Brand2.0h!

Yesterday was full of epiphany moments.

First, an old friend from the world of advertising called from Mumbai (where else!). He had quit his job as brand head of a mega corp and wanted to pick my brains on THE QUESTION. Shall I take the job as a function head in a leading ad agency or should I become an entrepreneur?

His interest was in knowing what is the market situation for folks who started up a few years earlier quitting well paying corporate jobs. Q1- what was your package when you quit your mega brand job? I answered. Q2- do you make that kind of money as a entrepreneur? Fat Chance! I replied, infact I haven’t taken a salary from my company in almost a year. Q3- so how do you make your EMI payments? I replied that I somehow manage my expenses with one-off consultations, while I invest all my time, passion and money in the venture.

I realised I had lost him then! very few people in the corporate sector get this part. The first lesson in entrepreneurship, and perhaps, something they still teach ( I hope!) in school; NO PAIN, NO GAIN!

Entrepreneurship is all about the one thing that Jacob Bronowski in his Ascent of Man ( I read the book, would love to find the TV series on You Tube) mentioned and attributed human civilisation to – POSTPONEMENT OF GRATIFICATION!

its not only in individual behaviour! you see it every home, Mom always eats last, after having fed everyone else, its also cultural, why else do stats like Indian households invest 40 percent of their income on education not be raising eyebrows?  or even the quality of education and training in this country?

The second call was referred to by another friend, who had tossed up his corporate honcho avatar, chosing instead to spend his time mentoring young people and consulting with large corporates.

The lady who called was a mid- career communications manager with a large telecom MNC, and she called looking for a job/ career advice/ mentoring. She had been laid off about a month back, as part of a global restructuring program, and when I asked why, she said, “MY JOB DOESN’T NEED ME ANYMORE!”.

Congrats! this is encouraging! firstly, because the person had figured out the distinction between her self and her job, a distinction which is so hard to find in this identity – hungry economy. People will do inane jobs, and waste away their education, knowledge, and passion, just to be able to carry a nametag of a big brand.

Congrats again! because being laid off in this economic scenario gives you time off to think and reflect on yourself, your goals, your dreams, with the few months of severance pay that you get. In this case, unfortunately, there was no severance pay, so the PANIC CALL to a stranger.

So, here’s what I told her, and am sharing this in cyberspace because I actually believe in it. I asked her to ponder over two questions before she met me with her CV.

Q1- what are you really good at? its not about what you’ve been trained to do, and you have some competence (oh! how I hate that word!) but, what is it that people come to you for? as in go to him, he knows! Tell her she’ll solve it! and that is the unique gift everyone has. Everyone is really good at something. I had a friend who was for instance, really good at relaxing- no kidding! we all asked him for advise when we needed to de-stress during the college years. Maybe, he was really good, I just remember relaxing!!

Q2- What do you really want to do with the rest of your life? this one’s tricky because we typically see ourselves in roles and positions. But, the key thing is about the DOING. that’s the keyword- DO! even thought is action, if that is what pays your bills, and sustains your lifestyle. it can be a task, a set of activities, a kind of project, or even giving reality to a vision.

If you can honestly answer the two, you will always have a job. Irrespective, of the state of the economy, the influence of disruptive technologies, your age and your experience. This helps you re- invent around your CORE. and change rapidly in each situation.

And hopefully, you can flip the title and be in a situation, where you can say- I DON’T NEED MY JOB ANYMORE- because I have found my life’s work!

P.S. (762 words, in 1 hour in a moving car- maybe, this is my life’s work ;-))

what do you say?

 Draupadi Mokrasi, Ms. D. Mokrasi, the elusive, much sought after character from Shashi Tharoor’s (follow him on twitter) timeless take – The Great Indian Novel- on India’s other epic the Mahabharata, is finally getting her say!

In this edition of the Indian General Elections, she has spoken for The Indian National Congress. A mandate which finds the trio of Dr. Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, and Rahul Gandhi  return to power as the country’s Prime Minister,  Congress Supremo, and Youth Leader and work on the agenda of creating a social security net, which perhaps in this time of global economic turmoil, has insulated the poor in the states where it has been implemented from hunger and penury.

“Aam Admi”- cynically referred to by city slickers as “mango people”, thanks Iyer, for a great definition, have clearly rooted for the attempt to weave a social security net around the 450 million rural population who continue to make the tough climb into middle-class heaven.

“Those Ones”, from the title of the 80’s indie classic- In which Annie gives it to Those Ones- the first screenplay written by Arundhati Roy, and incidentally, the first movie in which Shahrukh Khan acted in, also refers to the millions for whom the social worker, and the NGO have often become the first voice and last act of economic well-being when good governance and the promise of roads, power and telecom connectivity has played second fiddle in a priority list that starts with vote-bank politicians, government contractors, and such other luminaries.

The fact that India’s voters recognised good governance in Bihar, decided to call the caste bluff in UP, and punished the Reds in Bengal for ignoring their rural constituents is something of a revelation. the fact that regional and national parties didn’t realise it is also another one.

So what happens next? While the incumbent Congress government believes it has got the mandate for more of the same, my gut feel here is that this is actually a vote for change. And that’s a tough one!

Look around and you will know where that is coming from. India has now started resembling a typical home in Dharavi. Very clean, and neat inside, although overcrowded with gadgets and a family of ten struggling in a 10X10 feet space, and absolute filth in the neighbourhood. Look around and you find millions already displaced and living in concentration camps – whether it is in the Afpak region with Taliban- islamists being the cause or in the South, where the Sri Lankan Tamils are another humanitarian disaster in the making, or for that matter in Nepal, where another round of civil war looks likely even as more and more poor people from Bangladesh come in looking for livelihoods in Indian cities.

Change Agenda One- Protect our lives and our way of life. Not a tall order, but I don’t think the country will take another 26/11 incident, specially if the government is found lacking!

Change Agenda Two- Livelihoods and Economic direction. India has been fairly insulated from the global economic meltdown, primarily thanks to the fall in oil prices. Had the oil prices continued to shoot up while the meltdown was happening, it would have taken India to the same cleaners that got India to liberalise in 1991. That said, India needs pace in its internal economy, and better logistics and reporting systems that reduce our energy burden while improving efficiencies.

Change Agenda Three- The Environment. This may be a city slicker view in a country where large parts still do not have access to clean water, or even the power to purify it. But there is an opportunity here for performing the same leapfrog that has landed India’s service economy ahead of its manufacturing sector and far ahead of China. 

Change Agenda Four- The Youth. Yes! it’s finally happened again. First time, the youth influenced electoral results was in ‘71 when Indira Gandhi won making the general elections a referendum for youth. The same influence worked in ‘84 for Rajiv Gandhi, and now for the scion – Rahul Gandhi.

The caveat here is everytime that happened, the Congress managed to commit political suicide and take the two steps back, in timeless Indian tango. but that’s another post!

So what happens to the CPIM Left and the BJP Right- or even the regional vote arithmetic now? I guess this is a time for them to lick their wounds, and do an assessment on what exactly did go wrong on the ground.

 I’ve been wondering what to write about for sometime now. The usual topics of interest, are written to death across Blogosphere, so this time, I thought of writing about something that is the only bright light shining out of the current financially challenged environment, and could well, over time, change the way we live, play and work with computers.

I don’t want to write too much about the invention- Sixth Sense- I thought we were all supposed to have it, till M. Night Shyamalan made his 1999 thriller about it. here’s the trailer!

And then do a Google search on the same string and you find the traditional views on Sixth Sense, as in ESP, premonition, pre-cognition, etc. remember Minority Report? buried beyond the top 20 links on the topic.

So, what is it that I like about the device that Pranav Mistry cobbled together with just 350USD worth of freely available parts? Other than the fact, that it knocks your socks off! in which Pattie and Pranav did it to GUI

 Other than the fact that Pattie Maes, Pranav’s guide at MIT, in a very understated manner rocked the TED show- see link above, and of course, other than the fact that you can now actually wear a computer, and be completely free of the the old paradigm of Human-computer interface, and almost 30-odd years of GUI and usability studies.

It’s just this! you are now free! of cables, keyboards, qwerty or not, screen size, TFT, LCD, and all the other stuff we had just so gotten used to. This wearable gestural interface, as Pranav describes it on his site, adapts to you, your instant communication, information, sharing, networking needs. You don’t have to learn about mobile computing, your wearable mobile computer now has to learn about you.

Now think in terms of what that means for the last generation of digital migrants, getting used to broadband access, the current generation of twitter, orkut and facebook- savvy digital natives, and the next generation of mobile natives who would possibly trade up from mobile phones, to wearable computers. Now that’s a whole new ball game- for Brand 2. Omega!

Methinks, it’s good to have a Sixth Sense about a future that could change the way we work, live, and play! It’s all going to be very different!! 

Trailer of SDM

Sorry to be yet another voice with such an “oh so moderate” view on what might become the party of the decade for Indian Cinema. The last time, the Oscar red carpet was rolled out for an Indian or an Indian themed film was - Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi. And that was 1982!

So why do I think the hoohaa about Slumdog Millionaire, its street kid cast, its A.R. Rahman soundtrack, and its anthem Jai Ho is significant?

1. Great Marketing- think about it! You are Celador, you have had a hit reality-based quiz show- Who wants to be a millionaire, which was flagging across the world, in terms of TRP’s, viewership and class appeal. You sell the company and show to a Dutch group and then you chance across an Indian bureaucrat who ( unknowingly?) writes a fantastic tale about a street kid who knows all the answers because he very implausibly but completely believably has lived each question. Then you have a very smart British gang which gets the pitch, and makes the movie that could very well breathe another few years into the Kaun Banega Crorepati ( Indian version of WWTBM) franchise, and every one makes good!

2. Crossing the Chasm- I remember watching another street kid movie- Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay- in the late eighties. It was in Hindi, it was gritty, and I came out telling my group of friends then. Why would I want to pay money and watch something that I see on the streets of Bombay ( not yet renamed Mumbai) every day.Truth be told, Salaam Mumbai, did very well at a number of awards, but it didn’t work in India. Indians, one of the largest movie- going audiences worldwide, really like their formula- based Bollywood productions. Movies which cross the class chasm and succeed among the masses are ones which have a number of flavours- catchy songs, dance routines, some romance, some violence, some black humour and a sardonic take on the gritty world we live in and have been successfully de-sensitized to.

3. Global Appeal- Don’t want to push this point too far, but my guess is that you could have based the Slumdog Millionaire story in the slums around Mexico City or Rio or even in East Africa and it would have worked. Mumbai’s Dharavi is just one of those places in India, and across the world where the ugly seam of civilisation co-exists alongside the zipper pouched upwardly mobile consumer classes across the world. What works in the movie, I believe, is the tongue- in- cheek humour amidst the horror of the underbelly of Asia’s largest slum and the ‘inevitable Fagin and Oliver-esque’ can-do spirit that is as universal as it is Indian.  Slumdog Millionaire is one of the few movies on India, and in India which don’t sermonise, don’t mysticize, just says it as it is, and yet with a lot of HOPE!

4. Not for Money Alone- There is a reason why movie making is an industry. A very risky one at that! Every single one of the capital instruments for fund raising after the joint stock company and the discovery of America ( methinks!) owe their origins to early stage productions, movies and talkies- Angel Investors, Venture capitalists, Private Equity, all make their entry here. But every movie which reaches icon level, is never made for monetary returns alone. That Slumdog Millionaire is Danny Boyle’s labour of love is evident. He hired, trained and is now setting up an endowment fund for the real slum kids who starred in his film. What also gives the movie plot that unique edge is the discovery by the Millionaire show host that the protagonist in the film- the slumdog chaiwallah- was not on the show because he wanted to win the money. He was playing the game because that was his way of staying relevant to his beau who watched the show, and his belief that winning the game would set him and his girlfriend free from the chains of bondage- him to his low-end teaboy job, and her as a gangster’s moll!

5. The Jai Ho Moment- What works for the film, which actually has many shades of self-actualisation messages thrown into the most atrocious scenes is the Jai Ho moment! For instance, the one where little Jamal jumps into a shithole, gets completely covered in it and reaches his icon, Amitabh Bachhan for an autograph, probably because no one wants to touch him. Underlying message - if you want something badly enough, be prepared to wade through shit to get it! It also iconises ‘focus’ for a generation which is distracted beyond belief between twitter, youtube, facebook pokes, mobile phones, sms messages, multiplexes, brands, social causes, environment, family values, individualism, et al.

Last word- So what does this mean for Brand 2.Oh! This movie has an old lost and found theme, produced in a traditional manner, marketed well. Just this! audiences now more than ever are relating to timeless messages, conveyed to them in a relevant manner.

There is nothing more universal than two little kids being chased by cops, turning back on reaching the safety of their doorstep, and doing a F…O.. pelvic thrust!

Well done, guys!

Wondering why I put in a face ( a first on my blog)?

For one,  Mitchell Baker, is the Chairman(sic- person?) of Mozilla Corp. The folks that made Firefox, the new Gold Standard

in web browsing. And more importantly, the founder of a movement that takes open source into the space of product design and marketing!

Here’s an interesting interview she gave to Lenny T. Mendonca and Robert Sutton of the McKinsey Quarterly Journal.

To my mind, the biggest management shift in the 21st century has been - open source innovation! What started as corporates and startups running successfully with ideas, initiatives, and suggestions that came from all levels of an organisation, has now made a web 2.0 shift. Open Source Innovation- is based on people who are interested in you, your company and your product, suggesting ideas, methods, initiatives, and then also participating the user experience.

Mozilla, in its current avatar, is perhaps, the first player in harnessing and converting into a successful model, people’s urge to improve their experiences. The lessons that come up in terms of participatory public service and governance, are great if they can be effectively leveraged.

The insights shared might also look at changing the way marketers look at communities for branding and product roadmaps in the Brand 2.0 world… or even a lot more!