G-Day is an event held by Google for SME’s, Entrepreneurs, Techies, Developers, Marketing Guys and pretty much anyone online. Though it’s called G-Day, it’s actually a two days event. One day is called as business day for SME’s and Entrepreneurs, Second day is called as Developers day for Techies.
Google is conducting these for last couple of years in different parts of the world, when they announced it for the first time in India, I signed up for G-Hyderabad business day held on 21st August 2012. Couple of days after signing up I got a confirmation in my email with an event pass as an attachment.
Their pre-event marketing and follow-up is quite amazing. They gave me a call 2 days before the event to remind me. On the event day, when they event is supposed to start by 9:45, they gave me a call sharp 8:00 in the morning to remind me again. I am not a morning person, without that wake-up call; I would have definitely missed it or at least arrived late.
08:30 – 09:30
The event was conducted at Hyderabad International Convention Centre, located near Hi-tech city. Its about 45 mins drive from my home, fortunately there wasn’t much traffic and I reached pretty much on time, which is unusual of me. Registration was pretty fast, as I have taken printout of the pass they have sent to my mail. They gave me a pretty good delegate ID containing Event agenda happening on different tracks, a map of the entire convention and food coupons.
09:30 – 09:45
Welcome address was delivered by Mr.Sunil. It was brief and upto the point. By this time entire hall was filled to capacity. People around seemed to be quite enthusiastic and thrilled. They have a good reason to be. Stage is perfectly set; I kind of loved their logo on background of multi-colored lotus. It perfectly represents what young India is all about.
09:45 – 10:25
Keynote is delivered by Mr.Kartik Taneja. He kind of cheered up the audience by mentioning Olympic winners from Hyderabad. He introduced about how Google reached its stage where it is now from being a PhD project.
Key stats he mentioned:
1. Britannica stopped publishing after 244 years of being in existence as it is no longer relevant.
2. Current internet users around the world are about 2 billion people.
3. India is having 120 million users now and is expected to touch 300 million by 2015.
4. India is the 3rd largest internet user group and expected to be 2nd largest by 2015.
5. Mobile internet users are increasing at an exponential rate and stands at 70 million now in India.
6. 40 Billion to be the eCommerce revenue in India by 2015.
He mentioned about his personal experience of area specific search, eg: wanted to buy pearls from Hyderabad, searches on Google but not many relevant results as many of the Pearl sellers are not online. Amazingly it seems there are about 50,000 searches about pearl shops in India and very few are present online.
He walked us through Google bus project, ZMOT(Zero moment of truth) and how youtube changed video consumption on demand from TV viewing. Showed us a very nice video of Google glass.
Everyone was encouraged to tweet, take pictures, videos and wi-fi is left open for everyone to use. They announced that prizes will be given to best tweet, most number of tweets, best pic and best retweet.
10:25 – 11:20
Demos were given by Mr. Abhiram Kasina and Mr.Prasanna. Abhiram starts his session with a promise to wow us out. Let’s see if he has delivered on his promise or not. He walked us through various google products, services and Apps. He shows us demos of Google now which is a mobile specific search application, chrome browser sync feature where your browser will open with exactly where you left irrespective of the device you are using.
He shows us the usage of Google docs as a Brain storming white board. Where in multiple people simultaneously can list out ideas, knock down a few, discuss on others. Even if some one goes offline, as and when they appears online, how everything syncs. Though it’s quite simple, I kind of liked it.
Abhiram gave away Google mugs to various enthusiastic participants. Everyone is quite eager to answer his questions and get their hands on one of those mugs.
He showed us the demo of Hangout, where in friends though staying in different parts of the world can watch movies/videos together and still pass on comments and talk to each other. This is what we do when we Hangout with friends in real-time right?
With google+ events, we can set so that photos can be uploaded automatically if party mode is selected.
I should say Abhirm really wowed me with his demos of Google docs brain storming idea and Hangout.
11:20 – 11:40
In the twenty minute break time we were served with nice beverages and cookies. I had hot tea and has time to plan which events to attend as from here on there will be multiple sessions happening simultaneously on different tracks. And I choose to attend Adwords 101 and Adsense101 on Track 1 next.
11:40 – 12:40
Adwords 101 is conducted by Ms. Mrinalini Chakrabarty. She started her session by encouraging everyone to ask questions. She shared her experience of how she found out to use powder eyeliner for makeup by watching a video on youtube.
Key Points of her speech:
1. Only 5% of online time is used for searching.
2. How right audience and right ad creates a Magic Moment.
3. Why we should choose Adwords? (For its reach, cost and tracking Capabilities)
4. How the purchasing funnel works, where there are Dreaming, planning and purchasing phases of it.
5. “Call to Action” where we ask users for an action like to fill up a contact-us form. Though I know its importance, I kind of ignored it all these days. This is now high on my to-do list for one of my ventures where we offer distance education courses for working IT professionals.
6. We have gone through CPC, CTC, quality score and importance of landing page.
Very nice session, in my opinion this session by Mrinalini Chakrabarty is the best session of the entire day.
12:40 – 2:00
Adsense 101 session is conducted by Saurabh. He started his session by quoting “Show me the Money” dialogue from Hollywood flick Jerry Maguire starring Tom Cruise. He mentions, how the user is more important, why content is king and mentions a couple of times that “User is coming to your website for good content not for good Ads”. He explains how the real-time auctioning happens when an inventory of ad is placed on the block for bids. He takes us through various tabs and options of adsense. Session ends with Q&A section.
2:00 – 2:30
Lunch was organized pretty well for such a large event. Food is great.
Starters:
1. Spicy tomato kim chi
2. tomato and olive salad
3. Papdi chat
4. American corn chowda
Main Course:
1. All sorts of Indian Bread( Rotis, naans, Butter naans, Stuffed paraths etc)
2. Tawa Kulcha
3. Veg Quesa Dilla
4. Steamed Rice
5. Saffron pulao
6. Dal Makhni
7. Baked corn and Spinach
8. Paneer Kurma
9. Mirchi ka salan
10. Hyderabadi Murgh Dum biryani
11. Punjabi Meat Masala
Sides:
1. Pickles
2. Ghee
3. papads
4. Curd
5. Boondhi raitha
Deserts:
1. Melon in star anise broth
2. Brownie with Hot chocolate sauce
3. Payasam kind of sweet(I dint get the name)
4. Mango Ice cream
Post Lunch I decided to attend “webmaster resources and best practices” on Track 2 by Syed malik. He has taken us through how search works, how Google ranks pages, what do to and what not to do, pretty much regular webmaster stuff. He showed us through webmasters academy, you tube channel and most importantly what to do when Google warns of malware on our websites.
Just to sense what’s happening I spent some time in lobby where I found there are googlers talking to enthusiastic participants, traditional board games like pulimeka, dhadi,etc. Its filled with people tweeting and chatting.
Next I attended Adsense work shop on Track 3. It is conducted by Saurabh and Naresh. Its mostly repetitive of what’s already covered in Adsense 101 session. Its mainly a Q&A session, where many were enquiring about basic questions like how to get a adsense account, what to do in case adsense bans you.
4:30 – 5:30
After Tea Break we assembled for “Get Business Online- Panel Discussion”. Panel consists of Mr.Kartick Taneja, Mr. Ashok Mandare who has years of exp in yellow pages, Mr. Gourav Obrai of Effective responses, Mr.Umseh, Mr.Sanjeev Sharma of MelbourneIT and Mr.Sameer who is an interior designer who took his business online.
Discussion was mainly about, the need of having a website for SME, how it is no longer an Option but a business necessity. Case Study of Mr.Sameer and his interior designer business going online was discussed. Need to hire professionals for website designing, adwords and SEO was also discussed. Importance of presence on mobile and emergence of internet access through smart phones is also covered.
5:30-6:00
The Final Session of the days is about “Google Product Forum” by Ms. Sagari. She emphasizes on how Top Contributors(TC’s) play an important role in addressing concerns of people on Google products forum. She mentions that over 17,000 questions were answered by 22 TC’s in India.
6:00-6:10
Closing comments were given by Mr.Sunil. Prizes were distributed to Tweeting winners. Every participant was given a parting present (T-Shirt)
Pros:
1. We can pick up a few ideas and take action based on those sessions. I am sure going to implement “Call for Action” on my landing page.
2. All the Google speakers were quite approachable and I have observed that many of them were answering to participants in lobbies and through break sessions as well.
3. You get to feel the passion of Googlers in what they do
4. Young and Vibrant Crowd.
5. Great Food.
Cons:
1. Its some times irritating when audience asks silly questions during Q&A sessions and discussion gets diverted. I think this is mainly because young kids(engineering students) and general visitors were also present who never heard of Adsense or Adwords.
Conclusion: I would give 4 out of 5 Rating for such an event. If ever G-day comes to your city just don’t miss it.
You can send your comments on the above article to me on sridhar@vastechno.com