Month: December 2011

  • Poshvine

    Poshvine aims to provide discerning customers a unique dining experience. In conversation with co-founder Garima Satija

     

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  • Looking ahead

    The last post of the year is a mix of several things that caught my attention.

    Nick Bolton’s article “Disruptions: Wearing your computer on your sleeve” triggered a series of posts, and my favourite was the RWW version, because it brought out a variety of perspectives and potential use cases, ranging from glasses that act as guides for tourists to “consensual imaging among belief circles” and “to overlay a trusted source’s view of a given scene on mine”.

    In an increasingly social world, the above would seem a very obvious choice. However, there’s an interesting statement in the post, attributed to Mike Kuniavsky is “I feel people already ignore the complexity of reality too much and tend to live on parallel planes that exclude ideas that challenge theirs.” I saw a related theme in JWT’s 10 trends for 2012 – “Reengineering Randomness” (#7), which acknowledges that as our world and consumption becomes more customised, there will be a greater emphasis on reintroducing randomness.

    JWT 10 Trends for 2012 Executive Summary

    View more presentations from JWTIntelligence

    As we try to accommodate both randomness and customisation, the factor that will determine many facets of our interactions is privacy – the amount to which we allow services to tap into our social stream. And that would dictate whether I’ll see a brand giving me a customised offer, combining social information, augmented reality, NFC…

    That brings me to my favourite trends deck this year, by Ross Dawson, which captures not just the above, but also more far reaching ones like “Institutions in question” (#4), and the fitting finale “Transformation not apocalypse” (#12) which sets the tone for an exciting 2012.

    2012: 12 Themes – What to expect in the year ahead

    View more presentations from Ross Dawsn

    until next time, happy new yeAR 🙂

  • Reference Groups for Heroes

    Scott Adams had a very interesting post ‘The Comparison Advantage‘, in which he writes about status related stress when “media is changing our reference group. We’re continuously bombarded with stories about people who are fabulously successful.” I’d add that social media is also a big culprit. According to him, the cure is  “to make sure you’re near the top of at least one reference group in your life.”

    With some difference, this is a thought that had crossed my mind long before I read this. But before we get to that, an interesting thing happened. A couple of posts (in Google Reader) after the above, I came across a post by Nilofer Merchant on HBR Blogs titled “Be Your Own Hero“. Completely contradictory? No. But related and yet different perspectives? Yes. This author asks us to junk the ‘Hero Narrative’ and pushes us to be our own hero by following our own passions and not trying to emulate anyone – a “clarity of purpose” for oneself. One of the proposed mantras is also “I shall not obsess over others’ success”, in addition to doing our bit to co-create the future.

    And now we can come back to my thought. I can relate to Nilofer’s views because that was what led me to leave a cubicle and explore the path of being employed by myself. One and a half years gave me an immense amount of learning, one of which was that even with a well thought out ‘personal purpose’ in hand, it was difficult for me to stop comparing. It really didn’t help that the gestation time for it was quite high, and a ‘need it now’ attitude, probably heightened by social media, also played its part.

    After much thought, I jumped back into a cubicle, before which I rewrote the ‘personal purpose’, in which I attempted to factor in the statustics. Putting a full stop to comparison is a long journey, and I’m already on it. An insight (humour me 😉 ) I had while thinking about the ‘compare feature’ was that so far I had been dependent on one of my identities heavily. Mostly it was my work visiting card. So, when comparing, I wasn’t really acknowledging the other things that I was doing, and doing reasonably well. And that is where I mash Nilofer’s ‘personal purpose’ with Scott Adams’ ‘reference group’. I don’t need to top any of my reference groups, but I need them so that my ‘personal purpose’ is balanced between various activities and relationships. That way, I don’t have to kill myself for not blazing a new trail independently. The cubicle job allows me to work on the things I like to work on; the blogs, social platforms and columns allow me to explore other avenues of interest and gives me a sense of worth, and when I need a hug, there’s D and friends and family. I try to make conscious decisions on each of these, keeping the others in mind. Multiple identities, multiple reference groups, all part of the personal purpose. Early days, but the signs are good.

    until next time, try id out 🙂

  • Weekly Top 5

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  • And Thereby Hangs a Tale

    Jeffrey Archer

    The good news is that Lord Archer still has that amazing gift of storytelling, the bad news is that the twists seem to have been blunted a bit. Its probably the sheer amount of content that we encounter, or the tendency to predict the author’s twist, or the way reality beats fiction these days, but compared to the author’s earlier works, this one didn’t induce the jaw-dropping.

    It’d be tempting to say that since 10 of the 15 works are based on real life, the scope for the twist is limited by facts. Indeed, the way the author unfolds the story, the pace he sets are all vintage Archer. But even the remaining 5, while interesting enough, fall short of the author’s high standards of twists.

    My favourites would be “Blind Date” for the sensitivity displayed, “Where there’s a will” for the subtle variation in a done-to-death plot, “Double Cross’, again for a subtle twist well delivered, and “The Undiplomatic Diplomat”, for a strong plot and a superb ending. The India story – “Caste – off”, which I remember him mentioning (that he had got an idea for a story) when he visited Bangalore for ‘The Prisoner of Birth’ tour, is precisely that – typically Indian, and that perhaps, is why, it didn’t appeal much to me. 🙂

    Having said all of that, the book is still a good read simply because Archer still hasn’t lost his mastery over words.