The Hindu Business Line : Make your ideas work

There is a great need for new products in our fast-moving society, but there are so few talented folks around who have the creativity to dream them up, writes Harvey Reese in The 12 Amazing Secrets of Millionaire Inventors ( www.landmarkonthenet.com).

The book begins, not with the secrets, but with ‘the 12 amazing mistakes, bloopers, errors, wretched miscalculations, boners, goof-ups, and simply stupid moves made by many new inventors’. First in the list of the most important dumb mistakes’ is “not understanding the concept of a fully developed and marketable idea.”

Ideas alone have little commercial value, explains the author. “We all get them, they float in and out of our minds continually.” What investors and licensors are interested in are “inventions or fully formed products,” he reasons. The ‘what’ is fine for starters; but to get the desired attention, you have to work on ‘how’ the idea works. Overestimating the idea’s potential market value is another common mistake. “Or worse yet, the inventor with stars in his eyes is liable to empty out his own bank account in anticipation of the big payday just around the corner.” A great block that inventors have to overcome is the fear of face-to-face selling, says Reese. “Knowledge is courage … Going out to sell the idea is the best part of this business,” he urges. “Henry Ford said that one of man’s greatest discoveries, one of his biggest surprises, is to find that he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t.”

Brilliant read.

Bollywood unbranded

Fantasies of a Bollywood Love Thief
Stephen Alter

You can’t buy a ticket to Bollywood. There’s no such place. You won’t find it on any maps. The name isn’t spelled out in giant letters on a hillside,” says Stephen Alter in Fantasies of a Bollywood Love Thief ( www.harpercollins.co.in). “Bollywood is little more than a label, a brand that hasn’t even been copyrighted, an idea that blinks and flashes like a neon sign.&# 8221;

Going “inside the world of Indian moviemaking,” you’d find Bollywood “somewhere in the northern suburbs of Mumbai, between Mahim Creek or the sea rocks at Bandra and the upper reaches of Juhu Beach, possibly in the vicinity of Pali Hill.” Mumbai, though, is not a name that people seem to like, Alter discovers. The new name is “an awkward juggling of consonants and vowels that asserts a political identity.” Not everybody likes Bollywood, either, he notes. “Because it’s derivative. Because it seems like a cheap joke, a second-rate Hollywood, borrowing its shine, its drama, its glamour.”

Entertaining walk, through ‘Omkara’, the ‘Othello’ adaptation.

Flood of insights

1001 Advertising Tips
Luc Dupont

Identifying the target audience is one of the five keys to an advertising strategy. And you can define your target in a dozen ways, instructs Luc Dupont in 1001 Advertising Tips (Westland). These are: age group, sex, sexual orientation, annual income, education, family size, marital status, occupation, location, buying habits (impulsive, trendy products, environmentally-friendly products), behaviour (inert, mobile, multifunctional), and motivations (phys iological and psychological needs, lifestyles, etc.)

From the pages packed with insights, you’d also know 55 ways of product positioning, seven layout styles that work, five effects of repetition, and 22 good leads. These, apart from practical help in writing catchy headlines and ad copies that sell.

Valuable addition.

D. Murali

http://BookPeek.blogspot.com

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