How many ARTISTS are there in the room?

Just started reading Daniel Pink's best-seller : A Whole New Mind. There is a wonderful anecdote in one of the chapters on 'Design'.

Gordon MacKenzie, a longtime creative force at hallmark Cards, often visited schools to give talks about his profession. He'd open each talk by telling students he was an artist. he'd then look around the classroom, notice the artwork on the walls, and wonder aloud who created the masterpieces.

"How many artists are there in the room?" MacKenzie would ask. 'Would you please raise your hands?"

The responses always followed the same pattern. In kindergarten and first-grade classes, every kid thrust a hand in the air. In second-grade classes, about three-fourths of the kids raised their hands though less eagerly. In third grade, only a few children held up their hands.

And by the sixth grade, not a single hand went up. The kids just looked around to see if anybody in the class would admit to what they'd now learned was deviant behaviour!!

Perhaps, it's even more true in our culture. There is a touch of sarcasm in most people when they say - "Yeh toh thoda artist types hai", "Artist hai bhai, isko duniyadaari kya aayegi", "Chhor do yaar, yeh artist log aisen hi hote hain"... Emphasising that the creative, the artist is a deviant.

Society still collectively conspires to pull down the many raised hands in kindergarten grade one and later...

Therefore, I was thrilled when my wife asked Neo(my 5 year old son) the other day while he was painting- "Aur tum kaun ho?". And he smugly said - "Main artist hoon"...I hope he always raises his hand...

Visual Post-Its

Since the time I got my Nokia E50, have switched to mobile life caching! My old faithful - the Nikon Cool Pix is lying mostly un-used. I guess it's the sheer convenience and a decent resolution that works in the favour of a camera phone!
Mayawati's fairly clear and ambitious vision statement on the road near Bandra Kurla Complex.
I hate both the term - 'Big B' and this senseless communication!
Neo's first digital painting! Little fingers fearlessly explore digital technology!The Lilavati Hospital lift-man and his ultra fancy cell-phone...Now what SEC is he?
Cell-phone ownership might be playing havoc with the traditional SEC classification in India! Looks like there is a decreasing/ un-predictable co-relation between the handset price and the MHI of the owner(at least in the metros)!

The table-top sticker at Barista. Simple and effective communication!

Small Joys Amidst A Lot Of Jet Miles

I was cribbing to my friend Kumar about the drying of blog posts as my travel schedule continued unabated for the 3rd week running!

Frequent travel drains the juices...So I decided to catalogue all the Small joys that happened this last week as counter to the BIG travel.

1. When Neo rushed to hug me with chants of 'Papa aa gaya' as I reached home on Wednesday!

2. On the flight back to Delhi on Wednesday, I met my friend Rajul after two or more years...Chatted up with her...Her friend offered me a job at a branding company:-)

3. The hot dal-chawal-chutney-chokha after 3 weeks of regular hotel food...

4. Watching Metro with my friend DP at Priya Cinema...after ages...

5. Counselling from my mother yesterday on how to keep my cool amidst work pressure...

6. E-mail(few hours ago)from the French girl in London who wants to work in India as a planner!! Actually it was a power-point that I had asked her to do...Good stuff. Reverse BPO here:-)

7. SMS from Russell a while ago who wants another session of SchoolOfDavid.

8. The drive to Alibagh with my family. Watching the analog sunset when I should have been at the digital workshop. Sorry John. Had to take this break buddy!!

9. Getting drenched with Shilpi, Neo and Ved at Nishiland - the water park on Khopoli Road.

10. Checking my technorati ranking 10 minutes back and finding its risen by 1614 places even with erratic blogging in May... LOL

I feel these small joys are very important to cherish in order to stay sane amongst countless e-mails and meetings and discussions around soaps, mobiles and whisky...

The Beach and the Thoughts on Kiosk Advertising

In my new role as the weekend papa, I took Neo and his cousin Ved to Juhu beach. In fact like most such excursions, this one too was initiated and co-ordinated by my wife...

So early morning, we trooped in a cab to Chaupati beach. The beach(like much of this hyped city - Mumbai) itself was too dirty to be enjoyed. The water was muddy and there was poop in generous dollops all around!!

But Neo and Ved had a ball of a time...Building sand castles, throwing water on each other and generally frolicking around.

Among the muddied water and two energy-filled kids, managed to spare a thought about two outdoor signage(I think I am losing it...I manage to think about my next post in the most unlikely of situations:-)

The first was on the long mocha wall opposite the beach. It was a Provogue signage. In fact multiple repeats of the same message all next to each other. It was cluttered. Jarring to the eye. And purposeless. What could 10 signages achieve that a single one cannot?
>Clearly when it comes to OOH( out-of-home) messages, people don't realize that diminishing returns of exposure set in with every needless extra unit!

The next on linking road were the Exide pole kiosks. Again I feel, in year 2007 with
'an acute shortage of consumer attention' and a general filtering of commercial messages by the common man, logo assaults of the Exide sort seen in the picture are an utter waste of money!Okay, so we know Exide, now what are we supposed to do? Yet another case of visual pollution and little else.