The truck driver has grown up – Tasneem Limbdiwala

What a year 2008 was! While time didn’t actually fly, it sure went at a breathless pace. Things move very fast in media, more so in online media as we compete on a real time basis not just with rival sites but the broadcast media as well. exchange4media doesn’t carry hardcore political development news, but anything related to our domain of advertising, marketing and media – we definitely wouldn’t want to miss out on anything.

2008 taught me several things. One was to think fast and act faster. One report that I take great pride in was about Agnello Dias aka Aggie putting in his papers at JWT India. I had done that report along with an ex-colleague of mine. It was definitely an important news that we had cracked, but a miss, too, as we put it up as ‘breaking news’ on our site around the same time as our competitor did.

But there was a twist in the story. None of our competitors had the news that Aggie was joining hands with Santosh Padhi of Leo Burnett. The competition tried to prove our report as ‘speculation’ and insisted that the news that Aggie and Padhi were joining hands was not true. However, the news generated a lot of interest in the industry.

It was a valuable lesson for me as I learnt the importance of speed and accuracy in our domain. I could have cracked the news much ahead of the others, but I admit I was a bit careless and slow.

I have been with exchange4mdia.com for two years now, and happy to be growing with the group. My boss (Noor Fathima Warsia) now claims that I have sobered down compared to the earlier days, where Noor herself had given me names like rickshawpuller/ truck driver! There are some colleagues who still call me a ‘wacko’, but my funda remains unchanged – ‘Never give up!’ – and I am ready to rock with some great reports in 2009 as well.