens of professionals and companies already. No, there’s no fee on it. We would be happy to set you up online in the best possible way.

cheers,
Shankar
on behalf of MyOrbit Team

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Posted in Interactive Channels, Interests, Internet, MyOrbit Blogs, People

EBay Sellers Strike Looks Serious

Posted on February 24, 2008 by MyOrbit-Team| Leave a comment

If you are not actively into online business, you may not have heard about it yet.

A large number of small sellers at EBay are on a strike this week to protest at the treatment they are receiving from the company. Given that EBay generates revenues from the sellers (and not the buyers directly), the sellers are protesting against two things:

(a) The recent increases in fee which is making it very difficult for smaller sellers – who are not ‘power sellers’ (there are various fees that a seller has to pay: listing fee, final value fee, and then PayPal fee).

(b) The fact that EBay has removed the ability of sellers to give negative feedback on troublesome buyers. If you visit the forums, many sellers are especially annoyed this change, because it creates an uneven playing field where the buyer can get away with hurting a seller.

Different reports are quoting different numbers – but the fact is the Ebay listings and sales have gone down as a result of this. The management is sticking to its stand, while the small sellers want to raise us their voice as much as they can in the one week’s time, because many of them can’t afford to not sell for long.

The fee increase mentioned above actually reflects the fact that EBay is struggling with the ongoing damage caused by refunds/returns done by fake sellers and fake buyers – both of them are increasing – and unless EBay uses some new steps to police this aspect (which should involve trusted EBayers in some way to share market intelligence) – this trend will continue to hurt EBay and the majority of genuine EBayers who have been selling / buying on EBay for almost a decade now.

In fact, many trusted smaller sellers have closed down their EBay stores in the last 6-12 months due o the reducing profit margins available to a smaller seller. No doubt, new sellers will take their place because it is a large eco-system.

But this whole episode makes one thing very clear: If we can create a similar system as EBay and get some interested traffic to it, there is a demand for it, and it can take-off.

Here are some news reports on this topic:

CNN: http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/07/smbusiness/ebay_boycott.fsb/

http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m08/i16/s01

And some of the best discussion is happening these blog posts:

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/sellers-give-negative-feedback-on-ebay-changes

http://webpronews.com/topnews/2008/02/20/ebay-boycott-having-minimal-effect

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Posted in Business Strategy, Geo-Americas, Geo-APAC, Geo-Europe, Interactive Channels, Internet, Market News, People, Sales & Marketing

Podcasting For Business Communications

Posted on January 25, 2008 by MyOrbit-Team| Leave a comment

Podcasting is one of the newer methods for Business Communications. You may have already seen podcasts from a variety of special interests groups sending out their messages online to interested individuals. in the same promotional theories.

If you use podcasting properly, you can send a recorded audio message/discussion to all employees or to specific customers who has agreed to receive the information. Podcasting for business can also be information made available to recipients without it being automatically delivered to their device – like sending a URL where the actual podcast is available. This practice is more friendly to the target audience as they can view the message at their convenience.

Podcasting for business can be used to send information to employees by way of their cell phones or handheld devices. For example, a recording by the CEO on the new market challenges.

The podcast is uploaded to a server or distribution service where it can automatically to broadcast to all intended recipients at the same time. This ensures that all employees get the same message at the same time. The receiving devices can be used to view the message at the recipients’ convenience and with the right software and structure a confirmation message can be transmitted back to allow the sender to know the information has been received.

Other uses of podcasting for business include sending information to customers through wireless devices or by sending an email to them giving them the address at which information about products and services are available through podcasting.

This is ideal for sharing information that customers may find useful. For example, some best practices, or an interview with a product/solution expert that answers FAQ on a given topic.

Distribution: Sending an email or text message direct ing them to a podcasting site is recommended when podcasting for business. For example, here’s a podcast from Harvard Law School

Respect Privacy: When using podcasts for sharing information with customers, please make sure the customer has agreed to receive the information, to protect your business from any charges of spamming.

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Posted in Innovation, Interactive Channels, Internet, New Media, Online Marketing, Podcasts