Philosopher's Stone: First series of Harry Potter

It is the first part of the series. In the story, Harry Potter was a wizard. When Harry was a baby, his parents are killed by Lord Voldemort, an evil. Then, Harry was brought up by his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. Potter makes a debut into the world of wizards when he is eleven year old. He joins a school where he is taught witchcraft and wizardry.

When he was at a school, Harry fights Voldemort good many times. Harry, along with his pals, comes to know about the Death Eaters and wins over them. (Note: Death Eaters are a group of wizards & witches belonging to Voldemort).

Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

• It is the 7th volume of the novel.

• It is the latest and of course, the last novel of the Harry Potter series.

• The final sequel was released on 21 July 2007.

• People eagerly waited for the release of 7th edition. The eagerness has influenced some of cyber criminal to leak the book online shortly before the official release of the book.

• The book was released in 93 countries simultaneously.

• It broke all the previous records in book selling.

• It is the fastest selling book in the history of humanity.

• Just within 24 hours after its release, it sold 15 million copies.

• In the United States of America and United Kingdom itself, there were more than 11 million copies.

• The previous record, 9 million in its first day, had been held by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The novel has also been translated into over 120 languages, including Ukrainian, Swedish, and Hindi.

The story of the novel rotates around two important key points namely “life” and “death”. The book was named as "the Best Book for Young Adults" by the American Library Association. A film was made based on the story of the novel. The movie has two parts and the first part was released in November, 2010. The second part of the movie was released on 15th July, 2011.

Harry Potter

• J.K.Rowling, an eminent British novelist, penned down the novel.

• The novel was a series of 7 volumes.

• The series started in 1997.

• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was the first of the sequel.

Written by: S.Chandrashekara Reddy.

Building relationships before selling

It is a well known proverb “Customer is God in business”. No business can survive for a longer time if it does not build and maintain good relationships with customers. Broadly speaking, the relationships with customers are of two types namely ‘relationships before selling’ and ‘relationships after selling’. 

Before sales relationships primarily deal with the following issues:

·         Product promotion

·         Educating the customers about the benefits they derive by purchasing the product

·         Educating the customers how  our product is superior to the products of our competitors

·         Clarification of misconceptions about the product or offer

·         Motivating the customers to buy the product

Here, the prime focus should be on ‘Selling’ but not merely on ‘Telling’.

Methods to build relationships with ‘customers before selling’

Following are some of the methods that help you to build your relationships with your customers before selling:

·         To build relationships with customers before selling, a good database of potential customers should be collected. However, mere collection of data and maintenance of database will not definitely serve the purpose. You have to contact the customers on timely basis.

·         Assure that the data that you collect is quality data. Make a prior enquiry whether the customers whose data you collect are potential customers or not. 

·         If any contacted person shows any interest to buy the product, collect their address, phone number, and mail ids.

·         Prefer sending e-mail over making telephone calls because it will not disturb the customers and they can go through your mail according to their convenience. Moreover, it costs you nothing.

·         If you want to meet any customer personally, you ensure that you have received prior appointment.

·         Motivate him/her to buy the product using different kinds of motivational methodologies

·         You inform them about your latest products and offers.

·         You inform them about the benefits they derive by purchasing the product

·         You explain them how your product is superior to the products of your competitors.

·         You clarify their misconceptions about your product and motivate them to buy your product.

·         Try to make use of social media communities to the maximum possible extent. Never think that social media is only for personal use and remember that it is a good tool to develop your business.

·         To promote your product, select the medium of promotion which assures you more ROI. To assess ROI of different mediums of promotion, take the help of industry experts.

·         Be quick to respond whenever you receive any kind of enquiries or leads.

·         Introduce methods such as LinkedIn Answers, a feature that allows people to ask questions and receive answers.

·         With your customers, try to be always open and do not be conservative until there is a chance of your trade secrets and security policies getting violated.

·         When you communicate with your customers, make your communication customer centric.

·         When you build your website or give a commercial advertisement, clearly mention about all the required contact details.

Written by: S. Chandrashekara Reddy

Mail Id: chandrashekara_reddy@yahoo.co.in

Social Media: Impact on your business in 2010

Social media marketing is a boon for small and medium scale organizations. The organizations that have jumped on the social media bandwagon have received various benefits which are discussed below. Though some of the late comers have missed some of the ‘first mover advantages’, they have realized that late is better than never.

Following are some of the advantages that the firms, which have entered social media groups, received with the introduction of social media:

Increase in sales volume: Social Media helps to get more leads, which indirectly results in the hike in the volume of sales, which ultimately results in profitability. However, some of products and offers may receive quick response while others may take more time than expected to receive leads from audience. 

Building relationships: Social Media helps us reach our customers and improve rapports with them. It helps us know about the requirements thoroughly in a more effective way.

Educating Customers: Social Media is proved as a mutual beneficial to both firms and clients as it helps us educate our customers about our offers and products. Some organizations encourage some of their loyal customers to start their own social media groups in order to express their opinions and share their experiences with products and offers of the organization. They started using the LinkedIn Answers, a feature that allows people to ask questions and receive answers.

Branding: Social Media has helps us improve credibility in industry and to build reputation. It makes products and offers more popular among customers.

Improvement on ROI: Social Media enhances our ROI (Returns on Investment). You need not invest a big amount to enter social media marketing to achieve greater success rate due to an enormous improvement in our sales volume. To keep it in nutshell, what you put into it is less and what we have got out of it is more. 

Reasons for our success: Following are some of factors for the success of a firm in social media promotions:

·         Make social groups customer friendly and customer centric.

·         Make an extensive use of micro blogging.

·         Emphasize more on core areas of the value chain, including the marketing and communications and customer service departments.

·         Though the IT department is not involved in social media promotions as a primary decision maker, integrate the department with existing business processes to derive maximum benefits.

Conclusion: One can improve one’s business by entering social media; however, one has to realize that the success of social media promotions depends on the structured and organized manner in which it is implemented. It is advisable to for them to focus more on carrying social media promotions in more structured, organized and effective manner.

Written by: S.Chandrashekara Reddy

Mail ID: chandrashekarareddys@gmail.com

Memory load: Factors and methods to reduce it

Memory load is the brain processing that a person undergoes to memorize a particular thing or things.

Under following circumstances, a person feels more memory load:

·         When the instruction material consists of information which is out of his imagination or with which he does not deal with practically

·         When the person cannot understand the material

·         When the language of instruction is not known or less known to the person

·         When the material consists of different words

·         When the material consists of complex concepts

·         When the material consists of long sentences

·         When a list of items are not logically related

·          Easiness of memorizing the material varies from medium to medium as mentioned below:   

Experience>Video>Animation>Picture>Audio>Text

To reduce the memory load i.e., to make a person to memorize something carefully:

·         Make him to deal with the topic practically. Give him examples which are closely related to his practical life or practical work.

·         Make the person to understand the material thoroughly

·         Present the material in native language of the person or use a language which is well known to the person

·         Do not use difficult words and present the material in simple language using simple words

·         Do not use long sentences to maximum possible extent. Present the material in short and simple sentences

·         Present various issues in a logically related order

Written by: S. Chandrashekara Reddy

Mail Id: chandrashekara_reddy@yahoo.co.in

The Theory of Cognitive Load: Introduction and Types

The brain processing that a person undergoes to understand a specific thing is called cognitive load. The cognitive load is subject to various factors such as person, medium of expression, language of instruction, prior experience, the quantity of information, and time duration given to learn the issue.

Person: Cognitive Load differs from person to person according to his age group, educational qualification, IQ and mental and sensual abilities.

Language of instruction: Cognitive Load differs depending on language of instruction. If language of instruction is the native language of the audience, they experience less cognitive load. Otherwise, they experience more cognitive load.

Medium of expression: Cognitive Load differs depending on medium of expression. Listening creates less cognitive load than reading and watching/viewing creates less cognitive load than listening. Practical experience reduces the load almost to the maximum possible extent.

Language of instruction: If the language of instruction is the native language or well known language, the audience feel less cognitive load. Otherwise, they have to spend additional time on understanding the language in addition to the time they spend to understand the instruction.  

Amount of time: When a person is supposed to learn a particular thing, he feels more cognitive load. When he is given more time to learn the same thing, he feels less cognitive load.  

Quantity of instruction: The more a person has to learn in a specified time, the more cognitive load he feels and vice versa.

Types of Cognitive Load

There are three types of cognitive load: intrinsic cognitive load, germane cognitive load, and extraneous cognitive load.

Intrinsic cognitive load: It is the inherent difficulty associated with an instruction. For example, even to calculate a simple addition of 2 and 2, a person has to undergo certain amount of brain processing. It cannot be reduced by an instructor.

Extraneous cognitive load: It is generated by the style of presentation of information. An instructional designer can reduce it by presenting the information in an effective manner.

For example, a teacher is supposed to explain his students about “Circle”. If the teacher delivers a lecture, defining in different ways what a circle is, it becomes very difficult for the students to understand what a circle is. If the teacher displays an image of a circle and then explains about it, students feel it easy to understand what a circle is. Here, visual medium is better than verbal medium and reduces the extraneous cognitive load of the concept.

It does not load the learner with unnecessary information.  Extraneous cognitive load can be reduced or completely avoided while intrinsic cognitive load is a natural one and cannot be avoided. In fact, the theory of Cognitive Load is primarily concentrated on the reduction of extraneous cognitive load.

Germane cognitive load: It is an interesting theory stating that certain amount of cognitive load is actually a good thing as it creates schemas or mental models that enable the audience to learn something in more efficient manner in the future. It deals with motivation methods and techniques.

Most of the cognitive load researchers are of an opinion that germane cognitive load should be increased as it results in more efficient learning. Germane cognitive load deals only with the characteristics of learner and the memory that the learner uses to deal with the intrinsic cognitive load. 

Written by: S.Chandrashekara Reddy

Mail ID: chandrashekarareddys@gmail.com