Monthly Archives: August 2008

BoP marketing: Do we know whom we’re talking to?

Posted on August 31, 2008 by

This post has been inspired by reading Rob Katz’s recent post “Market creation at the Base of the Pyramid; it isn’t easy” over at nextbillion.net. I’d been ruminating on pricing strategies and new transaction models designed to suit the challenge … Continue reading →

Posted in BoP, Bottom of the pyramid/Poverty, Business, Culture & research, Design, Ethics, Marketing, pay as you go economy, Strategy | Tagged , ,

Tomorrow, the Moon: Nokia’s plans for rural China

Posted on August 30, 2008 by

Nokia is making waves in the handset market in rural China, targeted as their next big emerging market. If their success is sustained, it will become a case study in the annals of how a multinational can create an entirely … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Culture & research, Design, India/Asia/China, Marketing, Mobile platform, pay as you go economy, Strategy | Tagged , ,

An open letter to my teachers of design

Posted on August 24, 2008 by

                    Photo credit: James Hicks Dear NiD, I walked out on you without a word of explanation just over 18 years ago, one day. Perhaps the time has come to talk about many things, as the Walrus said, including cabbages … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture & research, Design, Ethics, Personal, Pondering | Tagged , ,

But what about the people?

Posted on August 21, 2008 by

Recently, we’ve been seeing a lot of to-be-expected buzz and activity around the mobile web or ‘mobweb’ as I’ve been randomly calling it for the past couple of years, complete with the requisite Northern California conferences on “The Future of…” … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized

The essence of poverty is the asymmetry of information

Posted on August 20, 2008 by

Right after the previous post, I came across this intriguing conversation in Time, The Creative Capitalism Roundtable, between Bill Gates, CK Prahalad and others sharing their thoughts on poverty, the BoP and creative capitalism. Naturally, Prahalad’s thoughts on the cellphone … Continue reading →

Posted in BoP, Bottom of the pyramid/Poverty, Business, Culture & research, Marketing, Mobile platform, pay as you go economy, Strategy

The Indian BoP market experience: fact or fantasy?

Posted on August 20, 2008 by

Minutes after I came across this piece written in LiveMint, associated with the Wall Street Journal, claiming there really wasn’t a profitable market at the Bottom of the Pyramid, and certainly not one worth the effort it would take to … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized

Women and mobile phones

Posted on August 18, 2008 by

Continuing our searches on the influence of the mobile phone on the status and standing of women, particularly in the developing world, David discovered that Kutoma Wakunuma quoted in our earlier post  has written up some of her observations from … Continue reading →

Posted in BoP, Bottom of the pyramid/Poverty, Business, Culture & research, Mobile platform, pay as you go economy