Corporate geek: What tickles CEOs

It’s no secret that every top executive and CEO practically sleeps with his mobile phone under the pillows and laptop on the stand-by mode. But for many executives, the geek story has moved well beyond BlackBerries and Push emails. Here are a few industry icons who proudly endorse their gadgets:

Alok Kejriwal, CEO, Contests2Win: Kejriwal swears by Google calendar and Google documents when he is on the move. Kejriwal puts it as: “Being a digital internet entrepreneur, I am always travelling with my teams for content and sales pitches.” One of the biggest challenges he faced was coordinating his business meetings and putting together documents within short deadlines. Google calendar became the saviour for this executive. On Kejriwal’s Google calendar, there are five different sets of calendars that he shares with his teams. “For instance, the sales team in India has access to my meetings in the country so that they can confirm business meetings without checking with me.” The calendar feature has helped him in better management and he also feels that it helps in building an open-door environment. “The fact that you can look into your CEO’s calendar and actually block his time means a big deal to team members,” he lists.

Viren Popli, head (TV & Digital Initiatives), Mumbai Mantra Media: With an intention to ‘Go Green’, Popli chose to install a timer switch on his Wi-Fi connection that shuts off the Wi-Fi automatically. He even got air-conditioners that save energy. Popli got rid of all old desktops with CRT screens at home and opted for laptops instead. “Now, my house looks like a cyber cafe with 4 laptops floating around,” he quips.

Prabhakar Mundkur, CEO, Percept/H: Prabhakar can teach any geek a lesson or two about the Apple MacBook Pro. Besides using it at work, Mundkur loves to use Apple’s Quicktime Pro feature to slow down a particular music file. A passionate guitarist, Mundkur utilises the multimedia feature to learn difficult musical notes. “All you have to do is to hit the Command K key and then you can slow down the music accordingly.” He even compiles music jingles and compositions on a software called Garageband, another multimedia programme on his laptop. But it is the Mac Pro’s Final Cut Express that takes the cake. Mundkur reveals, “When I find an interesting script at work, I usually work shape it up on the Final Cut Express, making a rough film out of it to present to our clients.”

K V Sridhar, national creative director, Leo Burnett : Sridhar can put a professional photographer to shame with his knowledge about cameras. He labels himself an old school person, who resisted the charms of a digital SLR until very recently. “But the Nikon D90 did the trick. The 13 megapixel camera comes with a HDTV quality video recording,” he says excitedly. Reminiscing about the days when one had to struggle with the graininess of high speed films, Sridhar is completely bowled over by the latest digital technology. “I really enjoy shooting in low and natural light and this camera is awesome in dealing with any light conditions,” he confesses. The ad-man shelled out a cool Rs 76,000 for his latest passion, but vouches for it worth.

Prasoon Joshi, executive chairman of McCann Worldgroup India and regional creative director, McCann Asia: Having recently acquired Nokia E75 Joshi claims that his handheld is a near-perfect device. He gushes, “What I like the best about the E75 is that despite being an enterprise phone it’s still a compact cell phone.” His passion for photography led him to buy the Olympus Mju 9000 digital camera that can withstand all the rough handling due to its tough stainless steel casing. “I have a small daughter and a water-resistant, shock-proof camera does the trick for me,” he concludes

Ajit Balakrishan, CEO, Rediff : Balakrishan cannot have enough of his Nokia N97, a smartphone that seems to be as close to a real desktop PC as it gets. Waiting eagerly for the new applications to debut on Nokia’s Ovi store, an online application download portal, that will further enhance his N97. Balakrishan points out that a combination of touch screen and keyboard on his phone is the most beguiling feature to him. He boasts that he rarely deletes anything from the phone as it comes with a storage capacity of 32GB.

And you thought the big bosses were technophobes.