TheFWA - Team at BC Web Wise

Mobile is the key medium we would want us to focus on. We feel restless about not being able to use it effectively yet. We feel it will be the future device that the web will serve itself on very significantly.

Please give us a brief bio of yourself.

1. Chhaya Balachandran Aiyer (formerly Chaya Brian Carvalho), Founder-MD

After a 10-year stint as a business journalist I was drawn by the internet media’s depth and width, infinite information, free and easy access to just about any kind of information or entertainment. Started my portal, tips4me.com in 2000 and then ventured into an agency model in 2003.

BCWW is the first homegrown and independent digital creative agency in India. I am also proud of the fact that we are ISO-9001-2000 certified.

Am a single mother, and manage my home, dote on my 5-year old son Joshua, and love my father and sister who live with me.

BCWW is a profitable growing organization in a very highly competitive market where some of the biggest global agencies compete. We created benchmarks in the field of internet media communication by pioneering brand community networks such as www.sunsilkgangofgirls.com in 2006, and enabled organizations such as Mumbai Police to connect with citizens at large with tools such as online FIR facility on their website.

I have been a first-mover in multiple-digital marketing initiatives for brands in India. I have been invited as a Jury Member at New York Ad Fest, and the Advertising Agencies Association of India’s Goa Ad Fest on several occasions, as well as the BBC-Campaign Magazine’s Digital Marketing Awards 2010.

I am am an active council member of the Internet & Mobile Association of India

I also play the role of Executive Secretary of FLO, the women’s wing of FICCI (Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry)

2. Naim Shaikh - Creative - Team Leader

Naim, Graduate in Commerce, started his career from Emovez Visual Communication and worked as a Senior Interaction designer for 4 yrs. Currently Naim has been part of BC Web Wise since 2006 and playing a role of Team leader. His core area is planning, visualizing, designing, and managing the project end to end. Responsible for guiding, monitoring and optimizing junior team member’s quality and productivity.

3. Mangesh Bhayde Creative Director – Art & Design
- Graduate in Commerce,
- Mangesh was passionate about art from an early age. Post graduating in commerce, he decided to enter the print medium. Fascinated by digital art he moved to BC Web Wise four years back. He is currently a Creative Associate, and is one of the agency’s best designers. He handles a team of designers, as well as the development team.
- Mangesh is known for his passion for designing, guidance to team members and his warmth and empathy to team members needs, skills and limitations.

What do you do for inspiration?

Chhaya: Watch the ocean

What do you regard as being your biggest achievement?

Chhaya: Getting the company this far, surviving in a highly competitive market, selling a new media, and holding it on through recession.

How do you relax or unwind?

Chhaya: Play with my son, music, TV, gyming with my personal trainer

If you weren't working on the internet what would you be doing?

Chhaya: Continued to be a biz. journalist, or started a creche to look after kids.

What's your favourite part of your job? What's the hardest part of your job? What do you do when you get stuck?

Chhaya: Managing People. Managing People. Pray.

What's the longest you've ever stayed up working on a project?

NAIM: 48 hours for Maruti Suzuki's car upgrade launch, the 'Grand Vitara' You can check online www.grandvitaraindia.com, we did this site in less than a week.

How many projects does your company juggle at any one time?

Average of 45 ongoing projects every month.

Who do you rate as being the top 3 design companies?

Mangesh:

www.bigspaceship.com
1md.be
www.ff0000.com

What effect on traffic do your new designs have?

I think it definitely helps in giving it a boost. :)

Who is your target audience?

Ours are anyone who requires advertising and marketing, and then their TG becomes ours.

What area of web design lacks the most?

Chhaya: Broadcast creatives, there is potential for a lot more integration than is being done today.

Has winning FWA awards helped you in any way?

Chhaya: The team at work has been extremely delighted and this has been a very significant boost. Amongst the design community we have got a chip on our shoulder now. It has also helped us to get noticed much more outside of India than we were till now.

When dealing with major clients, how difficult is it to meet the needs of such wide target audiences?

Chhaya: I think we are able to adapt pretty well to varying audiences. The key issue, comes in the form of audience segmented research as opposed to generic internet habits. We do our best to overcome this by investing in a pre-research ourselves with the dipstick amongst the TG.

Mangesh: Big Clients! Big Expectations and therefore Big responsibilities. Larger clients usually have their research in place before launching anything, however we do the same keeping the interactivity and dynamism of the web. Once you get a proper focus about what to do, then everything is smooth.

The challenges really are in the need to educate clients regarding technology. We need to explain them advantages / disadavantages of their idea execution expectations, etc. This induction sometimes takes a lot of time, more so as in India as the mainstream media is still dominant.

What did your very first site look like? Is it still online?

Not online, but attaching a jpeg of www.sunsilkindia.com, the very first site we designed, even before we built our own site bcwebwise.com

Have you written any books, if not do you plan to?

Yes, also vision chronicling my life, it has been an exciting experience, a roller coaster, and at the end of it,... i have grinned all shaken up... I made it. :)

Are there things you do OUTSIDE of work to ensure that you are in the right mindset to be creative and/or successful in whatever you are doing?

Yes, we have an Animation and Design(AND) meet every week where the team meets up and does all kinds stuff ranging from ultra weird, to entertaining to just fun stuff.

Have you been a part of a campaign that was rooted in digital and THEN reached over into other consumer touchpoints? Did this happen organically or was it a part of the plan from the beginning?

We built a brand site for Sunsilk (shampoo brand) in 2003, which slowly evolved into an interactive portal where girls starting chatting on the forums and sharing stuff they do. The portal finally took shape of www.sunsilkgangofgirls.com in 2006 becoming a social networking platform for girls in India. At this point in time, Facebook / Orkut had not made significant presence in India. The beta site testing, focus group that the client did with their TG led to www.sunsilkgangofgirls.com being the focal point for the brand campaign, and soon TVCs and offline events, the whole hog The web-strategy coupled with the offline support helped in notching up the brand's image, as well as sales and market share.

The web is getting out of the web. Do you find that thinking in digital solutions alone hinders you? Do you feel the urge to solve the problem using all mediums necessary?

Looking 10 years in to the future, how far can websites go?

I can see my son opening his first bank account on his mobile phone! I cannot vision websites ever going away. Just see them becoming more and more accessible, on handsets, be more meaningful, and be facilitators for customers to complete their purchase/ purchase decision.

What was the toughest thing you ever did with Flash? How long did you spend on it? Is it still online?

NAIM: It's Probably the 'Clear' video based site for HUL. There was a lot of Prototyping and Conceptualizing with flash developer and video editor to enable 5-6 videos to be streamed and synced simultaneously.
The tough part was doing this all in real time and keeping the overall file size low so people can experience this immediately. The site is no longer live.

Do you think Flash is here to stay?

Naim: Yes. After Adobe taken flash it improved a lot and there is new technologies are coming in flash PaperVision3D, Augmented Realty, Video, AIR apps and many more...So Definitely Flash will stay.

What are your views on design/graphic school. Do you think someone can get into the field without educational experience in a school environment?

Chhaya: Yes, our very first creative director was a computer engineer and self learnt Flash professional. He is on his own now and still one of the best in the country.

Mangesh: About website design, I don't think a design / graphic school is necessary, One can self learn on the web, and deliver a product. Though this process will take more time but over the time at a school, teachers can teach you the lessons, the basics etc. etc. But the implementations are more important. Some times school lessons lack the intuitiveness of preparing you for on-field executions. So whether you are out of a school or self-educated.. the aptitude for design and experience is very important!

How difficult do you find employing the right people in a world where everyone calls themselves a web designer?

Chhaya -Quite easy actually, because i totally depend on the advice of my team members, they are the designers, i am the business person, they know better who is really good and who is not.

What would be your ultimate vehicle to travel in?

Chhaya- Land Cruiser, Hummer... in that category.. the best.

When your company was just getting started, what did you find was most effective for getting new clients?

Chhaya - Our portfolio, this was the golden key. So our own web-portal - the content, design and understanding of web, web-marketing, newsletters, mail-marketing etc. really helped us to get our accounts.

What country excites you the most in terms of innovation?

Chhaya: India, it is the land of opportunities, it is a growth market, it is a country full of innovators!

What are you excited about learning next and is there a long term challenge you are considering tackling?

Mangesh: I have worked on HTMLs, Flash sites before. It's fun working on both type of sites with it's own limitations. As HTML5 is in boom, I m very excited to learn HTML5, CSS3 with some ajax, jQuery stuff! Will try to make a HTML site which will beat a Flash site! :)

What is the most expensive thing you have bought in the last week?

Chhaya - A porcelain mini-chest of drawers for my niece... INR 750.

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