50 Things That Are Being Killed By The Internet

We the technology-awed populace always view all technology as being better, faster and taking us to a better place. The internet seems like no exception. Yet, every new technology also takes away something...

Stumbled upon this interesting article 50 Things That Are Being Killed By the Internet at PSFK. Have a read...

Gleanings enmeshed with my thots on some of them...

1. Punctuality. Before mobile phones, people actually had to keep their appointments and turn up for lunch on time. Texting friends to warn them of your tardiness five minutes before you are due to meet has become one of throwaway rudeness of the connected age.

This is going to be a huge conflict area between generations. My father runs his life by the hour, I am far more comfortable keeping things fluid all the time!

2. Memory. When almost any fact, no matter how obscure, can be dug up within seconds through Google and Wikipedia, there is less value attached to the "mere" storage and retrieval of knowledge. What becomes important is how you use it – the internet age rewards creativity.

Today, if you have a story, the facts and the props are available for free on the net. However, as an agency planner and now a trends and futures consultant, I find this aspect liberating!

3. Dead time. When was the last time you spent an hour mulling the world out a window, or rereading a favourite book? The internet's draw on our attention is relentless and increasingly difficult to resist.

All former dead-time is now pottering time - twitter, flickr, youtube, fb, sms, mobile chat, gtalk...And we are more busy than ever before, our reflection time has dropped to an all time low!

Just because the pipe of our conversations is broader and the flow 24X7 hasn't guaranteed that better stuff is flowing through those pipes. Although, the more plugged you are, the more you can scan the global brain for ideas and inspiration.

4. Mainstream media. While in India, print might be growing and TV getting higher TRPs, for some of us mainstream media has been quietly marginalised over the last few years.

- We don't miss the week-night news. In fact haven't watched the weekly bulletin which were so much a part of life a decade back.

- Right now we are consuming a mash-up of mainstream media and new media. This may be the intermediate step before some of us totally migrate to newer forms of digital media(personalised, customised, on-demand)Already, in the Western markets, free news and the migration of advertising to the web threaten the basic business models of almost all media organisations.

Mental post-it : What else is being killed by the internet, new media? Isn't it an interesting thought to stay with for a while...

Good Tea & the Future The Way We Want It To Be

Just finished my second cup of well-made Darjeeling tea in my favourite white cup! Ah the small pleasures of life...Getting ready for a long day of book research and writing after a two week hiatus...

Had read this post by Scott Goodson, the Strawberry Frog CEO on the different agency models and the need for extreme agility and adaptability among agencies in times of recession/ slowdown. You can read it here...

It also got me thinking about the need to adapt as a worker-ant/ employee/ networked knowledge worker/ creative portfolio worker...Thots not exactly in order...

1. The department must die. I feel the rate of our contribution dramatically increases with our ability to collaborate across the blurring boundaries of department. I am talking strategy, creative, servicing, digital media, OOH, research, brand identity...Though there are no visible signs of 'the department' dying in an Indian agency any time in the near future. Long live the fiefdoms!!

2. Employee NetworksThe agile companies must respect, use and reward employee networks. At 437 LinkedIn connections, I am perhaps a little more useful than I was a year back:-)This is a social network. But it's also a knowledge and personal network that can do great stuff together, solve issues, share experiences. Suddenly, the sum of all these employee networks can become a potent force for the small agile company!

3. Portfolio Working. I had been wanting to do it ever since I first read about the concept in Charles Handys' book - the empty raincoat! As we increasingly get hurtled into the ever closely knit creative-knowledge economy, opportunities to do portfolio work(not just for pure creatives) but everyone has risen through the roof...

4. Make New ConnectionsWhile the economy has slowed down dramatically, the potential to make new business connections has never been greater.

Take 1 jar of open mindedness and enthusiasm + add a full saucer of environment scanning + heat it a little + shake it with new thinking + add 1 table spoon of new ideas and approaches and hey you have a new business idea or model or new portfolio friends...

eg. A specialised Bollywood/ A/V content Marketing Agency*, Youth Marketing Company, Personal Branding Consultancy, Low cost SOHO brand building packages(this one came as of yesterday as I was approached by a London based company for a guest blog post)

Gmail, LinkedIn, Skype ensure that this souffle comes for FREE!!

5. Re-skillingMost of us(all of us) sit on a few kilos of unused talent. A minor re-skilling can polish up those and can be gainfully employed in a portfolio way. In the past 3 months or so, at a personal level, I have discovered that I could be a trainer, executive coach, youth/ culture/ Bollywood film marketer...It's just that we sit on our asses waiting for things to happen(at least that was my case) Whereas the environment is right for re-skilling and creating new revenue models(both for the company and personal)...

6. The Un-Company ManWhen I was looking for a job two years back, a very senior media person(ality) said that I wasn't much of a company man(the spirit of the remark was a wee bit pejorative)...However, if we look at the debris of corporate America and the loss of jobs closer home, the company as the sole provider of financial security and stability no longer exists. It's both a scary and a liberating thought. In fact now may be the best time to finally come out of the life long shackles of the COMPANY.

The company will definitely exist; but that will no longer be the sole/ desired work model. Like I said, (a) portfolio working, (b) greater degree of employee entrepreneurship, (c) company as a employee collective, (d) virtual creative/knowledge worker networks and more are/ will emerge stronger...

I feel the time, the tools and the environment is just right to create the future the way we want it to be!!

Schmidt Speak

On adage.com, browsed through Eric Schmidt's interview. It's always fascinating to tap into the mind of this internet era sage...Some nuggets from the article.

1. The internet is fast becoming a "cesspool" where false information thrives! Brands, therefore are the solution, not the problem. Brands are how you sort out the internet cesspool.

2. Branding may be an essential element that helps people navigate the world. Brand affinity is clearly hard wired. It is so fundamental to human existence that it's not going away. It must have a genetic component.

Interesting stuff...Chewable!

The Future of Futures

Around this time last year, I was busy trying to predict(in my little, limited way) the possible trends for 2007. Have a look here(2007 - 50 Drifts)...

This time around, I have had the benefit of staying connected with online networks and the global wisdom for over a year and I find the world more complex and chaotic than ever before...

I don't feel the courage or the necessary talent/ wherewithal to even attempt a look into possible futures:-)

However, I came across this nice read on economist.com on 'The Future of Futurology'.

The message is simple : Think Small. Think Short.(SHUT UP)and Listen!

Image : Courtesy - gettyimages.com

The New Creative

I was having a meeting with a senior colleague of mine from the region. We were sharing notes on what constitutes the new creative!

Here's what I had to say...I guess the mashed up potatoes say it all:-)
But don't think many of the creatives in India get it...They dread the open-source, formless, digital shape of creative age that's upon us! Often they discover they can't solve the communication problem by saying - "the film opens on..."

Thot of the week - In an era of people generated content Are creatives the new suits!!

Beattie FCUKs Scam Ads

For the official version on the Goa Ad Fest goto agencyfaqs! For the spice and straight from the trenches feel, stay tuned!

With a weak broadband link, its increasingly difficult to upload stuff...but I shall try my best.

In the two days, Ad Fest has upstaged Abbys as the numero uno advertising awards. It's been organised like an International event. A round of applause to the AAAI. Well done guys! But for the heat it's been a spectacle.

The beach, the babes(!!!), the booze, the water sports, down to the msn bike-taxis ferrying people up and down the ad village, every thing's been well thought out.

Just came back from Trevor Beattie's one hour chat! The guy was full steam and theatre. And boy did he take the pants of scam ads!

Some quick fire Beattie bytes before I rush again for the awards...

1. "I think the world is divided into two camps - the ones who care and the ones who don't"

2. Scam ads should be called cheat ads as you cheat the clients, the consumers and most of all yourself!

3. "Let's be very clear. We don't do ART. We do COMMERCE"

4. I guess in the ad industry we all need to say something nice about someone behind their backs.

5. in my whole life I might have had just two BIG IDEAS...What we all need to take to clients are a whole bunch of small ideas that take the brand forward.

6. The great work will speak for itself...

That's all I can manage...Gotta rush to the venue!

The Future is Copyright:-)

Every time I have spring-cleaned my eclectic cartons of 'sundry collectibles/ scraps/ physical thot blurbs from the past, I have always discovered real gems...

Must hone it into a planning tool soon...LOL

What you see is a BPL corporate print ad made by Rediffusion DY&R from the Jan 2000 issue of the magazine The Week!

The copy reads...
Chillers of the Future!
Will your refrigerator converse and calculate calories?
Will it be made of titanium, or kryptonite?
Will it freeze air into food?
Only one thing's for sure...it will be BPL
The future is copyright BPL!

With the benefit of hind-sight and the continued stress of the myriad problems that have plagued BPL, brand BPL has been the only unsurety:-)
This print campaign was a visible one(of its time). In fact the BPL - Believe in Yourselfcampaign with Amitabh was perhaps ver1.0 of the 'India Shining/ India Poised story!

Is it available online? Possible to get that campaign? Meraj? Your agency...

Shubh Vivaah : Media Planning & Account Planning

Today's Brand Equity carries an article by Ravi Balakrishnan on CCP(Consumer Context Planning) which looks like an attempted arranged marriage between Media Planning and Account Planning.

Media unbundling happened over the last decade in India. As somebody who has worked in the pre and post bundling era, I feel after the initial efficiencies of scale and cost benefits, the unbundling has pinched us all.

- The creative agency/ people lacks the much needed media perspective!

- The media agency has over the years often exhibited a trading house behaviour. The unit of creativity is traded like a commodity. Of course in the recent past, things are taking a positive turn...

- The clients have saved big money in the short run but now are gasping for a better engagement model.

Ravi Kiran(can't trace his blog), the diminutive but utterly dynamic CEO of Starcom South Asia elaborated on CCP:

1. An obsessive focus on rarely asked questions(by whom:-)

2. Partnering with academia in the fields of social sciences, psychology and anthropology.

3. Consumer panels which track not just brand choice, but also give insights into nascent trends.

4. 'Living with People' - an ethnographic study that has the CCP team spend time in people's home...being an unobtrusive observer of behaviour...

5. CCP aims to make the different disciplines work in a more seamless manner.
and the boldest of them all 6. CCP plans to work with parts of the creative industry that are more open to collaborations - be it in editorial content and programming!

Thanks Ravi, we need more guys like you...How about writing a post on this subject on your blog!

Sailing with the Wind

My colleague David from our Tokyo office forwarded this quote of author Paul Graham which appears in “The Long Tail”

“The Web naturally has a certain grain, and Google is aligned with it. That’s why their success seems so effortless. They’re sailing with the wind, instead of sitting becalmed praying for a business model, like the print media, or trying to tack upwind by suing their customers, like Microsoft and the record labels."

"Google doesn’t try to force things to happen their way. They try to figure out what’s going to happen, and arrange to be standing their when it does.”

What a wonderful reading of the times we live in. Indeed it appears that

1. Sailing with the wind > Rowing aggressively in a fixed direction
2. Inventing the future > Predicting the future

Google sails and therefore gets it more often...Hey, anyone has links to any interviews with the legends - Lary Page & Sergey Brin!