What is Valentine's day all about?

Saint Valentine's Day, often simply Valentine's Day, is a holiday observed on February 14 honoring one or more early Christian martyrs named Valentinus. It was first established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD, and was later deleted from the General Roman Calendar of saints in 1969 by Pope Paul VI. Today Valentine's Day is celebrated in many countries around the world, mostly in the West, although it remains a working day in all of them.

The Legend of St. Valentine

The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.

Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons, where they were often beaten and tortured. According to one legend, an imprisoned Valentine actually sent the first "valentine" greeting himself after he fell in love with a young girl--possibly his jailor's daughter--who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter signed "From your Valentine," an expression that is still in use today. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories all emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic and--most importantly--romantic figure. By the Middle Ages, perhaps thanks to this reputation, Valentine would become one of the most popular saints in England and France.

Origins of Valentine's Day: A Pagan Festival in February

While some believe that Valentine's Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine's death or burial--which probably occurred around A.D. 270--others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine's feast day in the middle of February in an effort to "Christianize" the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.

Valentine's Day: A Day of Romance

Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages, though written Valentine's didn't begin to appear until after 1400. The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. (The greeting is now part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England.) Several years later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois.

BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY

The best way to beat your competition is, in fact, to stop competing against them.

In other words

 when you go head-to-head against rivals for a share of the existing market, this is like competing in a “red ocean” –where the way you compete is by bench-marking your competition and trying to outdo them.

A much better strategy is to look for “blue oceans” instead – untapped markets which nobody has ever targeted and which hold the potential for huge growth.

In red ocean, your competitors set the agenda. In blue oceans, your competition becomes irrelevant.

1.Value Innovation – The Heart of Blue Ocean Strategies

2. The Key Principles in Developing a Blue Ocean Strategy

1.Reconstruct market boundaries  

2. Focus on big picture, not numbers 

3.Reach beyond existing demand

4.Get the strategic sequence right

3. The Key Principles in Executing a Blue Ocean Strategy.

1.Overcome organizational hurdles

2. Embed execution into the strategy

Value Innovation : Industry's current buzzword

What is Innovation and the need for Innovation


There was a time when all the company needed to do to stay in picture and survive was to continuously improve. If you would stick to the task of continuous improvement as a company you would have surely made it big some day. But not any more....



Harvard Business Review concludes that “pursuing incremental improvement while rivals reinvent the industry is like fiddling while Rome burns”

                                           and

Business Week believes that “what’s likely to kill you in the new economy is not somebody doing something better, it’s somebody doing something different.”


What is needed to survive and make it to the top is Innovate. Now what is it to Innovate? The commonly held view is that innovation is creativity—new ideas,knowledge creation. That’s why companies spend mega-bucks for courses where people play with brightly colored blocks to get their creative juices going. But it isn't just that.


while you need to keep the pump primed with lots of great ideas, it will be for naught if they don’t see the light of day. So, if you have a lot of off-the-wall thoughts, you’re creative. If you can turn them into something of
value, you’re innovative.

Now what is value innovation?

Value innovation is in short doing two things simultaneously. You have to innovate in such a way that the value that the customer derives from your product gets enhanced at the same time the cost of the product also reduces. If you can do these two apparently different things simultaneously and successfully then you can value innovate.