MxMIndia

Tag: Das ka Dum

  • It's not at all kosher to love crackers , given the alarming level of pollution and global warming.

    Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das: What is your view on firecrackers? Your view on rising decibel levels in the media?

    Welcome to an all-new week of Q&As as part of Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das. As we promised, here’s a cracker of an exchange. And not just one Q&A, but two… a double dhamaka.Enjoy!

    If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar…

     

     

    Q. What is your view on firecrackers? Do you enjoy the sound and air pollution caused by our homegrown or even Chinese firecrackers?

    A. It’s not at all kosher to love crackers , given the alarming level of pollution and global warming, around the world. However, metaphorically I love cracking ideas that make any profession exciting.

     

     

    Q. A supplementary question, if you allow me: What is your view on rising decibel levels in the media? People writing in CAPS in digital, melodrama in entertainment software and noise levels in news television discussions?

    A. With the atomisation of media formats of delivery and audience themselves becoming media, the perceived cacophony is a collateral impact. For some, it epitomises emphatic assertion. All of us are aware that as a society we are loud. It works on many occasions as it reinforces masculinity as social and cultural mores. But I strongly believe in the audience’s ability to decode signal from noise.

  • Presenting the Q&A with Dr Bhaskar Das on the last day of Dassera Week 2019. Enjoy and Enrich yourself

    Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das: Who among the professional managers you’ve worked would you say you’ve learnt a lot from?

    Presenting the Q&A with Dr Bhaskar Das on the last day of Dassera Week 2019. Enjoy and Enrich yourself

     If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar..

    Pssst: Do come back on Monday, October 14 for a cracker of a Q&A. And not one, but two of them. A Double Dhamaka of sorts!

     

    Q. We’ve asked you for your views on the owners of media companies you’ve worked with. Who among the professional managers you’ve worked would you say you’ve learnt a lot from?

     

    A. If one’s mind is open and perpetually curious and incorrigibly paranoid about obsolescence, every individual becomes a source of learning. So naming specific individuals may be challenging as so many individuals have contributed to whatever I am today.

    I have also learnt from global sources by attending conferences and through constant upgradation through pedagogic immersion ( ncluding my PhDs).

    My kindergarten, school, college and university was BCCL and all my bosses and colleagues had  been great teachers. Then ZMCL (Zee) had been a source  great learning about various media formats through bosses, peers and colleagues. And later my stints in DB Corp, and now Republic Media Network have kept the search for pebbles  continuing on the shores of knowledge.

  • Its brand salience is alive in a popular Zee News show and the digital version gains traction on the Web

    Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das: Your sentiments on closure of DNA’s print avatar? Should other print laggards also go in for digital-only presence?

    While the tone of the Q&A Dr Bhaskar Das in Das ka Dum is one of fun with provocative questions and responses given in his inimitable style, we couldn’t help slipping in a slightly serious and topical question today. Given that he was Group CEO of Zee Media Corporation Ltd, the company that owned the paper, it would be incorrect for us to ask him to compromise confidential information, so we asked him a very generic question. Read on…

     

    Q. As a veteran media professional, what are your sentiments on the closure of DNA’s print editions? And do you think other media groups should also consider a similar transition given that the print business model works well only for the leaders in the pack?

     

    A. I always believe that hindsight is a great science for diagnosing what is right or wrong. In any business, venture calculations can go awry. Yes, one feels sad that DNA print has shut shop after 14 years of existence. It definitely carved a niche amongst the newspaper-reading audience. Its brand salience is alive in a popular Zee News show and the digital version gains traction on the Web.

    One can’t extrapolate learning from episodic cases. Each business and its model is unique and has unique challenges. Hence any deterministic answer on the last part of the question can at best be speculative. Astrologers may be good at that. But a pracademic (practising academician) like me would not be suitable for that.

  • Presenting yet another Q&A with Dr Bhaskar Das in Das ka Dum. Provocative questions, Thoughtprovoking responses.

    Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das: You are almost always colourfully and stylishly dressed. Now what if a 22-year-old were to do the same in a key client meet?

    Bhaskar Das
    Bhaskar Das

    It’s the festive season, and we couldn’t help asking this question to ‘Wizard of Words’ Dr Bhaskar Das as part of our Das ka Dum series of Q&As. Provocative questions, Thoughtprovoking responses.  If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar…

     

     

    Q. You are almost always colourfully and stylishly dressed. Now what if a 22-year-old in your organisation does the same: wear green trousers or a yellow jacket to work or even worse: a client meeting?

     

    A. I presume your wonderment about the colour skew in my outfit has no pejorative insinuation to lack of sartorial finesse (either by age cohort or by occasion inappropriateness). At a meta level, colours do contribute to change in one’s dopamine flow. So long as it’s not garish and asymmetrical with the combo and the personality, it needn’t be out of place. These days, in the start-up ecosystem, the freedom expressed through outfit/ dress is more evolved amongst the Generation Z  or others who defied demographic gravity.

     

    The larger confusion that you might be harbouring is the conflation between form and content. Both are different but can be complementary. It needn’t be an either-or. But lack of content can’t be camouflaged by the garb of colour.

     

    There is of course corporate protocol which needs to be adhered by all age groups for disciplinary requirements. It differs by organisation. There are practices of weekend dressing or outfits on festive occasions. ‘Judgmentality’ on the same is superfluous. Every organisation  is justified in its approach. Incidentally, I have also followed the same protocol during my career. May be I engendered in you some confusion where my colourful personality (an expression full of modesty and not narcissism) got seamlessly mixed with my outfits.

  • Greetings on this Friday before Dassera. We’re here with a question that a lot of us have been seeking an answer to. So read on for Dr Bhaskar Das’s views on paid content…

    Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das: Is it right for a news media company – respected or otherwise – to pass off paid content as editorial-generated and editor-okayed?

    Bhaskar Das

    Greetings on this Friday before Dassera. We’re here with a question that a lot of us have been seeking an answer to. So read on for Dr Bhaskar Das’s views on paid content… in Das ka Dum.

    Please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar, to visit the archives of Q&As.

     

    Q. Is it right for a news media company – respected or otherwise – to pass off paid content as editorial-generated and editor-okayed?

     

    A. The slant of the question has a definitive drift towards an answer of  ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. These days, more often than not, answers may not be in black or white but somewhere in between. What the media industry eulogises as native content can also be clubbed under your question. Or for that matter how some public relations companies facilitate content in the media.

     

    I think a more fundamental question needs to be asked if the veracity of a story is compromised. Or if the concerned story has been flagged as sponsored content. Infomercials are a legit route to consumer awareness. The problem starts when the paid  content is camouflaged as non- sponsored content. One can’t take the audience’s intelligence for granted. They can see through it in case paid content is masqueraded as news.

  • After a break for Gandhi Jayanti, Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das is back. Enrich yourself, and enjoy!

    Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das: Everyone says print is dead or is dying. What is your forecast for the Indian print media?

    Bhaskar DasAfter a break for Gandhi Jayanti, Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das is back. Enrich yourself, and enjoy!

     Please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar, to visit the archives of Q&As.

     

     

    Q. Everyone says print is dead or is dying. What is your forecast for the Indian print media?

     

    A. Your question has the germ of the answer: death is the beginning of life. No one dies. It’s only the form that migrates. I strongly feel that News on Paper won’t ever die. In fact no business dies. It’s the morbid attachment to form/formats and business model that stymies possible transmigration to a contemporary/ evolved/ market-friendly (read user-friendliness) state. Those who believe in survival of the fittest (as a business for sure) would never get afflicted by extinction. One needs to migrate from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset.

     

    In the prevalent interconnected and interactive, anytime, anywhere world , where consumer activism is dominant,  a passive medium with active audience (that a print medium is) needs to transport itself to a different mindset to complement other formats of delivery. In an ecosystem economy, a platform-based fluid existence would be a good route to thriving existence.

  • Presenting Week 4, Day 2 of of Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das. And do come back tomorrow for another question and another answer. We’ll be back with a Q&A on Thursday.

    Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das: Any Gandhi-ism that you think is most appropriate for the Indian media as it attempts to sail through these VUCA times?

    Presenting Week 4, Day 2 of Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das. And do come back on Thursday for another round of questions and answers.

     Please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar, to visit the archives of Q&As.

     

     

    Q. It’s Gandhi Jayanti tomorrow. Any Gandhi-ism (or thought/statement) that you think is most appropriate for the Indian media as it attempts to sail through these VUCA times?

     

    A. To my mind, Mahatma Gandhi represents certain values that would always be relevant. In fact in a VUCA world, its relevance would be more beneficial, if practised in their true spirits. Fundamentally, he espoused goodness for all and by all. He also postulated truth and non-violence as  non-negotiable foundation of everything. These principles are sector-agnostic and quintessentially pertinent. My conviction has succinctly been  expressed in  Albert Einstein’s golden words on the Mahatma:   “Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth”.

  • Presenting Week 3, Day 1 of of Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das. And do come back tomorrow for another chatpata question and a spiritual answer.

    Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das: If you could relive your professional career, is there any thing you would like to redo? Now don’t give a politically correct answer.

    Bhaskar Das
    Bhaskar Das

    So what are the questions you’ve asked BD for next, a friend asked us on Friday. We obviously didn’t reveal any, except that we’ve tried our best to bowl some googlies, but we are sure he’s going to bowl back some reverse swings. Presenting Week 3, Day 1 of of Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das

     

    Please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar, to visit the archives of Q&As.

     

    Q. If you had the opportunity to relive your professional career, is there one thing – or may be two or three – that you would like to redo? Now please don’t give a politically correct answer.

    A. Why should I relive my professional career when I am so grateful that I could do my best what I was assigned to by God through earthly intermediaries. It may not be the best by material standards or by the expectations of a role model. But I didn’t aspire for them either. When one is in a trance of equanimity,  there is neither anything to seek, nor anything to achieve.

    This is not a politically correct answer. I don’t want to indulge in any etymological dissection of the word political but I feel it’s an oxymoron as when one is political , one can’t be correct.

  • The response to this new series of Q&As has been amazing. It of course all boils down to BD’s immense wisdom and popularity. Read on for Day 5 of Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das.

    Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das: Which is a tougher question to answer – in any context: Why or How? And why?

    Bhaskar Das
    Bhaskar Das

    We hope you are enjoying the Q&As in Das ka Dum by Dr Bhaskar Das… just. The response to this new series of Q&As has been amazing. It of course all boils down to BD’s immense wisdom and popularity. Presenting Day 5 of of Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das. And do come back tomorrow for another question, and another answer

    The link to yesterday’s column is: https://www.mxmindia.com/2019/09/das-ka-dum-with-dr-bhaskar-das-if-you-could-relive-your-career-is-there-anything-that-you-would-like-to-redo-now-please-dont-give-a-politically-correct-answer/ And the links to the ones before that are in the last Q&A.

    To those who don’t know who Dr Bhaskar Das is: well, he’s the former big boss of the Times of India group and Zee Media and Dainik Bhaskar and now Republic TV. For those who’ve known him or have heard him, Dr Das belongs to the rare species of advertising sales professionals who has this unique combination of being a deeply spiritual being and also a very persuasive salesperson. His unique turn of phrase can make you chuckle, but almost always sets you pondering. At MxMIndia, we enjoy our conversations with him. And for every googly we bowl at him, he hits back like no one has ever before.

    Das ka Dum features on MxM – Monday through Friday, except on our ‘no edition days’. Presenting Day 5:

     

    Q. Which is a tougher question to answer – in any context: Why or How? And why?

     

    A. The quest for categorisation for a deterministic answer is quintessential. The world can’t anymore be ‘either-or’. We have to move from orness to andness. So sequentiality of why, how, what can be done depending on the context but they are fundamentally inter-connected queries for exploring answers to all unexplored areas.

  • Those who’ve had a chat with BD are familiar with his repartees and spiritual responses to down-to-earth issues and problems… Welcome to Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das… a Q&A like never before, Monday through Friday

    Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das: If you could relive your career, is there anything that you would like to redo? ? Now please don’t give a politically correct answer

    Bhaskar Das

    We hope you are enjoying the Q&As in Das ka Dum by Dr Bhaskar Das… just. There are of course many who say that the column was a no-brainer. Those who’ve had a chat with BD are familiar with his repartees and spiritual responses to down-to-earth issues and problems.

     

    To those who’ve come in late, the link to yesterday’s column is: https://www.mxmindia.com/2019/09/das-ka-dum-with-dr-bhaskar-das-with-so-many-people-losing-jobs-in-the-media-would-you-say-its-a-safe-place-for-people-to-take-up-as-a-career/

    And the link to the ones before that are in the last column.

     

    The questions will be answered by Dr Bhaskar Das, the former big boss of the Times of India group and Zee Media and Dainik Bhaskar and now Republic TV. For those who’ve known him or have heard him, Dr Das belongs to the rare species of advertising sales professionals who has this unique combination of being a deeply spiritual being and a very persuasive salesperson. His unique turn of phrase can make you chuckle, but almost always sets you pondering. At MxMIndia, we enjoy our conversations with him. And for every googly we bowl at him, he hits back like no one has ever before.

     

    Das ka Dum will feature Monday through Friday, except on our ‘no edition days’. Enjoy Day 4.

     

    Q. If you had the opportunity to relive your professional career, is there one thing – or may be two or three – that you would like to redo? Now please don’t give a politically correct answer

            

    A. Why should I relive my professional career when I am so grateful that I could do my best what I was assigned to by God through earthly intermediaries. It may not be the best by material standards or by the expectations of a role model. But I didn’t aspire for them either. When one is in a trance of equanimity,  there is neither anything to seek, nor anything to achieve.

     

    This is not a politically correct answer. I don’t want to indulge in any etymological dissection of the word political but I feel it’s an oxymoron as when one is political , one can’t be correct.

     

     

    Editor: As we mentioned before, some of the words and phrases our dear BD uses could go over your head. So, purely in reader interest, we will link such words to the dictionary meaning. Now we don’t think etymological is a tough word, but perhaps equanimity might well be for some.

  • Day 2 of our all-new daily Q&A with Dr Bhaskar Das, the M&E industry’s much-loved and much-revered big boss

    Das ka Dum… today’s question to Dr Bhaskar Das: Are you really spiritual or is it a façade?

    We launched this feature yesterday, and judging by the number of views it  generated, we can say it’s a super-duper hit.

    For those who’ve come in late: here’s a link to yesterday’s Das Ka Dum: https://www.mxmindia.com/2019/09/introducing-das-ka-dum-where-dr-bhaskar-das-responds-to-our-questions-like-only-he-can/

     

    The questions will be answered by Dr Bhaskar Das, the former big boss of the Times of India group and Zee Media and Dainik Bhaskar and now Republic TV. For those who’ve known him or have heard him, Dr Das belongs to the rare species of advertising sales professionals who is a true gyaani… and may we add, likes to share his gyaan. His unique turn of phrase can make you chuckle, but is sure to set you pondering. At MxMIndia, we enjoy our conversations with him. And for every googly we bowl at him, he hits back like no one has ever before.

    Das ka Dum will feature Monday through Friday, except on our ‘no edition days’. Enjoy Day 2.

     

     Sir, are you really spiritual or is it a façade? After all, a hard-core ‘sale-oo’ like you can’t always be so philosophical in outlook… right?

     

    It’s a very legit query in a world where facade can be attributed to anything. That we are all all spiritual beings is a default reality. In our perception of duality, spiritualism is perceived as a facade. It has no connection with marketing/sales. Absence of customary evidence of one’s spiritualism is no evidence of its absence. But I empathise with the mendacity of such doubts.

     

    Editor: we appreciate that some of the words and phrases our dear and delightful BD uses can go over your head. So, purely in reader interest, we will link such words to the dictionary meaning. Like we’ve done in the case of ‘mendacity’ today. If you still can’t figure what he really means, sorry, we can’t help you. Curse yourself for not having had the opportunity of interacting with him (BD, who else?!)

  • Starting today, BD, as he’s known in the fraternity, will take our questions: one a day. And respond to them, like only he can.

    Introducing: Das ka Dum… where Dr Bhaskar Das responds to our questions like only he can

    He is one of the Indian media and entertainment sector’s most respected professionals. We’re talking of Dr Bhaskar Das, the former big boss of the Times of India group and Zee Media and Dainik Bhaskar . For those who’ve known him or have heard him, Dr Das belongs to the rare species of advertising sales professionals who is a true gyaani. His unique turn of phrase can make you chuckle, but is sure to  make you ponder. At MxMIndia, we enjoy our conversations with him. And for every googly we bowl at him, he hits back like no one has ever before.

    Starting today, BD, as he’s known in the fraternity, will take our questions: one a day. And respond to them, like only he can.

    We’re calling it Das ka Dum. And we’re certain you’ll enjoy it.

    ~~

    Our question for today: It’s Ganapati immersion today. If you had an opportunity to ‘immerse’ one thing from the Indian media ecosystem, what would it be?

    And his response: Pushing old technique to solve challenges of tomorrow which has arrived. After all ostrich position is beyond see-level.

     

    Look out for another question tomorrow