Guest session on online brand management and usability

I’ve always had liking for teaching, delivering presentations or conducting trainings. I love to make the topic easier and deliver the rich content to others. That’s why my friends cleared their engineering exams by studying my notes. Anyway, that is other topic altogether. Reason I am posting this today is something special. As the title of the post itself says, I have got an opportunity to take a guest lecture/session at PUMBA (Pune University MBA school) on Online Brand Management & Usability on 30th April 2010 .

I would be talking on How important it is for any organization to have strong online presence? How important is the usability and understanding user’s mental model before initiating online presence? I will also cover some Search Engine Optimization methods that are important for having required visibility on the internet.

Users like you and me have different preferences while purchasing online and offline. I would certainly prefer to buy a T-shirt from Big Bazar rather than purchasing it from an ebay. I will not go to Big Bazar website and check what online services they are offering to me. To be frank, I even don’t know if they have a website. Do you? Also for e.g. If I want to but a RAM or say a camera, I will certainly trust ebay rather than Big Bazar website. If I plot a bell curve of user preferences and behavior,  I am considering the denser part of sample space  as a baseline for all above sentences.

I will also talk about what are the common mistakes done while working on online visibility and how to build a strong returning customer base instead of relying my business model on new customers.  Now! adrenaline is running rapidly under the ectoderm. I am excited yet little cautious to make my session relevant to those budding managers and enterprenures. Let’s see how things shape up. I will put up the aftermath of the session on Friday night.

Following are some of the topics I would be covering in this session:

• Importance of Online brand building
• Building a website
• Usability of a website
• Mistakes to avoid

I feel to put a disclaimer here that I am not an expert to talk on this but whatever I have learned and implemented through these 3-4 years is what I am going to present there.