Stand

Once in a while, I find it amusing and occasionally edifying to meditate on a single word in the only language I know half-well (to my regret I do not have felicity in my mother tongue – Hindi – and this has left not only my education woefully incomplete but has cut me off from the deepest form of self-expression that a human being has). Take “stand”. Consider “I cannot stand him!” What does she mean? That he doesn't “sit well” with her? Not just that. She cannot bear to even have a standing arm-length conversation with him. In this context it would seem that “sit” is a superior position to “stand”. Now consider “to stand for an election” and compare it with say “sitting MP”. Seems to me that we human beings, at least the ones who think in English, consider sitting to be the just reward for the exertion of standing. In fact in today’s lexicon very often it is “running for an election” and when sales stop growing your progress as a sales manager “stands still”. Seems to me that we have further demoted “stand”- from an exertion that will be rewarded to a state of decay. What about “they also serve who stand and wait”? So? Who want to be an “also” in today’s hyper competitive world? And “wait”? Come on! Go get a life! Sometimes “stand” can be funny too. I got a snigger from my friends at the local club when I presented a particularly pompous gentleman as “a long-standing member”. Get it?

"What makes a short story short?"

A brilliant teenager once told me "the trouble with literature is that you have to read it". How true. I love to read and the habit has got me a passing acquaintance with the world of literature. My formal schooling in literature is limited to high school reading assignments and a course I took on Twentieth Century Literature at IIT Bombay as part of the required quota of humanities courses. Twentieth Century Literature was conducted by an elegant, erudite lady, which fact, I suspect, accounted, in large part, for its popularity. My biggest contribution to the study of literature to date has been a question I asked while the class was discussing the various forms of literature: What makes a short story short?. The rest of the hour was devoted to pondering this deep question and it even got Mrs Saxena , after the class, to treat me to a cup of coffee and batata wada at the canteen. Largely unschooled in literature that I am, if you ask about the things that give me joy, the reading of literature would be pretty high on the list. So what is the relationship between being schooled in something and deriving pleasure from it? Mahendra Singh Dhoni, captain of India’s cricket team, has a private mantra for raising his performance on the field. In his mind, he says, he harks back to the days when he played cricket for the fun of it. The simple atavistic arcs of the ball and the bat resonating with swinging arms and dancing feets. The schooling, he says, fades into the background, pleasure takes over and the zone, that so many sportsmen talk about, is reached. All of us are schooled in a few things and most of us make a living out of the things we are schooled in. But find those few among us who can put the schooling in their chosen field into the background and approach their art anew everyday and you will find fulfilled people making a real difference to the world and the practice of their art form. The other side of the coin of this simple mantra is that great pleasure awaits you when you approach any activity in which you are unschooled. In fact, if you think about it, the human pursuit of leisure, recreation and entertainment is governed by this core principle. Dive a little deeper into the relationship between knowledge and pleasure and, I suspect, you will come up with many pearls. Wisdom and pleasure are two sides of the same coin? Unlearning is, at least, as important as learning? Before you jump in though do not forget the diving suit and the oxygen supply. Happy hunting!

Sunday Musings 02/02/2014: What after the Information Age?

It is interesting to examine the clichés and pet phrases from past decades. Just about a decade ago "The Information Age" was the favourite tool in every pontificator's tool box. With the projections of Moore's law more than coming true, with the third generation of the Internet already in the geriatric ward, isn’t it surprising that the phrase has kind of been laid to rest. But do a little bit of digging and you realize that this is just a minor manifestation of a much deeper cycle at work. The phrase “The Industrial Age” was currency in the intellectual discourse of the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s and disappeared with the coming of the flower children of the 60’s. And then in the 70’s the first mutterings of the phrase “The Information Age” were heard in the 80s and the 90s one could get sick of hearing it. And faded out in the Oughts. Which gives rise to an interesting question? What’s next? I have a dog in the fight. Many years ago on a mellow evening with a friend I had expounded a theory. And felt warm satisfaction when the cover story on the future of jobs in The Economist dated January 18 sort of confirmed it. A paradigm shift in a society’s technology creates a new class of jobs that in time change the very structure of the society. The Industrial Age created blue and white collar jobs that in turn created the middle classes which lead to the creation of modern society with social, economic, cultural and political structures that the world had not seen before. The Information Age on the other hand while democratizing information has paradoxically created a global elite and a weakening of the middle classes. The next epoch will have network of computers, smart fabs and things take over functions that while hastening the demise of the middle classes will also destroy the power structures that today feed the global elite, especially the vast and global manipulation of money. So with the networks doing most things that today we do as work what will be the future of work? The Economist’s article stops short of saying what that will be but does express optimism that the world will find a way to have all our children and children’s children productively engaged. But where The Economist does not tread I shall venture further. The currency of the Industrial Age was material goods, the currency of the Information Age is information and it is my prediction that the currency of the next age is going to be emotion. Fifty years of now the principal economic activity will be that of decoding, generating, storing, buying and selling of emotions. We can see the crude, early prototypes of these key economic activities of the future in the music, art, cinema, TV and gaming products and services of today (they are like the abacus was to the computers of the Information Age). What will this coming age be called? If humanity is fortunate enough to take the right route than perhaps we will have the Spiritual Age. If not we will have the Entertainment Century before humanity discovers the secret at the core.

Sunday Musings 26/01/2014: A State of Mind Called Bangalore

An important part of my psyche is a state of mind called Bangalore. A quiet inward gathering that stimulates both deep rest and deep thought. An alertness that mixes cool repose with the edge of anticipation. A decade ago the city now known as Bengaluru held the promise of triggering in me this much-loved state of mind. No longer. Somewhere between the breakneck growth of the city and my own personal growth the connection between the state of mind and the city is lost. Now I look for and sometimes find the state of mind in quiet conversations with certain friends and the music of CSNY, Dylan, Blind Faith, Jethro Tull and Pink Flyod. There is also the sub-conscious triggering by a particular kind of touch, smell, sight and taste - a triggering that John Fowles - according to many the best writer of contemporary English- called the objective correlative. Apparently the world of the sub-conscious endures much longer than mere places in the world out there. Another Republic Day, another parade. Hopefully by this time next year the promise of an incipient paradigm shift in India's politics would have taken root and with it the clouds that threaten to rain on our parade would have disappeared.

Sunday Musings 19/01/14: The Empire Strikes Back!

The panjandrum of the national press and the talking heads on TV have the cudgels out for AAP. And after the initial shock, the major political formations have got their dirty tricks departments’ working day and night targeting it. But the biggest strike that threatens the AAP phenomenon is from within. Not just within the party in the shape of sundry moles like Binny but from within the consciousness of AAP’s best people. The ministers in Delhi’s state cabinet need to dig deeper to find the right response to a state of being that is ipso facto alien to them: that of being in power. Are they doing so? One would think not. Except for Kejriwal who seems to have found an angle of repose, the others seem to be floundering. History tells us that successful rebellions carry the seeds of failure within their very success that they fought so hard for. In fact this is the most potent weapon of the empire of power in its effort to crush all newcomers. The empire not only strikes back it strikes within. Whether or not AAP survives the assault, there is no doubt that AAP has already done what all successful rebellions do that is change the frame of reference. Those in power are now uneasy. They must learn this new frame of reference and those who enjoy power and pelf find learning the hardest thing to do. It is the wedding season and I have attended my fair share already. Over the past couple of years I have noticed a trend at Indian weddings that has the amateur anthropologist in me thinking. Traditionally it is the groom that comes to the wedding venue with much sound and fury accompanied by loud music, firecrackers and raucous dance by accompanying friends and relatives. Traditionally the bride waits demurely for all this circus to reach its conclusion so that she can garland the cock-a-hoop groom. This seems to be changing. Now at quite a few weddings, the bride gets her moment of glory too. After the groom’s arrival at the wedding venue he is made to cool his heels as the bride is carried to him in a colorful and somewhat noisy parade. I am told that the longer the procession, the longer the groom waits, the greater the glory of the bride. Is this a sign of the rising power of the woman even in the strata of Indian society that likes to celebrate and conduct weddings lavishly (that is 98% of the rich, the poor and everybody in between)? Or is the wedding procession of the bride just another facet of the rising macho competitiveness in Indian society – the bride’s father asserting his masculinity in the face of the increasingly boorish dance of the groom’s arrival?

Sunday Musing 13/01/14

I am waiting expectantly for the next AAP feat. And I don't mean another breathtaking electoral performance in the coming general elections. Much before that AAP needs to govern Delhi for the next three months if not brilliantly than at least credibly. if that happens I believe that the paradigm shift to take root in Indian politics. Talking about paradigm shifts, do you notice paradigm shifts in the people you love, admire or just know well? I have begun to notice quite a few. Probably because I accumulated a lot more data as I grow older - lot more people observed over a lot more years. In one individual case the paradigm shift in character has been both subtle and startling. I have admired him for more than two decades for being a 'big small man'. Diminutive in stature and modest in term of intellectual pitch, he was a true leader and friend - fearless, insightful and generous. And then success waylaid him. The paradigm shifted and from a "big small man' he transformed into a "small big man". The spirit of generousness that so defined him earlier is now polluted by a pompous preening that only highlights an incipient sense of insecurity. Have you noticed how insecurity is almost always a by product of success? You would think success would nurture security but quite to the contrary. The only state that predicates security seems to be the state of 'nothing to lose but our chains'. That's why perhaps the greatest and most difficult yoga to practice is the yoga of non-attachment. 'Looking for Sugarman' is an award-winning documentary on a songwriter singer named Rodrigues who lived in obscurity and genteel poverty in Detroit while his music, unknown to him, found almost anthem like success among two generations in South Africa. Later in life Rodrigues got to savor his success in South Africa with successive sold-out concert tours. "Looking for Sugarman" in a meditation on the nature of success and fame as it brilliantly captures Rodrigues poise as he contently sinks back into his life of obscurity in the US after tours of screaming celebrity in South Africa. The rise of the Australian team from the ashes of last year is a happy development for those of us who love Test Match Cricket as it promises the excitement of five more-or-less evenly matched teams - South Africa, India, Australia, England and Pakistan. Among my fellow followers of Test Match Cricket the above assertion will be a subject of much debate but I am ready with a vigorous defense! The Oscar season is upon us and there is a surfeit of potential Oscar winners on my hard drive. "Dallas Buyers Club" starts from the left-field with a destructive drug-abusing oversexed AIDS-infected protagonist who then in a pleasantly surprising turn half-way through the movie finds redemption and a measure of happiness springing from the depths of his gathering despair. Worth a watch. My iBooks shelf is overflowing as my reading took a backseat to an intense learning engagement with a field completely new to me. I have just begun to dip into 'Humboldt's Gift' by Saul Bellow. Waiting in the wings are Kate Atkinson's Life After a Life, Tenth of December by George Saunders and Americanah by Ngozi ( a Nigerian American). Let me conclude this Sunday musing with a word about the joys of continuous learning. I spent the last week engaged in learning the basics of a craft entirely new to me and way out of my professional field and I am glad to report that it is a most invigorating experience. Something to do with, I guess, getting long dormant neural connectionfiring again. Highly recommended. Signing off with a piece of poetry that can give some cold comfort on the days one despairs about the human condition (and may they be increasingly few). <i>Hollow Men We are the hollow men/ We are the stuffed men/ Leaning together/ Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!/ Our dried voices, when/ We whisper together/ Are quiet and meaningless/ As wind in dry grass/ Or rats' feet over broken glass/ In our dry cellar/ Shape without form, shade without colour,/ Paralysed force, gesture without motion;/ Those who have crossed/ With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom/ Remember us—if at all—not as lost/ Violent souls, but only/ As the hollow men/ The stuffed men./ - excerpted from 'The Hollow Men' by TS Eliot

Memes and the Coming General Elections

Brand gurus, mostly, do not make good election strategists as simply as a good man. mostly, does not make for a great politician. Building brands and winning elections work on two entirely different communication paradigms. Elections are won when the evoked memes favor one party more than the other and not because one brand is stronger than the other (I had written a post last year that contrast brands and memes: Beyond the Brand: The Meme?. It is reproduced at the end of this post). When voters vote they are going much beyond making a brand choice. They are acting on the deepest and complex set of human needs and instincts. Election campaigns work when they are based, overtly and covertly, on "shorthand" that crystallizes these deep and complex needs. This "shorthand" is both pervasive and simple as it is magical. Magical because it manages to invoke and infer to a rich structure of perceptions and self-image within an individual.For many decades now the memes that have have distinguished the winners from the losers in Indian politics have come from the area of identity. Muslim and Hindu. Lower Caste and Upper Caste. Rich and Poor. Over the past two decades another powerful meme has been added to Indian politics: Local and National. The Local and National meme has added a whole new set of winners in Indian politics and ushered in the era of coalition politics. In the past few years another powerful identity based meme has made it's appearance: the Youth meme. This meme is the most powerful dimension of the demographic dividend that promises to change Indian politics and Indian society. Election strategists that deeply understand and invoke the Youth meme could tap into a winning vein that, given India's demographics, could hold them in good stead for the next 2 to 3 decades. On the other hand strategies based on a superficial understanding of the Youth meme can dump one into the loser's bin for a long time. The Youth meme is not necessarily evoked by "babalog" politicians. In fact fronting entitled members of the "lucky sperm" club might be a way to evoke the Youth meme not for your party's campaign but for the opposition. The election strategist needs to go deeper in his examination of the Youth meme. How does it interact with the still powerful memes from past elections - Religion,Caste, Class and Ethnicity. Is the best way to invoke the Youth meme not by direct appeal but to invoke a set of powerful ancillary memes? What are they? Jobs? Freedom? Quality of Life? Education? Health?. These are the questions that the election strategists who will win in 2014 are pondering over and getting answers to right now. And if no one is, well it could then well be that there is no winner in 2014. It will then be time to prepare for some more years of the doldrums of the limbo my friends. Beyond the Brand: The Meme?

Meme: (me~m) n biology an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by non-genetic means esp. imitation (The New Oxford American Dictionary) What does a brand that has done that, been there, go next? In these days of social media and viral communication it seems that becoming an “element of culture or system of behavior…passed on by one individual to another.. by non-genetic means” is well within the grasp of even relatively modest marketing budgets. The question is why would a brand want to become a meme? Well, simply because a meme is more powerful than a brand by many orders of magnitude. USA is a meme that still drives pop culture across the world. Milk is a meme, just ask any mom. India used to be a meme in the Middle Ages- fueling dreams of exotic mysteries and fabulous riches in many a buccaneer. Today the increasing soft power of India if husbanded well could give back to India the power of being a meme. So will brand marketing now move on to aiming for the power of the meme? Well while the use of viral media is on the increase and the marketing chaterrati is talking about changing paradigms etcetera, I don’t think anybody knows how to make a meme happen through marketing. Maybe we need a new to discipline to be invented. Will a new Kotler soon arise?

PS: To the normal consumer brands are a significant but small part of her existence. On the other hand to marketers and advertising people like me brands are the core of our discipline. So if you are one of my many readers who are from outside the marketing and advertising fraternity pleas bear with me when I, once in a while, indulge in shop talk.