Online Marketing and Software Consulting

So, i am back to blogging, i think it has been almost a year since my last blog post here.  I cannot even start telling everyone of my hectic schedule of late and the amount of reading I have been doing to keep my skill set up to date and be in my consulting profession.

As most of you know, I work as a consultant for some of the largest IT companies all over the world focusing primarily on implementation of software products and online marketing activities.  Life was good till I started consulting for MAG Studios.  I am not implying that the company is bad or they treat people badly, but the amount of reading and internal assessments they have for their staff is unbelievable.  I cannot blame them for this, they are one of the fastest growing and most efficient Software Solutions providers I have ever worked with, and trust me, I have worked with BIG BIG BIG companies also.  Let me elaborate on how we work internally at MAG Studios.

• For a new hire, there is an extensive induction program, which involves understanding the skill set of the employee, assessing against multiple tests, which need to be taken and an internal interview on standards and also a progressive catch-up plan for latest compliances.
• For existing employees, there are periodic tests on newer market technologies and coding standards, the experience of the individual does not matter here, technology changes for everyone, and MAG Studios expects and wants everyone to be in tune with the latest in the market, so they can provide even better service to their clients.
• There are extensive training programs, NLP and Team building being the primary focus, after all logic and teamwork are the most required things for a quality solution for the clients.
•  And the testing requirements are just unbelievably hard.  The latest load and stress test tools are used, rigorous manual testing where automated tools cannot be used and the effort and time spent in preparing test cases before a deployment just prove the commitment to excellence that this company has.

I was under the impression that consulting for a big brand would teach me a lot of things and hone my skill set more than anything else, but I stand corrected.  I have learnt from the working ways and delivery methodology of MAG Studios and the effort and commitment of the management.  I have learnt that you never know enough no matter how senior you are and I have learnt the importance of customer service and client satisfaction.

I hope no one is now blaming me for not being regular on the blog, my learning’s and my hectic work schedule and reading/training sessions should suffice for a proper excuse, but I would try to be more frequent now.

Is Blogging Now a purely Commercial Activity?

A BLOG was meant to be a personal space for people to share their experience - good and bad - to put their thoughts out, sometimes share it with people and something just for one's own reading - to vent out at wrongs - to appreciate the rights - basically a medium of expressing one's feelings as one would do in their diaries in the good old days, but with the option of sharing it with the millions and millions of people scouring the internet on a daily basis.  But, are blogs still use the same way?

I would say NOT.  Most blogs that you come across have a keen commercial aspect to them, just like this one, yep the one you are reading right now, we at MAG Studios like to blog and like sharing our technical know how and in the internet insights with you, but this does a very good thing for our corporate website http://www.mag-corp.com also.  We can reach out to millions of potential clients across geographical domains and actually post content which is relevant to our business line and also enables the end user to understand and evaluate our skill sets.

I do not completely agree with the title of this post, but it is true that blogging has now more inclined towards commercials increasing becoming one of the most powerful tool of online marketing, be it ad space on the blog itself, or how we do it, to increase traffic to websites but to also share information, which may or may not be useful to our existing and potential clients.

As a business owner or a website owner, are you making full use of the potential of blogging?  Are you just doing it for fun or are your blogs geared towards increasing your website traffic and in turn your revenues? You may come across a number of publications online about business blogging but we feel that blogging should retain its true essence and still be productive for a business.  Why loose the fun element in working, there are plenty of serious pure commercial activities which are done every day at work in any case.

Please get in touch with MAG Studios to understand and evaluate how you can add a blog to your website and increase your traffic and your revenues and also put your thoughts and knowledge and increase your brand's image online.

Software Development and Websites

So as the title says, this blog is going to be about Software Development and Websites. That is what I do day in and day out.  I am a private consultant with a number of technology companies, which focus mostly on developing software solutions and designing websites.

MAG Studios, happens to be just one of the companies i consult for and they also happen to do software systems development and website designs.  They have all the latest development tools and their developers are in tune with the latest technology methods and compliance methods, but isn't this the same with all the technology companies that you can get to by just typing software development or websites in Google.  When i was approached by MAG Studios to consult for them, i was a little skeptical about joining them, after all I am consulting for the largest IT brand names that you have heard of and then there is this company with no global branding approaching me.  So i decided to dig in a little and find out more about MAG Studios.

MAG Studios has been set up by IIT Graduates (IIT is the premier engineering institute in India and amongst the top engineering institutions all over the world) who have gone ahead and done their MBA's in business administration and further gone ahead and taken their PhD's in Business Administration.  Wow!!! thats a lot of education, but textbook knowledge is very different from practical and real life implementations of solutions, right? so i dig a little more and i find out that the founders themselves have a little over 50+ man years experience, yep, 50+ man years experience in deploying and delivering software implementations in all parts of the world.

Now, that is impressive.  So

Engineering from IIT
MBA's  from the USA
PhD's from the USA

Core team consists of

Software engineers from USA
Software engineers from IIT
MBA's from all over the world
People with 5+ years experience doing whatever role they are doing in MAG Studios
Experience of working for fortune 500 companies
Experience in working with smaller organizations
A successful track record of working with start-ups
Impressive and i mean a very very impressive client list
Supporting large and highly acclaimed IT companies in their development and designing departments in an outsourcing mode

So, do they still need a brand name, which people can recognize?  I think not.  I think once you speak with anyone in the company you can make out the knowledge and the experience.   I joined them about 4 years ago and am happy I did.  There is plenty to learn working with such highly experienced and educated people, that software development and website designing projects take a completely different shape and are transformed into highly productive and efficient revenue earners for all their clients.

MAG Studios has launched a new website and because of the highly strict NDA agreements and software outsourcing contracts, it really does not show MAG Studios in its true capacity and might, but once you engage them in a conversation, their expertise flows.