December 31st, 2009
Last night of 2009 is here and slipping in to the last sunrise of the year.
365 days of the year treats each and everyone differently right? Happiness and Sadness and some confused times when you can’t figure out what exactly you feel 
For me 2009 has been an year of realization. A crucial year that has made me understand some of my close friends and relatives – pleasant surprises and some nightmares. An year taught me a lot of things about life. Say it was a turning point. More International projects, more demo tracks, more people got to listen my songs, association with Tune4, meeting new artists, working with new musicians, few days in chennai learning from a film music composer etc etc etc…
Musically, my first online release happened in 2009 April 21st. ‘Show me love’ released in 6 online stores worldwide giving me enough responses from a global crowd saying “keep doing songs like this!”. That’s when the facebook fanpage was started in April 2009 with 10 fans 
. Thanks to everyone who has helped me brand myself on Facebook. It’s now 1500+ and growing (without paying any PR agencies or Advertising companies )
Other than these, the year was fully occupied by the business and design works. I haven’t been busy as a musician in 2009. But when the curtains come down, I’m happy with the way my music career is shaping up for tomorrow. I have told a week back, 2010 is going to be very musical. In fact it is already musical at my end. Thanks to Tony Joseph of Tune4 for an amazing groundwork to help me get hold of some well known artists in India & UK.
For those who like surprises, come back to this blog soon or join me on facebook for updates
2010 has a bunch of musical updates starting from March 2010 or may be little earlier. Follow me closely on Twitter or Facebook
Wishing everyone happy and prosperous year ahead
Cheers,
Ifthikar Ali
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December 27th, 2009
I would have announced this through my facebook fanpage, but there is more to be told about the delayed release of my track ‘Elements’, and a new project in the making.
Elements was done in early 2009 when I was in Dubai. I did it out of boredom may be and yea It was just an experimental track. Idea on releasing it online was given by Tony of Tune4 in August 2009. We worked on the track and sent it to Mumbai for mix and mastering. Now the track is with me but idea grew from one single track to Plasma and we made it a fusion track with vocals by Neha Nair.
Now it’s grown further from ‘Show me love’, ‘Elements’ and Plasma to adding 4 more tracks and releasing it as a proper album. Idea was again from Tony and we are on it. As of now we have 2 female and 1 male singer agreed to sing for me and I promise you they are well known people in Indian Music Industry and I don’t want to ruin the surprise.
I’m currently working on 4 additional tracks so it makes 7 songs with one or two remixes will be the album. Watch out
PS: ‘To Whomsoever It May Concern’ is a short film with my background music. Releasing online in January 2010.
Cheers,
Ifthi
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December 7th, 2009
16 things your agency can’t afford to risk during these current times of change:
- A skill set built mostly around interruption instead of engagement.
- A digital department in place of a digital competency.
- Core competencies focused on “one to many” instead of “one to one.”
- Creating brand-to-consumer communications at the expense of consumer-to-consumer communications.
- Lack of analytics and tools to measure effectiveness.
- Production systems that are linear instead of organic.
- Developing media plans instead of channel plans.
- Placing media instead of creating media.
- Creating brand transactions instead of brand relationships.
- Focusing on “the big idea” instead of “big multichannel ideas.”
- Traditional production staff instead of “producers.”
- Expecting account executives to be both strategic leaders and project managers.
- Continuing to allocate client budgets to media instead of creative.
- A business strategy that attempts to support high-value offerings (strategy and ideation) as well as increasingly low-value offerings (basic production and execution).
- Selling hours worked instead of value created.
I would add a 16th risks that agencies can’t afford to take:
Beginning 2010 without a written new business strategy, that includes social media as a primary component, to generate inbound leads.
PS: I got this as an email forward.
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