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Sunday, January 6

The Salt Curve

I want to do a Edward de Bono week...I came in contact with this father of lateral thinking at the 'dilli gate' second hand book bazaar over a decade back(maybe more...)

Since then I have been regularly snacking on his ideas and concepts. It's a bit difficult and exhausting to read a Edward Bono cover to cover, but snacking Bono regularly has been both delicious and healthy!!

In his book, New Thinking for the New Millennium, Bono has argued that our judging system is flawed as we believe that 'if something is good, then surely more of that thing is better'!

No salt in the food makes it bad/ bland. When we add a little salt,it tastes good. But if we add more of the salt, it tastes bad again!

Technology is good. So more technology is better. However, it took more than two decades for worker productivity to actually rise after computers were first introduced in offices in the US.

Communication is good. So more communication is better. But I feel there was more information, more emotion and better communication in the monthly letter I wrote to my parents during my engineering days than the daily staccato communication on the mobile phone!

Blogging is good. So twitter is better!! Highly questionable I feel...

Humour in ads is good. So more humour in all ads is better??

Information is good. So more information is better. But 100 slide power-points often have less to tell than a 20 slide presentation!! More information might actually clog human decision making ability. And intuition tells me is the number one planner malaise:-)

de Bono's Salt Curve is therefore a great concept to keep in mind when devising communication solutions!

4 comments:

Spiritualmanager said...

My intuition says the same, more/much information/Research is a malaise for planners.I read somewhere that market research is like Sun, it gives you light but if you go too near it will burn you.
See I an not sure whether I will ever be in advertising but I would like to recommend these line from Osho to the Practicing Professionals-"Remain in wonder if you want the mysteries to open up to you. Mysteries never open up for those who go on questioning. Questioners sooner or latter end up in Scriptures, because scriptures are full of answers. And answers are dangerous, they kill your wonder". In Advertising I think this wonder shall always be protected.

Unknown said...

I have always believed too much of anything is harmful. For that matter some people even disagree with me when I say that even "LOVE" in too much dosage is bad ... haven't we seen a mother's too much love gone wrong a plenty times.

Talking about the current trends I think we all are in an information overload and too much information is not giving us the required knowledge instead we spend away time filtering what should be read and seen ...

meraj said...

this situation gets supremely reflected in family gatherings over food made by one of your aunts...dont dare to appreciate the food, else you will have to end up consuming 5.5 more helpings of it. somehow the cook aunts dont realize that 'if one likes the food, doesnt always mean that one wants it more'...there is an old urdu saying...'acchi cheezein mukhtasar hi acchi hoti hain'

cheers!
m

Unknown said...

yes Kapil..
There are some 40 odd news channels , yet I felt far more informed with one program 'the world this week' in the good old DD days...

Meraj - wah !