in vacant or in pensive mood

In social media, emotions can be both a driving force and a tool for manipulation.  Plutchik’s cone of emotions throws some light on understanding emotions and giving people the emotional intelligence to then use it in their best interest.  Trolls are everywhere today. And while we know how to best ignore them, this cone made me see a world I have never bothered understanding. Why are trolls the way they are? Why do they behave the way they do? Why are they so angry and how are they so efficient and unified?  To know that, we need to understand the underlying emotion that drives people’s behaviour, and that’s where the Plutchik’s wheel of emotion helped me see this world differently. A look at that chart and understanding how it works made me realize how political parties are tapping into the loathing minds of the unemployed to make them trigger happy trolls. Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotion Rober Plutchik was a famous psychologist who created the wheel by studying animals. He...

So, basically I would typically Write just one word and see The directions that my mind would wander And I meander in my thoughts, I ponder About the possibilities Of the various different strategies  That I see imminent and implement The one I think is the best Taking the bird out of the nest I wish to see it fly high into the sky Outside the limits of the logical eye. Sigh, I'm not creative, I'm positive I'm just talkative, gaining perspective Over rationalizing the things I think And then I sink Imposter syndrome? I'm feeling home I kill my inner voices and the million choices Put down my head and frown At the single word on the paper That begins to disappear. But my mind is clear For what I have here Is a strategic solution All ready for a creative demolition. 

Music and mathematics have a symbiotic relationship. I was once again reminded of this from watching this video by Numberphile. Both are universal. Both are dominated by patterns. And in both, the patterns need to be beautiful and the ideas must fit in a harmonious manner. As GH Hardy famously said: " Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics." The 19th-century English mathematician J J Sylvester put it thus: “May not music be described as the mathematics of sense, mathematics as the music of reason, the soul of each the same?” This is a wonderful analogy of how closely intertwined the two are. In fact, Gottfried Leibniz, philosopher and mathematician says about music "Music is a secret exercise in arithmetic of the soul, unaware of its act of counting." Many great mathematicians have loved music - and many in particular - have a great liking for Bach. Johann Sebastian Bach is considered as grand master of structural inn...

I was reading BBH Lab's list of 100 things planners should know, brilliantly captures by Chaz Wigley, Chairman of BBH Asia. (https://www.bbh-labs.com/chazs-100-things-a-planner-should-know/ ) The 10th point in that list is an interesting one. He says - "If you expect creative people to present you with multiple options then you should be ready to write multiple strategies to tackle the problem." I completely subscribe to this point of view. In fact, I think it should be the way we tackle creative briefs. But any look at a creative brief format of most agencies, you'll notice that it strips one of the ability to write multiple ones. The process is tedious, a lot of the columns are unnecessary that makes one question why it was called BRIEF in the first place. I feel a lot of them have too many unnecessary information points for the creative. They, in any case, rarely read it. They don't like briefs, they prefer the BRIEFING. To delve into the difference between the...

Dear vagabonding, mindlessly scrolling reader. Do you love advertising but hate the work that's coming out of this shit factory?  Please don't take any harsh steps. Kindly refrain from committing career suicide by joining the creative team of a start up, or do a course on social media marketing, or worse, start terrace farming. An easy antidote to this emotionally gut wrenching feeling you have everyday is to simply visit Dave Dye's blog.  To all those in marketing and advertising, this should be a monthly pilgrimage. Like they say - when there's no way forward - go back and restart your journey. I, for one, made my visit this time, and read one more of the wonderful series that he has created titled :"what I liked before I knew what I was supposed to like." The series traces the catchy, memorable, sometimes borderline irritating but effective ads that made some of the industry's greatest fall in love with advertising. The series also looks at some of the ...

 Strategic planners have this innate habit and drive to connect seemingly unrelated dots and try to make sense of the world around them. No wonder that they immerse themselves into so many different kinds of things - and each will find its way into the work they do. Either it's in the brief, in the strategy deck, in the consumer insight, in the quest to simplify complicated thoughts and behaviours, anything. It's almost as if this constant need to connect dots and look for patterns is our coping mechanism to find meaning in chaos. It helps us understand the world better. And we do this so often that most often - it's on auto mode and spontaneous.  While we do this daily with the knowledge we assimilate along the way, we rarely utilize it to generate newer ideas when required. And then, I chanced upon a wonderful video by Mark Pollard, that showed me a new way to leverage this connection seeking behaviour of planners. It was used to showcase the power of lateral thinking, wi...