Monday, June 22, 2009

Moving to wordpress

We've shifted to Wordpress for more features.
You can find out the new blog location at http://ireboot.wordpress.com
Sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Event Management Workshop : A success story


June 13th & 14th, a weekend, implying time to rest and movies for most of us! But not this time though as this weekend we learnt something which most of us only dream of doing in our lives, but actually never get a chance or I should say we only dream, never aspire. Well the case is different for the 9 people who not only dream but also take steps and making that dream turn into reality.
Be it school, college, our workplace or our day to day lives. Event management is something which all of us has had to do, wanting or un-wanting. And each time we completed that event, we've felt this could have been a bit better. And that's true but it's only because we've never got to learn it professionally. Last weekend at iReboot we got a chance to get a glimpse of the real Event-management world and got to close look of how things are done in the real world.
12th Avenue Hotel in Indiranagar, Bangalore, where all of us assembled along with our mentor Sidhanta Patnaik from the renowned Wizcraft International. Well the workshop turned out to be an abundant source of knowledge, we'll give an insight of what happened at the workshop.
Sidhanta started with basics, how our entire life right from birth to death is an event with marriage being the biggest event of our life which we plan,organize and then attend as the most valuable person. Then we had facts on how the industry is shaping up, what it was and the what's the present condition. Sidhanta gave us some interesting figures as well, the most interesting being that according to FICCI, the event management industry will cross a whopping 3350 crore rs by the close of 2011.What a great industry to be in! He also made a valid point that this industry will never die as entertainment is something which is necessary for all of us recession or no-recession and hence the industry.
Then we got into the modus operandi of the companies, getting various live examples. Sidhanta, himself being a sports fanatic, has managed many sports events across the country. He also shared about award functions like the IIFA and Filmfare. Like any other industry this industry has some loopholes which I won't name here ;-)
SIdhanta then told us about the risks involved in this industry followed by the most important points taken care of in any event. He calls them the 5 C's of events :

#Conceptualization,
#Costing,
#Canvassing,
#Customization,
#Carrying out

Phew! If that's not enough knowledge for you, he talked about income strategies and completed it with the skill set needed to pursue a career in this field.
Well I think I will need to cut this down short before you get bored off. The first day ended with an exercise with the participants divided into two teams and given real life problems. 1 hour of brainstorming and then the teams were out with their concepts. Wow! already developed a few key skills. This was followed with Sidhanta sharing with us pics of the events he recently managed. It was the Nike Indian Cricket Team new jersey launch, the handling of the IPL KingsXI Punjab team right from naming them to the semifinals(the IPL season 1) and the Nike Lounge at the Sunfeast 10k Run that was held last month in Bangalore.
Day 2 was a lot more absorbing as our mentor told important aspects like Marketing the event, promotions, BTL(Below the Line) advertising strategies and not to forget some unconventional ways of marketing and advertising. He told us some facts which I would love to share :

Friends are the best source of marketing : a good 56% convert.
10% newspaper and 11% magazine ads do their job, internet ads get only 7%.
Only 12% of the TV advertising gets converted, what's worse is only 1% radio ads get converted.
All those are world figures.

The workshop was extremely glorious and you couldn't leave your seat for a moment even for a moment. You can guess the intensity of the participants with which they were involved by the sole fact that on both the days, participants refused to take a break, even lunch was delayed and was eventually taken when Sidhanta himself put a break. Well Sidhanta did a marvelous job as a mentor for us, I'll leave you with a few quotes he spoke at the workshop.

# event-management - There is no business like show business!!!
# every minute working on a new thing, thats the charm of this industry
# event-management as a profession is about the right blend of cerebral stimulation, exhaustive work and the inexplicable thrill of achievement!
# Unseen face behind the most seen event - An Event-Manager
# If you haven't failed in life, you never done anything !

There was a lot more which you've missed but can get some more by looking at the twitter updates, that were tweeted live from the workshop, here. Not to forget the pics here.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Find what you love in life before it's too late

Are you doing in life what you love to do ? Will you be happy in the same profession just 2 years down the line, forget lifetime? Do you really wake up to do that job everyday or are you doing it for some other reason, read as money? Have you ever asked yourself the question "Why am I doing this?" You must have. But the next question would have been "What if I quit this?" And then your mind would have stopped thinking. What will I answer my parents, what will I do next? How will I earn my living?



Most of us are not able to figure out what we want to do in life? And to be very frank we don't trust ourselves so much that we can quit our current secure source of income and still be able to survive. If we discuss with our peers even they would never suggest that, the common answer would be "I can understand you don't want to do this but first find out what you want to do, secure some source of income and then move out from this job". And this answer seems perfect to you. Then you resolve to find out what you love and continue your current job again, work like anything till after some days you realize that you still haven't found out what you love.
In reality you haven't bothered or been able to find time to find the answer to that question.
If you continue to work your current job full time then in 99.99% cases you won't be able to find time to find the answer. You might spend a weekend or two in thinking hard but then the next week starts and so does the same old story. This will continue for quite some years and the next time you will realize that you need to find what you love...but by then... it would be too late! You are married and probably have a couple of kids as well. That day you will decide that now you are not in a position to take any risk, probably you should have tried it earlier, but its no use regretting so you forget everything and start living the way every other individual does.



Wake up man!!! What are you doing ? Are you making the most of your life? If not then why ? Why are you afraid to try different things? Why not give office a bunk or maybe try to finish off that work early and try something which you love to do? Why not connect to people who want to make their life larger? Why not explore ? The point is when you do all this, it would just be a matter of a few days or maybe months, in some cases, when you will find out what is that you would love to do all your life. It's then when you will never crib again in the morning that you have to go to work instead wait eagerly for that morning. It will change. You will be a satisfied and a happy individual and then enjoy life every day, not wait for the weekends!
After all someone has very correctly said, "Find a job which you love to do and you will never have to go to work again".

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Learning to Mix, Scratch and Spin!

It was the weekend of May 9th and 10th...

Just another weekend for most.

But not for these 5 lads who dared to explore the unknown.

A passion that was long built up,
And long due to explore.

At a posh club in Bangalore, these 5 lads learnt all that it takes to be a DJ!


Starting from the basic of bars and phrases to actually misxing on the consoles, here is what the course covered:
 

• Brief of dance music
• Equipment Knowledge, setup & maintenance
• Counting Beats, Bars and Phrases
• Drop Mixing (Mixing without beat matching)
• Name Selection
• Review on cueing and drop mixing
• Music Selection and style
• Mixing process, matching tempos etc
• Using Faders, Cross-fader and EQ on mixer
• Mic setup & functions
• Crowd analysis
• Turntablism
• Review on beat-mixing
• Basic audio recording
• Preparation for Recording a live set
• Utilizing EQ, effects and Cross-Fader
• Basic Scratching
• Tips and tricks of mixing
• Scratching and Effects Revision
• Flow of DJ Set, Song selection
• General Rules of thumb in the DJ/Entertainment Industry
• Attitude & attributes
• Self Promotion/Marketing





Want to be a part of this Workshop?
Call our hotline: 09663857828 or send a mail to mail@ireboot.in 

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Wife gifts husband a 'Chef' Experience


Feb 12th 2009.

When Shantala called us and asked if she could 'gift an experience' - a chef experience to her husband for his birthday, we thought 'She gets to be the first nomination for iReboot's best wife award!'

Flowers, chocolates, clothes, accessories are all passe! It's time to 'gift an experience'.

Rahul arrived at 7 PM to Herbs and Spice. iReboot's official chef mentor and restaurant owner, Manjit Singh handed him an apron and off they went, to cook dinner for the guests that evening.

Herbs & Spice is a restaurant on 80 ft road, Indiranagar, which serves excellent continental food.



A picture is worth a 1000 words, A video is worth 10000 words - so I'll let them do the rest!


Manjit and Rahul at Herbs & Spice, Indiranagar, Bangalore

Rahul preparing Prawns

Saute it!

If you'd like to gift an experience, even if it is to yourself, get in touch with us.
www.ireboot.in



The Family's Verdict: Video!




The Chef Experience for Rahul

iReboot's blog is born

iReboot has been doing some amazing things. Here is our little way of documenting it.