Tag: Culture

MVP(Maximum Viable Product) for the MVA(Minimum Viable Audience)

 

Normally MVP is denoting Minimum Viable Product. But, here by design the thought is for your Maximum Viable Product. As you show up and ship it out in the full knowledge that it is made for the smallest viz Minimum Viable Audience– lets call them the early adopters.

 

It was Geoffrey Moore who coined the term chasm.The term for the gap between the small part of the market populated with people who like to go first, and the larger group of people who want to get involved with something that’s proven, popular and effective.

 

The early adopters  are the ones who ask ‘is it new?’ , ‘ what is different? ‘. The early majority come in next(they are early followers) once they see it is effective and it is working.

 

The early adopters are the ones we need to delight. They then take on the mantle of being your unofficial brand ambassadors. They spread the word. They tell the others. They are the ones who help cross the chasm and bring in the next round of users | followers, the early majority.

The trap is in trying to be all things to all people at the same time. Resist the temptation. The early adopters will do the generous work of bringing the others on board.

 

Not everyone goes first. Almost no one does. Our culture changes when the early adopters tell the others. And it applies to almost everything,  be it rock bands, organic juice, movies, electric cars, books or online courses. What we have to show is the tenacity and persistence of showing up first, delight the daylights out of the early adopters, win their trust and then go on to win the hearts and minds of those who didn’t show up first. The chasm gets crossed and the community gets built.

 

It is not a linear sequence. You might be ready with your launch. But people show up when they are ready. Not when you are.

 

Find your mojo. The early adopters. And leave the rest to them.

 

ENDS

The Homogeneity Trap!

 

There is a saying which a lot of us have heard or read which goes like this ” birds of the same feather, flock together “.

 

 

Other interpretations of the same include ‘ Collective Bias ” or ” Wisdom of the Crowds “.

 

 

Some of these existing narratives are traps. Great minds think alike. They need not or should not. If all of us are thinking the same, then none of us are thinking.

 

 

Have you ever looked at the World Map upside down?  I strongly recommend you do. And urge you to look at this Knew Thinking. New Possibilities video 

 

 

Your nutritionist will recommend you have vegetables that have as many diverse colours as possible. A one vegetable salad would be boring. But a salad with lettuce and spinach, capsicum and tomato, carrot and raddish, olives and avocado, coriander and kale when mixed right with a dash of garlic and virgin olive oil will be a real treat. Each of the ingredients enhances the other significantly.

 

 

We humans are not very different. We feed best off each other. Conformity is a rabbit hole. The fault lines in our culture( and the education industrial complex still hanging onto the retrogressive  coat tails of the Industrial Age) might drive us towards being the same and to play it safe and to come across as complying and toeing the line. With that, you are headed into the already turbulent waters of the sea of sameness with no chance of you to stand out. It’s a Red Ocean with no lifeboats in sight.

 

 

Our difference, our heterogeneity is not an impediment or a problem to be fixed. It is a delight to learn from. Hiring managers or leaders would like to hire people like them. In relationships too, you are looking at whether she or he is an introvert or an extrovert like you. Sameness is toxic.

 

 

As a  tribe, heterogeneity can help us survive and prosper. Homogeneity keeps us vulnerable.

 

 

“Civilization is a progress from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity toward a definite, coherent heterogeneity.”
— Herbert Spencer

 

 

ENDS

 

 

 

Copycats: You Have Nerves of Steal !

 

Stealing other people’s ideas is now disguised as creativity ! I, me, EMMY to that!

 

 

Imitation might be considered as the best form of flattery. But, when ideas get stolen, used, monetised without attribution, acknowledgment, respect and royalty, it has to be considered daylight robbery. Worse, when the ‘ dubious claiming to be owners ‘(I have no compunction in calling them thieves) of the idea begin to flaunt it cockily all over social media, neither does it make for pleasant viewing or an easily digestable experience. If any of you have traveled in the same boat, it is time to rock it together. Let us not remain just chat bo(a)ts.

 

 

I am (almost) certain that iconic businesses are not made this way. Nor are iconic entrepreneurs or executives. Cons don’t become icons. They might savor the interim thrill of the non existing chase (because they got it on a platter from someone or somewhere else) of the new shiny object and bask in the after glow. One shallow does not make a summer. Or does it?

 

 

This malaise is not restricted to the non playing captains of zilch honor and high disrepute. It is systemic and has transcended like beg bugs and termites into the sanctum sanctorums of decision making in organisations and countries. Probably the culture (sleight of) handbook there is captioned ‘ With Nothing But Malaise Towards One and All ‘. With the preamble reading something like this ‘ Since we are totally incapable of doing anything original and worthwhile, the solemn promise we make to ourselves is to NOT do anything that remotely involves sincerity, authenticity, bonafide intent and commitment. That said, we reassure all our stakeholders that we will do everything in our might to steal, connive, manipulate, fraud , short change other people and organisations so that we can move around with our fed held high and head held low. In dignity, we mistrust ‘.

 

 

You and me might have heard of cheat days but there is a small community of people ( con artists) and organisations that have taken this art form and scaled it exponentially- they have redefined it as cheat weeks, cheat months, cheat years and have the despicable intent to make this into an established perennial money and reputation looting assembly line.

 

 

Still waters run deep. Steal waters remain shallow. How about this as a tagline:

 

 

To all the con artists on STEALettos:

 

‘ I con, therefore I can ‘-option 1

 

‘ The art of the cheat ‘-option 2

 

 

Welcome your thoughts please.

 

 

ENDS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the Culture is a Vulture and the Law is an …

 

April 10, Circa 1912. Probably, a Red letter Day in the history of passenger shipping. Among other things. Red Ocean would be a fitting metaphor.

 

The Titanic, launched on May 31, 1911, set sail on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City on April 10, 1912, with 2,240 passengers and crew on board. Nicknamed the “Millionaire’s Special,” the ship was fittingly captained by Edward J. Smith, who was known as the “Millionaire’s Captain” because of his popularity with ‘ wealthy passengers ‘.

 

Billed and marketed as the best, the greatest & the safest luxury ship ever built, 2240 people set sail from Southampton to create history. The first transatlantic crossing of the world’s most celebrated ship. One can imagine how mammoth it was- The Titanic was approximately 269 metres long and about 28.2 metres wide at its widest point.
How many have you heard this line ” the LAW is an >>> ” I don’t use three letter words..give me four letter words anytime- please don’t get ideas..words like HOPE | LOVE | NICE..for that matter LIKE..
The British Board of Trade had a law at that time, which effectively was, in order to take sail, a ship should have a lifeboat inventory that is a minimum of 30% of the passenger capacity- the Titanic had lifeboats that could be used by about 900 people at full capacity. Mind you the ship was ferrying almost 2250 people. We all know what happened. More than 1500 people lost their lives in the tragedy.
Apparently, British White Star Line, the owners and operators of the Titanic had complied with the then existing regulations of having a lifeboat inventory of minimum 30% of the ships’ total capacity. In the case of the rest, without lifeboats, they could be all at sea, forgive the pun.

 

As passengers waited to enter the limited number of lifeboats, they were entertained by the Titanic’s musicians, who initially played in the first-class lounge before eventually moving to the ship’s deck. Sources differ on how long they performed, some reporting that it was until shortly before the ship sank. Speculation also surrounded the last song they performed—likely either Autumn or Nearer My God to Thee. Ironical. None of the musicians survived the sinking.

 

In the early hours of April 15th, 1912, over the course of 2 hours and 40 minutes, the RMS Titanic sunk in the icy Atlantic.

 

In the end, an U.S. investigation faulted the British Board of Trade, “to whose laxity of regulation and hasty inspection the world is largely indebted for this awful fatality”. Other contributing causes were also noted, including the failure of Captain Smith to slow the Titanic after receiving ice warnings. However, perhaps the strongest criticism was levied at Captain Lord and the Californian. The committee found that the ship Californian was “nearer the Titanic than the 19 miles reported by her Captain, and that her officers and crew saw the distress signals of the Titanic and failed to respond to them in accordance with the dictates of humanity, international usage, and the requirements of law.”

 

ENDS

 

Placebo, take a bow!

 

To begin with a look at the definition of the noun Placebo:
– a medicine or procedure prescribed for the psychological benefit to the patient rather than for any physiological effect
– a substance that has no therapeutic effect, used as a control in testing new drugs
– a measure designed merely to humour or placate someone. A placebo is a prompt for our subconscious to do the hard work of healing our body, increasing our satisfaction or maximizing our performance
I am enamored by the last one as it ultimately serves us better.
Several years ago, on my first ever overseas trip, I carried back a pain balm for my grandmother who often suffered from severe ankle pains. It took exactly 90 odd seconds between my giving her the balm, her applying it and her claiming instant relief. The Doctor’s prognosis of her excess weight and varicose veins be damned.
In a make believe world, placebo does the hard part of well..making us believe. It’s manifestation of a slightly different lineage, with some tangibles thrown in.
Status roles are defined by the culture we live and function in. ‘People like us do things like this‘. Wine collectors, sneaker aficionados, pimple creams, energy drinks or herbal remedies all surf the placebo wave. As it creates maximum impact amongst the purveyors targeted.
We offer sub optimal credit to the stories in our lives and we seem to have persuaded ourselves that our brains don’t matter much. But, increasingly, we have increasing evidence to the contrary.
Stories are the salve, the balm, the therapy and our brains, powerful as they may be, might or might not be under our conscious control.
If you find a better domicile for our stories to reside(other than inside our heads), let me know. We can recalibrate the GPS. Till such time, let us live with our placebos.
If you want some inspiration on how placebos work, take a look at this link https://www.instagram.com/reel/Csorz4iPdrq/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading
The above is a link from a post shared by One Minute Bass (@oneminutebass) 
ENDS

Making up for the folks who don’t!

 

All around us we experience this on a daily basis.

 

If you are a member of a team or community, and given certain goals and responsibilities, you would feel dejected because you feel that others are not bringing their fair share to the table.

 

It could be a splitting a bill at a restaurant or delivering on their promised part of the bargain or doing something to change the culture or create community impact. It could be taking initiative or appropriate responsibility at work. The reasons could be many- one could be that they are selfish but that being said , it is also likely that there is a distinct lack of skill or resources or a feeling of inadequacy that they have.

 

So, the arithmetic is simple- many people do far less than what they should. As long as we are calibrated for that, and prepared to bring more than our fair share to the table, your goal of making things better stands a good chance. Because, we MUST make up for all those don’t.

 

ENDS

Un-Elevate The Elevator Pitch: Time For A Pattern Interrupt!

 

The quintessential elevator pitch has been indoctrinated into our culture for aeons. It is time to call time on that.

 

A pattern interrupt is anything that forces someone to change their natural pattern of thought. As a result, it is a technique that sales development and business development professionals use for a variety of situations in sales calls and sales processes.

 

Pattern Interrupt is an NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) technique for breaking a person’s usual habits by altering their mental, emotional, or behavioral state. Consider it an unexpected act that shocks them into a different state of mind.

 

” The purpose of an elevator pitch is to describe a situation or solution so compelling that the person you’re with wants to hear more even after the elevator ride is over “- Seth Godin

 

The brains of our audience are overloaded and preoccupied. Even a tiny bit of memory space is hard to come by. Experts will suggest the 3C model for your elevator pitch– Clear, Concise & Compelling. There is no shortage of advice floating around.

 

What if we do a pattern interrupt on the conventional elevator pitch? Which typically has always been about you making a pitch to a potential business partner or employer in the shortest possible time frame. No one ever bought anything on an elevator. The elevator pitch isn’t about selling your idea, because a metaphorical elevator is a lousy place to make a pitch.

 

When you are trying to cram in your perspective, your truth, your nuance, your past & your ambitions, all the while being judged, as you ride up a few floors, in just a few seconds, it is a sure fire way to failure.

So, how about putting the shoe on the other foot? We move from elevator pitch mode to a question mode, the elevator question. Beginning a conversation with the person you wish to connect with. Understanding who they are and what they want and then mapping it against who you are and what you want. So the elevator is like your trial room to check if the fit is right. And if the fit is not right, it is a signal, an opportunity to help the other side, even if it is not from you.

 

Rejection sets in when there is a mismatch of needs, narratives and what’s on offer. Rather than salivating over the prospect of the other person hiring you or doing business with you or fund you, calibrate your mind to think that no one can do these things. While you do that, open up the sunroof to bring in the sunshine of what you can help the other side with( and there are plenty of people whom you can help, mind you). And one way is that help could also come in the way of NOT making a pitch to them.

 

Hustle is de rigueur in our culture but a pattern interrupt that will work best is not to fall into the trap of hustling others.

 

Building a personal brand is an art. If you agree, this article from BrandKnew could be of interest, https://www.brandknewmag.com/you-need-to-establish-a-personal-brand-to-succeed-in-the-workplace-of-tomorrow-heres-how/

 

ENDS

Why Is Enough NOT Enough?

 

Not until something challenges you to rise up, you shall always stay down; not until you realize your enough is enough, you shall always have enough.

 

The scars in our culture will never let you get away from the imagined slip between the cup and the lip in this case. Present day bookkeeping(at least the one that most of us seem to practice) seems to have only debit, deficiency and gaps.

 

This is our modern curse: A century of conspicuous consumption has trained us to be dutiful citizens of the Republic of Not Enough, swearing allegiance to the marketable myth of scarcity, hoarding toilet paper for the apocalypse. Along the way, we have unlearned how to live wide-eyed with wonder at what Hermann Hesse called “the little joys” — those unpurchasable, unstorable emblems of aliveness that abound the moment we look up from our ledger of lack.

 

What are you chasing? Or what is chasing you? Counting on life or making life count?

 

The democracy of inadequacy is NOT of the people, by the people, for the people. We all need a different domicile.

It’s time to script your own countercultural invitation to rediscover life’s true priorities amid our confused maelstrom of materialism and compulsive productivity.

 

“Enough is so vast a sweetness, I suppose it never occurs, only pathetic counterfeits,” Emily Dickinson lamented in a love letter. In his splendid short poem about the secret of happiness, Kurt Vonnegut exposed the taproot of our modern suffering as the gnawing sense that what we have is not enough, that what we are is not enough.

 

You, you-er, you-est is the perennial journey you will embark on and the ticket for that ride will be your investment.

 

This civilisational trance and the unabashed quest for more needs a wake up call and the time is now. Enough said.

 

If a contrarian take on productivity is of interest to you, allow me to take you there https://www.sureshdinakaran.com/blog/2020/06/08/rip-productivity-productivity-is-not-working/

 

ENDS

The Temporary Nature of Permanence!

 

Happiness is understanding and accepting impermanence.

That said, even happiness is impermanent, like everything else. Without impermanence, there can be no life. Impermanence is one of the essential doctrines and a part of three marks of existence in Buddhism. Asserting that all conditioned existence is transient, evanescent, and inconstant, impermanence is a concept found in various aspects of Hinduism and Jainism.

Cutting edge technology becomes obsolete. Medical breakthroughs avert certain disasters. Music goes from futuristic to contemporary to nostalgia. Idols and celebrities whom we revered but never met die young.

The Time Machine is a recent phenomena(of the 1800s). A thousand years ago people had no inkling of what today would have been like, Just like, we, the present generation, will have no inkling of what it would be a few hundred years from now. Except some crystal ball gazing or educated guesses.

Impermanence is the law of the universe. Our experience and relationship with time keeps changing. The concept of time zones was a derivative of clocks. (As an aside, Sir Sanford Fleming, a Canadian engineer, was the first person to propose the use of worldwide time zones back in 1878. His idea was to divide the world into 24 time zones that were each 15 degrees of longitude apart. The reason for this is that the earth rotates 15 degrees every hour, or 360 degrees in 24 hours). And mind you we didn’t have clocks till such time we invented cities.

Our idea of history is vague(what has been told to us- the concept of some people walked the earth some aeons ago)…and probably it is the same with our future. Whether we have a role in it, and will it shape up in the manner we envisage.

If the future were to be looked upon as an ‘ impressionist painting in landscape mode ‘, a couple of things will come to fore:

– The future will never stop surprising us and any control of it is only a myth in our heads.

– That said, we can have a greater role to play in the future and endeavor to make and leave an impact. Change is a culture thing and culture( and the way we can change it and therefore our future) can be only be changed by us, we, the people.

We will never have a stop watch to switch on and switch off the future, as and when we desire to. Nor can we request the future to lie still and wait for our nudge to get moving. Future is not an obedient toddler, unfortunately.

What definitely is in our control is the work we do, the stories we tell ourselves, the connections we establish, the paths we follow, the art we ship out- all of it determines our culture. And culture will echo what’s next!

ENDS

 

 

 

Words Worth!

Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity.

 

“Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.”

 

“Words—so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become, in the hands of one who knows how to combine them “!

 

We take the stage. The spotlight is on us. There is a great opportunity calling. Our words- it can connect, engage, open up possibilities, create progress. With the audience. Or, our words- could severe, distance, delink us from moving things forward.

 

Just an arrow that has left the security of the quiver cannot be retrieved, as is so with our words. So measure our words, use them for respect, by respect and with respect. Love is life in search of words, and words are wings that lift us, break us, join us, melt us, like rain.

 

The person in front of you keeps the door open for you as you enter behind her. You say ‘ Thank you ‘ and she responds by saying ‘ No Problem ‘. Nothing wrong with that. Except, that it may convey that the good deed she did of keeping the door open for you was a huge hassle but she did it nevertheless. A better expression of words could have been ‘ My Pleasure ‘. After all, she had a choice, and she chose to do this work precisely so that it could have an impact on someone else, in this case you. The story we tell ourselves about the work can be fuel for finding ways to do it better.

 

 

If culture and community are the bedrocks of our existence, then hospitality and connection give them the wings. Words are like loose canon. You can choose your words. But you cannot choose the effect they can have on people.

 

To quote from some wisdom of the past- ” Don’t use words too big for the subject. · Words are sacred. · Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit— YOU choose “.

 

May I direct you to this article from BrandKnew that just may dovetail into what I touched upon above.

 

ENDS