Saurabh Garg on The New New Thing

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What started as a random message on twitter, has now spiraled into something larger.

I sent this message on Twitter asking if anyone would like to co-author a book with me using Twitter and Web as medium. Idea was to use Twitter as a communication medium to write a book. I did not have a clue what the book would be on. What the title would be. What the storyline would be. How would we collaborate. I just wanted to see if people would want to participate in this experiment. And yes, in less than an hour, 5 people had replied.

Siyab, SimplyArun, kv, Asfaq and gsik agreed to be a part of the experiment. We soon exchanged emails and figured how would be go about it. I shall keep updating this once we flesh out the details.

Keep tuned.

UPDATE ON 13 Jul 2008: Setup a wiki to help Collaboration. PBWiki Link
UPDATE ON 13 Jul 2008: Setup a blog. Twitter Book Blog

Image Credits: Flickr

If everyone is evangelizing new media and social media, then how come the same “evangelists” get excited about even a small and insignificant mention of their name in the most obscure of the newspapers and TV channels that no one bothers to read/see?

Dichotomy at its very best.

Inspired by work done by Phonethics, I also thought I would create some characters. And some lives. Here is the first draft.

Koncious Kapoor

KK is our typical metrosexual Indian. He belongs to a very small time in UP and his is the first family to have stepped out of their town. They hence have an elevated status amongst their peers. Kconcious Kapoor has studied in a boarding school and although he has a modernish outlook towards life, he is still conscious of his background and upbringing. Like any typical young Indian, he wants to get rich quick, become famous and is really scared of facing an audience.

Khoob Bai

Everyone knows that KB is 35ish, claims to be 25ish, looks 30ish and is 45ish in real. She does everything including cleaning utensils, scrubbing floors, acting as the informal communication channel between young lovers, delivering gossip and obviously peeping on personal affairs of her employers. She knows more secrets than the FBI, CIA, RAW, The Mossad, MI6 and KGB combined. And she keeps dropping hints about her (in)famous access to information. She promises her loyalty to everyone but she is loyal to only one thing - money.

Totaram Sharma

better known as Sharma Ji in his colony and Sharma Babu in his office. He is a struggling middle aged government employee who has been a clerk since last 30 years and has seen two salary hikes and one promotion. He is a perpetual landmark on his office canvas. All the kids in his colony hate him for his never ending cribbing about noise and ruckus that these kids make. He has two teenaged daughters that add to his agony in life. He is also known for speaking for hours without making any sense at all.

Toofan Kumar

is in a perpetual state of hurry. He is rushing for something or the other. He even talks as fast as he walks. Folklore has it that he was last seen relaxing when he was standing in the visa queue to US of A. He thinks that world today is full of opportunists and he needs to do something about it. He feels very passionately about all the popular social causes and actively participates in debates around these. Motive is not to save trees or prevent child abuse but to pave a road for his political dreams. And of course the visa was rejected.

Happy Singh

is a typical surd. Happy go lucky, content and hungry - all three at the same time. Thanks to his beard, no one knows where his smile begins and ends. Or if he is smiling at all. He is on the heavier side and has an insatiable appetite. Every time he sees a cow, goat, chicken or any other animal of edible quality, his hunger pangs strike him. He is still single with no immediate plans or chances either. His family lives in Ludhiana and thus he has all the money he needs to live comfortably without working.

This has potential to become a huge business by itself. Not on the lines of what Phonethics is doing but something else. Keep watching.

GoaFest 2008 is the annual conclave of the advertising industry in India. Although I did not attend the fest, I read about it on e4m and agencyfaqs and key takeaways for me would be ..

1. Clients expect advertising agency to move further from just advertising. They expect advertising agencies to understand their businesses, environments they operate in and act as a partner rather than a service provider.
2. Clients want agencies to be more accountable and agencies should take a proactive role rather than a passive one.
3. There is bit too much specialization and hence fragmentation happening in the industry. There are departments at agencies to take care of BTL campaigns for young adults in cateogry A cities going to the top 100 colleges in India and who have more than 10000 bucks to spend per month. This kind of depth is desirable by all but what about the larger picture? Business objectives rather than getting too creative? How about generating sales for a change?
4. At the cost of sounding like an old-schooler and offending a lot of creative people, I think that there is nothing more important than generating sales. A lot of creative people forget this and plunge into the art.
5. Internet as a medium is still in very nascent stages. It will be years before it gains acceptability. More thoughts on Internet as Advertising Medium in India on my wiki.

Finally, I liked D. Shivakumar’s session the best at the conclave. I wish I could meet him and pick his brains.

This can also be seen as a a fast summary of all the serious business that happened at GoaFest apart from all the parties, awards, discussions over drinks and regular glamor surrounding the event.

I was talking to a colleague in office and I realized that I need to talk about taking media to a new level. I have been procrastinating it for a while. I am penning down my thoughts on media in India and invite you people to share this with anyone you think can contribute. Please add your opinions also.

In my opinion media is supposed to perform three functions
1. Inform junta about things
2. Bring people together and share opinions
3. Shape public thought

However, currently media as I see it is not really doing any of these three. Media is being operated as a business with profit motives and as my colleague put it, actual function has become the by product. I would not question why or how this happened. I shall talk about what can be done to bring it back on track. And obviously this is where I would need you guys to help me out. Please help me structure my thought process.

I think there are few things that are really critical for having media in true spirit.

1. Objectivity - Obviously we want to take sides, churn out opinions but we should do it with objective bent. We should kill a brand, praise a person but should be objective.

2. Independence - Independence is a huge word by itself and can have many connotations. Independence of thoughts, independence from influence, independence to write. And lots more.

3. Thought leadership - Apart from just publishing happenings and reporting events, media needs to have thought leadership. They should have original opinion on things. Thoughts on how to shape the society and probably a bit of foresight to be able to foresee the future.

4. Reach and feedback - There are two things here. Media could use any platform for delivery - paper, website, twitter, plays, design anything but it should have a certain reach. Atleast in the targeted audience, it should reach everyone and it should be contextual and relevant enough for them to consider it signal, rather than noise. And feedbcak is more critical than everything else. Media needs to know what is happening, how are people reacting to things, what is the audience thinking, is India covering the right things, is the media being a thought leader in the first place?

Now having established things that are critical for media in my opinion, I will talk about how can Internet help us in achieving the goal.

1. Collaboration - This word has been misused more than any other word on the Internet. When it comes to media, collaboration could take shape of co-authoring stories, thinking out loud, accepting defeats and promoting what is better, so on and so forth. Mutiny is a very good example but again we tend to incline towards popular things rather than pertinent things.

2. Reach and Feedback - With Internet as delivery model, both reach and feedback can be much simpler. With Internet, we can real time feedback from people and improvise at the same time. The time gap between conversations is reducing and making us faster.

3. Democratic - Since people on Internet are hidden behind a cloak, they can come forward and talk about things that they want to talk above without any fears of retribution. Although this silver cloak is a bane as well, it gives regular junta lots of power too.

There have to be some issues with the Internet. I foresee following issues with the use of Internet. This is not a problem because of Internet but because it is open.

1. Accountability - Everyone on Internet is hidden behind a silver cloak. If someone wants to misuse media, Internet help him. No one is owner of the content and no one is questionable.

2. Seriousness - Most people still consider Internet as “oh the internet” and think it as a collection of amateurs blogging away to glory. There are so many good authors that I cant even create a list.

3. Numbers - There arent just enough people on Internet in India. And most of people on the Internet don’t really care about reading things. I am not sure how many would read this post completely, leave apart shaping opinions and contributing. If you do read , please say “SECRET REVEALED” in the comments, I will be happy to get 10 comments.

In the end, I dont know if this kind of an initiative could ever gain momentum in India or anywhere else or if this can ever replace traditional businesses disguised as media. I am just trying to present a perspective on things.

Please understand that everything I have said could be incorrect. They are just my opinions and want you guys to help me come up with something concrete.

Thanks for a patient hearing.

P.S.: I started this as a personal email to Sanjukta and Swagat but I thought I could share this with a larger audience too.