Also, in the wake of the merger, Sumit Roy--who founded Univbrands and is currently, vice-president of the Ad Club--becomes the Brand Identity Director for LocoNotion Idea Studios. With an international network that spans five continents, LocoNotion Idea Studios (www.loconotion.com) is a virtual organization with a network of Internet marketing specialists, content stylists, webmasters, graphic artists, e-PR specialists and translators. Excerpts from an offline inteRview with Sumit Roy, the virtual trainer:

What's the notion behind LocoNotion?

LocoNotion IdeaStudios was created when Diane Mathia Garrod and Nanette Kelley realised that most Websites across the world were little more than corporate brochures. Companies spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Websites--and then wondered why no one visited them. Then they started spending thousands of dollars in advertising their Websites--but forgot to use some of the basic tricks of e-PR.

LocoNotion Idea Studios uses a proprietary tool called LocoLinkages that dramatically drives traffic to our client's businesses. Most companies who are used to conventional advertising techniques are not used to the networking ways of the Web. For almost all brands or businesses, creating a Web presence involves creating an interactive Web community that your core customers keep wanting to come back to.

How did you get networked with LocoNotion?

Nanette and Diane saw me in operation over the last two years when I hosted two talk shows for TalkCity.com at their room for people interested in growing their businesses,#Bizcenter. Both Diane and Nanette spotted the relevance of creating brand identities for their clients who were keen on acquiring a Web presence. What clinched the deal was my understanding of the role a clear brand strategy played in relationship marketing--a key driver of e-commerce.

I developed a brand-building model for the Web, which we now call BrandMagnetism, which they saw worked well for their clients. So they offered me the job of being Brand Identity Director of LocoNotion Idea Studios.

And what will your new responsibilities entail?

I find it a wonderful experience working with a Web designer in Russia, a programmer in Romania and a writer in Northern California for a project that gets done in days, where, here in India it would take weeks.

I have never physically met any of the 45-odd Internet specialists that LocoNotion has, spread over five continents, and yet they have become closer colleagues than the ones I've worked with in real life organisations like Ogilvy & Mather andLintas. And that's primarily thanks to Nanette's superb idea of starting www.humanbeams.com that attracts like-minded talent from all around the world.

In India, LocoNotion Idea Studios is already servicing three clients. Mastek India for whom we are creating an interactive CD-ROM for use in their international markets; Matrix Information Services (part of the Kotak Mahindra Group) for whom we are growing their cyber-brand www.indiainformer.com; and www.IndiShop.com which is already India's largest e-mall and has ambitions of getting even bigger and better.

And that's just India. The rest of the business is in the US which is leading the way in e-commerce. Plans are afoot to grow LocoNotion Idea studios in UK, Europe, South Africa, and Australia where we have a strong presence.

What kind of courses are covered under brand building communications?

Though Univbrands offers training in more than twenty areas related to brandbuilding communication, I plan to concentrate on the four skill areas thatare most in demand across the world and in which Univbrands has had the most success in the world market. These are: `How to launch or relaunch a brand'; `word-of-mouth marketing'; `relationship marketing'; and `friends of the brand', a lateral thinking skill that is very useful in this era of networking.

The concept of conducting Internet-based training programmes is quite new in India. How do you plan to promote the concept?

I don't plan to try to familiarise the concept here, apart from helping the Ad Club grow online. This is for two reasons. One, I'd rather wait till there's a higher degree of e-commerce being practiced by Indian organisations. And, two, those who already see themselves as being part of the world market are already aware that the Net is a great tool for learning anything--from apple farming to Zen Buddhism. I don't see myself as a person operating in the Indian market anymore, though I may choose to live here.

One of the errors that many e-commerce start-ups in India aremakingis that they believe that their market is defined by geography. The world has become a global village. Plug in!

Quite. So what are your plans for plugging Univbrands in the post-merger scenario?

The merger allows for the marketing of Univbrands on five continents, because of LocoNotion Idea Studios' cyber-based network. Univbrands will be part of the `training studio' of LocoNotion Idea Studios and will handle all the training requirements of LocoNotion clients worldwide in the area of brand-building communication.

Besides this, LocoNotion Idea Studios also has a training studio for other skills like Internet-based marketing and Web-based technologies. This is still being set up.

Univbrands also benefits from this merger because of LocoNotion Idea Studios' involvement with OmegaCollege, an online training institute that offers non-credit courses. As a result I find myself offering Univbrands' learn-by-doing courses to 20 US colleges. And I run these courses sitting in my home, here inMumbai.

Isn't it a handful?

It is more than I can handle on my own, so I am training some of the other resources in the LocoNotion network spread across the globe to run more of the Univbrands' customised learn-by-doing courses, all over the world. I also plan to recruit trainers in India who have the time to run these online courses for me.

The pay can be as good as $100 an hour, depending on how good you are. But first the trainers have to master the skills of online training. Largely, that's the ability to keep a room full of 20 people on a chatline interested in what you are saying. And without eye contact, this can be difficult. I trained myself over two years of hosting "chat shows" at Talkcity.com.