Harshal Kharod

Microsoft Certified Android Geek Loving iOS Apps

[thecodinglove]

when a new technology gets introduced and I'm the only expert

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[jerrylieveld]

A new book anthologizes the wisdom of the most influential designers in the world.

It’s late in the day, you’ve been working on a project for weeks, and you’re stumped. The client meeting is in hours, and you’ve got tons of ideas, none of which seem to be quite right. Then, self-doubt...

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People who hurt you are like sandpaper: they may cause you pain but when its over you'll be polished and they'll be useless.

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Apple is still the Big Boss when it comes to Ad Revenue

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Black & White #Android #Photgraphy

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Toy Boats - A Sydney Tilt-shift Time-lapse

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LinkedIn for Start-up & Business Development – Explained

Disclaimer: This article is written for marketers who want to leverage LinkedIn to support their business development activities. It is entirely based on my experience and practices I followed in the past. There’s no guarantee that it will work for your business/industry; but yes it’s good to experiment something than nothing 

Little bit History behind this article: I have been involved into Software Services Sales since last 4 years into International Markets. Yes, not domestic but International. Now obviously few of might question – How would you sale your services to international markets while sitting in India!? Well, there are various traditional sales practices followed across organizations ranging from cold calling, webinars, attending conferences, exhibitions, advertising campaigns, channel partners etc. However, as an individual or start-up, when you have limited budget and access to the market; it’s not possible to follow all above approaches. And so same question came in my mind! How can I do things different way, to succeed in this competitive market? And answer I came up with was something nobody ever thought at that time – LinkedIn!

Since then I am using this little tool for my business development activities and trust me; more than 70% of my business has come from LinkedIn! And then recently I came across to a question from one of my twitter friend @RakeshTheKumar onQuora; asking for some inputs on how to use LinkedIn for business development and I thought of sharing my experience to the world so that they don’t go through long learning curve that I’ve been. It’s good to leverage what’s already available rather than reinventing the wheel again and again. So let’s begin. . .

You might have read tons of articles or attended webinars on how LinkedIn can help you and blah blah blah, but till date, I have never seen any practical experience. Here’s what you can do and I’ve been doing to support your sales activities. (Hope you get word “support”. I am not saying this guideline is substitute to other sales activities; rather it is a supporting activity that might help you move up to the level in the organization and reduces sales cycle)

THINGS TO DO:

Build Relevant Professional Network: When I say building network, I mean connecting to the right kind of people (target audience, influencers or industry leaders) and not LION (LinkedIn open networkers – who accepts anything and everything that value nothing apart from just increasing your connection number).

So here comes next Question! How to build network? Well do some research – try to identify kind of people you want to work with or geography & industry you focus on. Go to Advance Search. Use search fields exhaustively – right from keyword, title, location, postal code, industry, filter by group etc. (That’s what you get as free user) If you have some extra bucks, go with premium. But I don’t see any need of that at this moment.

Once you get result as per above criteria, try to connect with them with personal connection invitation note. In personal note, you can specify objective of connecting with person. No need to pitch your service. So that’s about adding people, RIGHT PEOPLE.

Okay, you got number of people, but what about business? Well, for that you will have to do some branding of yourself.

Do participate in Q&A section on LinkedIn. Try to find question relevant to your expertise/industry or knowledge and provide relevant answer or solution to their needs. That’s where you build your network. People trust you and you become reliable person for a niche type of problems.

On the other way, you can also ask open ended questions wherein you can get genuine answers and solution to your problem. Once you answer, if you’re good, they will rate yours as best answer! Yaaay!  You  will get a star on your profile as best answer in certain category  You’re becoming expert to particular field. You see! BRANDING!

What about Group discussions? Well yes, can be used to some extent. But avoid sharing irrelevant links/spamming with your services (this is what people do there mostly! Sad). So start relevant discussion, ask opinions, discuss latest challenges in your field, how others overcome it etc. More you ask, more you get and more you connect. See that’s where we are going – building your network 

Events: Try identifying people from events they visit and you plan to. Also connect with people who are participating in same event where you are also going. That’s where you can connect with them as pre-event marketing campaign. Schedule meeting, meet during event and take it from there offline.

Enhancing profile: Yea, very important. This is how mine looks (http://in.linkedin.com/in/harshalkharod – apologies for promoting myself) But yes, this is how you can enhance your profile. Right from headline, title, summary, profile brief, profession, current employer, past employer, recommendation, slideshare presentation, bloglink/wordpress link, any specific certifications/publications/patents you have, again events, and contact details. Be creative; write as much as you can about YOU and how associating with you can help THEM. (indirectly you’re selling yourself)

That’s it; I think I’ve tried to cover most of the points which should help you to get started with LinkedIn Business Development approach. As I always say, “Try to Engage, Business will Follow”.  Good luck and keep me posted with your LinkedIn success!  Want to share your LinkedIn success stories? Feel free to find me on Twitter @ConnectHarshal or drop me a line on harshalkharod [at] gmail [dot] com

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How Mobile Apps are Invading Your Privacy Infographic

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Top 32 Resources A Mobile App Developer Must Know About

[Source: iPhone App Design]

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BYOD: What the Heck it is? And Why You Shouldn't Jump into it

Since last couple of weeks there are lot of discussions going around with respect to BYOD (Bring You Own Device). Mostly on "To BYOD" or "not to BYOD?" So let's dig into the buzz word and find out the best solution. By the way, to all those who are wondering what the heck BYOD is, here's a simple definition for you: It means allowing your employees to bring personal mobile devices & use it for internal company resources such as applications, email, documents & other critical information. 

Okay! That sounds good.. isn't it? As a CIO or CEO of the company (who is always looking for options to reduce their hardware cost) it looks like perfect solution. Why should we invest in smartphone/mobile devices when our employees can bring their own devices and get work done?

Hmmm... but hold on, every option has two sides. As famous Hindi Film dialogue says, "To Earn, You Need to Lose Something" Unfortunately, same goes with BYOD concept. 

Agreed, by allowing your employees to bring their own device, you will save few bucks on hardware cost. But what about Security? How would you justify cost of developing, managing & deploying applications for multiple Mobile OS?

Most of the organizations who are new to Mobile world, are still struggling to cope-up with even single OS; and now you are talking about managing multiple platforms :) It doesn't only stop here. As I said earlier, even if you believe in employee freedom and ready to invest thousands of dollar in BYOD; how would you manage security? Who owns data? How would you track employee's activity? What if someone lost his device in transit? 

WAKE UP!!! Someone from India is opposing BYOD? No. I am not. I am just trying to make you aware of couple of hiccups followed by BYOD. Does it mean you shouldn't go with it? Well, it's only YOU who has got the best answer. BYOD from employee's perspective is great option. You have freedom to perform various task on your favorite device. That's awesome! But as an organization, if you are looking to BYOD just as cost saving option then you're got it wrong. It's more than cost saving. Rather your objective should be empowering employees and giving freedom. 

So if you are ready to take some risk, do some "trial and error" and looking forward to invest in multiple platforms & resources, certainly go with BYOD. 

Otherwise, be happy and keep distributing BlackBerry to your executives and force them to use the same :)

What's your opinion? Do you plan to go with BYOD? What are other challenges & opportunities you see?

[harshalkharod]

Which Android Devices Make App Users Smile?

With hundreds of Android devices being used around the world today; it really makes sense to understand which is the best android device available in the market and most preferred by app users. Fortunately, I came across to below Inforgraphic on uTest and would like to share with all of you. Trust you would enjoy! Thanks.

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Things You Need to Know While Outsourcing Mobile App Development

Hi There! Coming from Mobile App Industry and managing few European Mobile App Agencies & Brands, I usually come across to people asking me what things I need to consider while Outsourcing Mobile App Development. So I thought, let me write something on the same for my friends and help them in their upcoming Mobile App projects. So here we go!

1. Be Professional from the first Day: It’s very important that that relations between you and your developer or Mobile App outsourcing company is professional and efficient right from the first day. If not, trust me, your project is going to be messed up. Your first impression should convey you as a client who will not stand for anything less than what is expected from the team; but you also don’t need to be so arrogant. Be cool, friendly and professional. Combination of three will lead you to successful mobile app.

2. Don’t Choose Mobile App developer based on Rates: Did you post project on freelancer’s portal? Then there are chances that you will get bids ranging from 5K to 50K for the same project. But, don’t just go with lowest rates. It’s very easy to post 5K bid for them. May be just to start with initial conversation or they are new to this field or they have resources sitting idle and badly needs project! It could be any thing. Better go with recommendation, portfolio, experience, skills in particular technology like NFC, Augmented Reality, 3D Gaming etc and then select your developer. Go for Quality and not cheapest rates.

3. Communication: Communication mode and being on the same page is the most important aspect of any successful Mobile App project. Define fix hours on daily basis to communicate with your developer. It could be beginning of the day or at the end of day. Also make practice of having weekly calls to discuss about progress, schedule and if anything going wrong, take corrective actions. We do the same! Best method is to use Instant Messenger like Skype, email, GoToMeetings/WebEx and VoIP lines. That’s it. Combination of these tools will make you feel working in the same office! Also understand time zone difference and arrange calls/IMs accordingly.

4. Give your Developers as many Details as possible: You’ve got an idea of what kind of mobile app you want but there is no way your outsourcing mobile application development company will know all these information unless you tell them. Yes, you might have documented requirement, but that’s not enough. Try to draw some kind of flow chart/process flow using pictures and arrows of what you want to see and how you want them to be connected internally. If you can’t do this, simply brief them everything on call and they will do it for you. Refer it, analyze it and correct it – as simple as that. But make sure you have everything on paper so that you can refer same at later stage. This will ensure that you won’t get mad at doing things which doesn’t exist or not scope of app.

5. Know when to expect first Delivery: Any Mobile App development process will include different phase/cycles that include deliveries at certain time. It could be at every 15 days or on monthly basis; depending upon size of Mobile App. Ask your developer how long it will take to get a first version of app so that you can test it. Depending upon the developer, they might also give you early version/prototype just to so you the flow of the app and enjoy look & feel. Few might feel something different; they will release everything at then end when it is done. That’s fine too. But make sure, it doesn’t get out of deadline.

6. Expect some Bugs and take corrective actions: When you get your first release and try it on your own device, don’t get disappointed if you find some errors. It’s okay, we all are humans. That’s why you are testing it at early stage right – so that it can be worked out and you get bugs free final app. Write down every problem or error you see and make sure you go through each button, screen, functionality, links etc. Also spend some time on UI, speed, response time. Play it as if you’re end user. Send all details to your developers and ask them to get it fix for the next build. Remember, both of you want this project to be done well so help them with as much as feedback you can. Here’s checklist to help you with Mobile Application Testing. 

7. Yeah! Finally you got your Mobile App!!! Do the Payments and Recommend: So, after all those long busy days, you got final version of your app. Getting ready to forget everything and focus on sale? But hey, wait… you’ve missed something! You’ve got your app, but you need to pay remaining bucks to developers with some honest feedback. It’s your duty to write them back with your views. It could be anything – good or bad. It will give them chance to improve on certain aspects. A good recommendation is all what developers want. It would be really nice to leave them some feedback via email or chat so they can use it for their marketing purpose or showcase on brochures/website etc. After all, we all are in business and who doesn’t want satisfied, referring customers! 

That’s it! Follow these steps and I’m sure you will succeed with your next Mobile App project. Questions? Looking for App? Do let me know. You can write me at harshalkharod [at] gmail [dot] com or simply tweet me @ConnectHarshal.

[harshalkharod]

How to Promote Mobile Application

With millions of mobile application on the App Store, getting your app found and let alone downloaded is very difficult. Unfortunately, most of the developer face same issues. They’ve got their dream mobile application, but when it comes to sales/downloads it doesn’t move forward. To ensure this doesn’t happen to you, be ready with your mobile application promotion plan before it goes live.

Pre-launch Promotion: Start building buzz about your mobile application before it launches by releasing press notes, blogging on various sites who write about things related to your mobile application and target audience. This will help you to create pre-launch hype about your mobile application. On the first day of launch, you might be lucky to get few downloads as you’re been listed under “New” category. But from second day, your app will no longer be on the front page; hence be prepared for other app promotion plans. As per stats, you need about 2,500 daily downloads to feature withing the top 100 popular iPhone apps.

Lite or Demo Version: If you are planning to sell your mobile application, then you may need to consider releasing it as a free or ‘Lite’ version of the paid app. As per research, people are more likely to buy an app if they have had a chance to try it for free initially. You may also go with In-App payment mechanism to make money within free apps. This will help you to charge for additional content in an app. If you got a Mobile game, let users play one or two levels for free but to progress further, they will have to download the app to unlock other levels.

In-App Advertising: It works! Tried and tested by lots of applications and been one of the most popular way of get your app noticed. Try to find out games/apps that your target audience are using. Connect with those developers and advertisers. Ask them to promote your app. You will definitely get people directed to your link which will lead you to more downloads. It could be feature ads running either while loading app or exit screen or integrated within app as banner or any other way. Here, money is split between technology provider and content/app owner.

Reviews: A great review on major technology related blog may create huge buzz around people. Use a conversational style, get right to the point and include a promotional code. For example like Gizmodo, that get more than 3 million pageviews per day, it can easily help you to cross few thousands downloads.

Social Media Marketing: If you got a Mobile Game, let user share their activities, score and bonus points on respective social media. Make it easy for them to share with their friends and invite and join them. It will not only help you in reaching multiple people at one go, but it will also help you get social recommendation from friends they trust. Think about same how your app can incorporate social media and build similar kind of functionality into your app. At a minimum, set up a fan page of your app on Facebook & Twitter and use them as a platform to connect and communicate with your users and get instant feedback.

Plan for Newer Versions: Don’t give everything in one single release at first go. This will not help you create long-term engagement. Try giving small things at some point of time. It will not only help you update your app on regular basis but also insist user to get back to your app frequently for latest updates. Make your dream list for the app and make sure that the app is designed to incorporate all of the features at some time in near future. Periodically updating your app will boost app store sales.

Timing is Everything: Best time to launch your app is weekend, from Friday afternoon. So better start your app releasing in the middle or beginning of the week and get ready for mega promotion!

Creating New Target Audience: Think beyond your existing features and users while upgrading the app’s function. If application OS is upgraded, try to find out how can you better leverage it with more exciting functions. It will be a long-time continuity process, once you jump into it, you will also start coming up with new idea and features.

That’s it! Trust this will help you explore various options to promote your dream mobile application. Got Questions? Comments? Drop me a line at harshalkharod [at] gmail [dot] com or simply Tweet me at @ConnectHarshal

[harshalkharod]

Why Your Business Needs Mobile Web

You are out with group of friends, and it is almost time for dinner. None of you can decide “what sounds good”, until someone mentions new place, somewhere in the city center. What’s new on the menu? How much? Where is it? A Friend of yours takes out his Mobile and ‘Googles’ it! He reads the menu, finds pricing and yea!! Table Reserved :)

Is your business so easy to be found on Mobile? If you don’t have Mobile site, chances are, “no.” Even if they did, most sites are not optimized for mobile devices; it will look HORRIBLE on small screens. Having a mobile-optimized site can give a clear advantage in the marketplace, providing valuable information to mobile users, when they want it. Need proof? Trust below image will help you analyze the same:

Mobile Web Has Taken Over Traditional Desktop Web:

Anywhere you go, you will find iPhones, iPads, ‘Galaxys’, Blackberrys and what not. Recent study showed that Mobile web browsing has just taken over traditional Desktop browsing. Every day we get to work, grab the keys, wallet and mobile phone. A mobile phone is instantly accessible anywhere. In the car, waiting for an appointment, on the train. By making your site “mobile”, could reach more than 100 million mobile phones in the world.

So what can you do? As a business, you think of what your customer needs, and you serve them with respective products. Do the same with mobile! Think of how Mobile site can help your on-the-go customers. Imagine what you, as consumer will try to search on mobile web. For example:

Get "M Dot" domain & Redirect users to Mobile Website

Information about company, services

Product/service listing with key features

Social Media links & pages

Special Promotions, Coupons & Pricing

Contact Information & Locating through GPS

Make it simple, easy to navigate. Mobile is meant for quick and to the point information. 

What Not to Do?

Flash: Please Avoid any Jazzy Animation or Flashy Things

Pop-up: Please avoid it. Do not buzz them with irrelevant ads

Splash Screens: I know you've got beautiful app! But, please do not force me to download your app every time I visit mobile optimized site

Hell lot of images: I need information! Content! Not full screen image and keep scrolling to find information

Well that's it! Trust this will help you wake up from 90's and get started with mobile optimized site.

Got questions? Feedback? Feel free to write me at harshalkharod [at] gmail [dot] com or simply tweet me at @ConnectHarshal

[harshalkharod]

Five Ways to Win Customers on Mobile

Today, almost every person on the planet who interacts with your brand has a mobile device, smartphone or tablet with them. Mobile devices are always on and connected with customers; which give you immense opportunity as marketer to turn this little device into great selling tool. So how can you leverage this opportunity to generate more sales?

The first step in taking advantage of mobile devices is to think of every possible place where you may find your potential customers. It could be:

Browsing mobile site

Walking into your store

Viewing an ad

Visiting your office

Meeting at a networking event

Discussing with a friend

Once you identify, compare it with following five mobile interactions to see which of them can help you and win a sale or at lease shorten purchasing cycle.

Mobile Discounts: Sometimes getting sale is as simple as offering value added service in return to acting immediately. For example: 10% off for first 50 purchase! Rather than promoting a coupon or discount offer to thousands, you can customize it and make customer feel special by asking them to avail exclusive discount at point-of-sale via mobile device. Adding location based service would be an added advantage when it comes to Mobile discounts. Just imagine you’re walking by a street on Sunday evening and suddenly you’re prompt to avail exclusive discount on new McDonald’s Happy Meal! Chances are high that you will go and try to avail that discount.

Price Comparison: One of the ways people use smartphone is to compare prices at the point-of-sale to make sure they are getting best deal. Offer a mobile site or digital brochure that compares your products to with products they select. Ask people to scan QR code, text-in or visit selected mobile site to compare prices and online reviews. One more thing, when you compare your price with others, make sure you’re best among all.

Mobile Commerce: If someone is ready to buy at the point-of-interaction, you can win them by asking immediate mobile purchase. You can redirect people to a mobile website wherein they can go through details of product and directly make payment through various mobile commerce options. Since launch of Google Wallet, many large stores have started implementing the same and similarly this could be one of the options that can lead you to generate more point-of-sale mobile purchase.

Click and Share: Sometimes it may happen that a person who came across to your ad, might not be interested in your product. But he knows that it might interest few of his friends. Ask people to take picture of your product or ad and share it with their friends who may be interested in it. Remember, if someone you trust referring you something, chances are high that you will explore it and might end up in purchasing the same.

Keep in touch: So what if you can’t win someone at first go! Try to reduce your marketing efforts for next time. Who knows, few months later, he might turn into one of your customers.ask people to join your text-messaging list, newsletter or email list or even you can prompt them to follow on twitter or like on facebook. This will help you to connect and engage with your prospect.

Sounds good? Excited? Explore what could be successful way to win Mobile customers for your business. Remember as I said earlier; if you're not on Mobile, you're missing out Mobile! Got questions? Looking to get on Mobile? Do write me at harshalkharod [at] gmail [dot] com or simply tweet me at @ConnectHarshal.

[harshalkharod]

7 Steps to Help you Build Successful Mobile Application

Many things can go wrong while designing and developing mobile application. Often, the greatest errors occur even before writing first line of code. Poor planning, improper requirement gathering and lazy project management can cause a number of problems, all of which can be removed from the beginning of a project with a little thought and planning. With vast experience into Mobile Application development and defining Mobile Strategy, I’ve identified seven steps to help you build successful mobile application.

Understanding Power of Mobile: Many of today’s Mobile Application development initiatives have arisen solely from the IT or marketing department budgets without considering actual power of Mobile. Today, mobile is not just a communication tool; rather it’s replica of your laptop and PCs. Analyze how you can leverage various functionality and native features of Mobile handsets to feed customer with various information. It could be a simple Mobile Website or an Interactive Augmented Reality based Retail Application. It all depends on you – how you innovate and come up with right kind of mobile application.

Define clear objective: Don’t see Mobile application as one fit for all your needs. Each Mobile application has to be designed for specific purpose and marketing campaign. You can not include complete set of services or products into one mobile application. Define clear objective for each Mobile application – what you want to achieve, who will be your target audience, what’s expected outcome and so on. Identify exact scope of Mobile application and then focus on how it can help you meet your objective.

Identify Target Audience and their Need: Mobile applications are not built for aliens. They are developed for specific group of people who can be your potential customer or existing customer base. Identify your company’s target audience, where do you think you can reach them, what are their implicit needs, what are on-the-go features they might demand and how well you can satisfy their need. All these activities take lot of efforts and needs continuous research before coming with Mobile application. The functionality and user interface must be in line with customer expectations.

Track your performance: You can declare your Mobile application a success or a failure if you have done proper analysis of number of downloads. There are plenty of other ways to quantify mobile application performance. These could include measures of the number of downloads, total number of minutes spent by each user or total revenue collected from mobile app. Although the measures should be considered as a whole, it is important to decide on the most important measures as soon as possible to ensure that your application is ready to deliver the desired results.

Following up with users: Listen to their comments: Many companies assume they know what is more important to a user and therefore, spend much time and energy on features that does not really matter. Lists of the actual features should never be left out of scope. Various interviews, focus group, market research and user tests will help you get into the minds of the end users. Afterall everything you do is for end users; and if they are not satisfied with end results then how you gonna succeed.

Testing, Testing, Testing: Test your application thoroughly during complete software development life cycle. The early and continuous testing throughout the development process will help you prevent unnecessary delays and keep production run smoothly. It starts with quality assurance right from project kick off. Make proactive QA approach rather than reactive, anticipate problems before they occur and keep fixing small bugs throughout process. This will help you release application with minimum errors and raise standards of coding. Once application is live, test it with actual devices and different OS versions to see how it reacts to various scenarios.

Keep updating App with enhancements: Mobile application development is not just one time task. It needs continuous development and enhancement to connect with consumers. Don’t try to include each and everything in first release. Try releasing mobile application with small builds and help customer upgrade on regular basis with new features. Release the application with the minimum, then listen to what the public loves, hates, and likes. Remember, mobile app release is just first step in developing a continuous evolution, not the final product. So, be prepare to have some bad comments, it gives you scope to improve!

Trust this shall help you launch your next big application in the market. Questions? Feedback? Feel free to reach me at harshalkharod [at] gmail [dot] com or simply tweet me @ConnectHarshal