Digging for Meaning

Why invent Google glasses? Here's Sergey Brin trying to answer that question. Doesn't his argument seem a little unconvincing - a weak reason to deploy the best of the brains on the planet and 3 years worth of efforts.   The primary pivot of his argument is the glass' ability to improve social posture (?). He talks about how when interacting with your cell phone, you look down, away from the rest of the world. How when nervous, one fiddles with cell phone to escape the real world. So how is Glass a solution? It is an even more 'evolved' tool to keep the outside world 'out'! Ok, so Glass frees your hands. for what? for better documentation of our narcissism? These series of innovations (social media, smart phones, glass) are answering the most base yearnings of our narcissistic behavior. When you look down, atleast there's that bit of honesty - 'yes, I am looking away from you. Sorry for my awkward inability to be social.' With Gla...

Have you ever 'helped' anyone? any thing - small, big/ inconsequential, saved the world? By help I mean, of being useful for someone other than self and when some effort/ money/ time would be required to be spent. Truthfully speaking, I haven't much. Upon that realisation, I quickly rationalized that perhaps its an 'ability' - An ability to help. Which is to say, that some people are better at it than others. Perhaps, its just me trying to distance myself from the responsibility or perhaps I have hit upon something here. Anyways, here's the thought process. If the tendency to 'help' is an 'ability' that is intrinsic to individuals, what factors would influence it? (I won't get into the 'born with it'/ learned sort of debate. Sure it can be acquired. Yes we can. :) ) I thought of a few. They could be, 1. Empathy 2. Inner lightness/ inertia 3. Habit of rationalizing 4. Following the norm 1. Empathy I think I am am right whe...

Recently, an academic researcher asked me a few questions about the challenges and problems faced by agencies while working on Integrated marketing campaigns. Well, my reply was a rather long and unstructured list of complaints. So here's the disclaimer, I am not a pessimist. :) But i am good at comprehensive exploration of shit gone wrong. These lists are useful in making things better. I am sharing my reply here because it might be a good starting point to complete the picture. My reply choses the negatives - someone can add positive anecdotes, someone can add experiences from other geographies. I have largely written from experiences I have heard from fellow planners I know and my own experiences, which is not a good research design. :P So in a way.. here's the hypothesis and I am asking any planner out there to validate, improve upon or point out the bullshit. Title in bold were questions asked by the researcher. Text in italics are my hypothesis' which are large...

Exhibit A Have you seen posts like these on FB lately? What are they about? A person witnesses some 'wrong' act. He/ She promptly takes a picture of the wrong act. He/she hurries to upload it to social media in an effort to shame the person in question. Earlier, a photograph of a car's number plate did the rounds online. apparently, the guy driving the car had spit on the road. and so on... all misdemeanors that should ideally be sorted in 'real world' of flesh and bones through polite conversations. Exhibit A- Here, a grey haired gentleman opened a door to a cafe for two other gentlemen. The other two gentlemen supposedly did not say 'thank you'. Were they too busy? Were they in a serious discussion, the sort where you forget the world altogether? Do we know anything about them at all? No. We don't. All we have is this one photo that the indignant-FB-guy (IFG) took without asking the two people in question. and look at the reaction - It...

1. What is it all about? A few risque ads were released on a showcase website that features ads from across the world. I won't get into details here as it has been amply dissected everywhere else already. (this one reading might help get you up to speed.) Lets get the obvious out of the way - Of course the ad is appalling. (and of course scam culture must die.) Perhaps its existence is unwarranted. But the reactions to it were confused. What I am interested in the curious collective response: It is a mix of regression, repression and pandering to powers that be. 2. What are they exactly reacting to? God knows. Some people read the ad as 'condoning of rape culture'. Some were reacting to 'Berlusconi'. Some to existence of 'scam ads' and quite a few others to the fact that it came from Ford. In the absence of context, all readings are fair. But the absence of context itself is unfair.  The context in which the ad was created is this one - The ad ...

Evening time. Delhi domestic airport. As many people in casual clothes as suit & ties - upcoming long weekender crowd. Travelers were forming a queue at Terminal no. 12. Usually, hawk eyed travelers keep a look out for incoming inconspicuous elbows and the wily side steppers. But it was different this time. Many were sheepishly staring towards someone. But only briefly. They would consciously then reign in their gaze, back into forward nothingness. The curiosity was overwhelming their resolve though. The heads would turn ever so slightly back towards this one person. People desperately were trying to feign indifference. The man in question was a short guy with a slightly largish head. His skin seemed like a battle ground. His hair was colored dirty bronze. Another person with him had just left. He had touched the celebrity's feet before leaving. No doubt the celebrity is used to people fawning around him. The celebrity in question was a famous comedian. His movies are larg...

Just read a post from the crowd-sourced diary of narcissists - thoughtcatalog.com The post is called ' Why I’m Trading A House And Salary For A Motorcycle And Map ' Please read it, because this blog post is a reaction to it. Let me quickly summarise here the intent of the post anyways. Its a self congratulatory essay that crowd sources validation for a seemingly 'crazy' idea of the author. And apparently there is a moral to the story. Curious thing to note - the gratification is pre-action - the author has not actually done anything of note yet. He plans to. Maybe . and that is why this post is such an important artifact defining the current times. The author is an adult. (atleast 30 years old. Also the fact that he owns a house that he can sell. and in his words " I've officially notified everyone who works in my office ".) But not quite. (the entire article. Also, he mentions the word 'motorcycle' gushingly 6 times.)  Some of his gems.  ...