The Branded and Gilded Life

The theory, for sure. Not the practice.

Time and again, we've seen people take outsize risks without a second thought.

And others who wait for the perfect opportunity to come along and it never does.

There are those who take on physical risks - speeding, climbing mountains, dropping off bridges in a bungee jump. Or the affluent ones by skydiving.

Mental risk-taking is another thing altogether.

Entrepreneurs are drawn to the idea of bringing about big changes - and the lure is so strong, they almost can't help themselves. They'll conceive and execute plans in school and college, even when they turn out to be disastrous. But they're learning from every botched experiment.

They'll max out their credit cards, hit up friends and family for funds and do everything required to float their dream company.

But the vast majority of us can't conceive of such behavior.

When we build up a corpus, we'll strive to make it bigger, not bet it on something unpredictable. That's what separates the money makers from the savers.

The way they define risk.

And no matter how favorable the odds, you'll never be able to sway the minds of people who already have a fixed idea. And even they may not be aware of it.

The careful ones stick to the mutual funds and post office debentures. Because that's the level of risk most of us can tolerate.

But there are also the ones who become prey. Taking risks with investing in dubious financial schemes in the hope of getting high returns - and ending up with huge losses.

The appetite for risk is hard to determine. And it shapes the entrepreneurial gene.

The painful job of social media writers

Good memes are easy to read but hard to write.

Basically, it's variations on the same theme.

We respond to the same stimulus much like the doctor testing reflexes with a hammer.

Hit the right spot on the knee lightly and the leg swings out involuntarily.

Writers managing prominent social media profiles have to be regular, interesting and come up with new ways to say the same old things.

If it is a vacation, there are a set of headlines to fall back on - 'So-and-so's Mauritius vacation gives couple goals for...' or 

Nothing negative or even slightly controversial. Unless that's the intention.

The monthly gossip film mag or 'lifestyle' magazines had time to file stories and dig up interesting bits. Or more often than not, make things up. Stars and celebs have the same lives everyone else does.

They're  just in front of a lens more often.

The daily treadmill makes it hard to keep up the pretense.

A few hundred likes can be scored with an announcement of a new diet plan - or fitness video.

But how can it be sustained it for days, weeks and months?

Tanned and toned bodies are good to go. When it becomes a procession on a social media feed, even the smallest deviation provides room for sly digs and comments.

Which sets off a thousandwala of jibes.

In the celebrity  PR machine, staying the course has become fraught with uncertainty.

The inaccessible ones using mystique and appearing only a couple of times a year may have a better chance of standing out.

And writers won't have to reheat decade old recipes.

Liquid gold grows in forests

It's not used to make any furniture, of course.

The economics don't make sense, even for the rich.

Every kilo of agarwood costs over $100,000 - and its already on an endangered list.

What comes from it is a heavenly fragrance - which is the base for some of the world's exotic high-priced perfume brands.

Nothing about the wood is simple.

It comes from the Aquilaria tree, which is not intrinsically valuable. But that's just the beginning. Grazing animals and insects can bruise the tree and some, but not all trees are invaded by a type of fungus. To fight off the fungus, the tree secretes a liquid and over years, this creates the wonderful aroma.

Finding these trees is an art in itself because they don't look different on the outside. Unless they are chopped and the tell-tale stains are found inside, the tree is not valuable.

The story of how the oud oil is extracted makes for fascinating viewing.  One liter of the aged oil costs over $80,000. 

Even the leftover wood chips are sold as incense and the aroma lingers in rooms, 2-3 hours later.

The tragedy is that less than 2% of it is now available in the wild and involves several expeditions that last for several days to find the trees.

And nature is in no hurry to replenish the stocks.

Every week, I'll plant a few ideas in your mind on branding, behavior and markets. Triggers for your thoughts. Spread the word to your friends. All you have to do is click the link and enter an email address.

At  Ivy league universities and global company workplaces, they're the golden wall.

And access means crossing over to a higher level of existence.

At least, that's the myth.

The Atlantic magazine feature describes how the meritocracy we have built leads to an endless competitive cycle.

The day a child is born, the hunt for a school starts in India. It's probably several times the pressure that parents in the US have to deal with.

The school tag, the activity tag, the extra-curricular tag, the college tag are all progressively aspirational to cross over to a club with limited capacity.

The old boys 'network built defines the career trajectory.

And over the years, even these envied spaces are reaching the limits of admission.

The Chicago University admitted nearly 75% of applicants in 1995. Right now, it's down to 6%.

In India, there was massive media and parental outrage when the 'cutoff', meaning the marks required for admission to some of the top colleges in Delhi was 100%

That means thousands of young adults who made just one little mistake were penalised. 

Merit as defined by marks and the multiple parameters including a resume of social service and voluntary activity have become boxes to be checked for applying, not entry.

The margin between success and failure has become a knife edge.

And it cuts through society like a scalpel.

The drizzle of design progress

Small improvements in design happen all the time. 

But we barely notice.

The benefits are minimal - a drizzle, but someone thought it needed to be solved

The first one. A white cap under the lid of most oil bottles prevents leakage. Getting that out used to be a problem, unless you slid your nail beneath the edge and popped it out. But recently, I found it was now cut halfway around and pulling it out has become much easier. Like a tab on a can.

In the second one, the lid itself has transformed into an easy to pour point, with a pop-out tab that can be locked back into place.

In the third, the white ring with strands pointing inwards inside the oil bottle  regulates the irregular flow of oil when pouring.

Fourth - the way we snip off milk and oil packets cutting off a triangular piece at the edge creates tiny bits of plastic waste that clogs up drains.

Instead, if you were to cut into the packet at an acute angle, it's much easier to pour things out because a natural funnel is created internally for pouring anything from grains to liquids. 

And finally, the wireless mouse USB tab. It's tiny and you can lose or misplace it anywhere. So, the design has a storage slot inside the mouse when it's not being used. 

What are the design odds and ends improvements you have noticed?

9 to 5 or 996?

And WFH is 24 x 6

Work is worship and the paycheck is salvation.

Doled out in monthly instalments

And instantly paid out to other instalment seekers, either by auto debit or repeated reminders.

What's the alternative?

The way things are going, there isn't one. Unless 996 becomes the new 9 to 5 and things get even worse.

The 12-hour workday, 6 days a week. And then one day to recover before the treadmill begins again. Even bees aren't as busy.

Before you know it, a couple of decades have gone by and there's a sense of having missed out on things - and it's hard to determine what exactly was lost.

Or is it because the gains didn't seem to be worth the trouble? The objectives set with pride and passion didn't seem important once they were achieved.

Somewhere down the line, even Chinese tech companies that pioneered 996 as the model workplace formula seem to be admitting that things have gone too far.

The government has cracked down and slashed the education, gaming and the tech sector as a whole.

Perhaps the 4-day week is what the world needs to move towards. 

And expand diverse work options just as much as diverse workplaces. Perhaps look for lesser-known careers that don't grow like Jack's beanstalks' in the fairy tale.

We've maxed out working hours. And there's no way to increase the hours on a clock!

Every week, I'll plant a few ideas in your mind on branding, behavior and markets. Triggers for your thoughts. Spread the word to your friends. All you have to do is click the link and enter an email address.

There has been more flooding in several parts of the world this year.

Shots of cars being stranded or carried away in terrifying surges have been shared across social media.

When a driver comes across a patch of flooded road, the natural inclination is to turn back.

There's no saying what will happen if the car stalls.

Even a thin film of water can reduce the grip and make navigation through water difficult.

Now, Tesla does not have 'Boat mode'. At least not yet.

A clip shot from inside the car is either testament to the car's ability - or the driver's foolhardiness.

Literally like wading into a pool of gushing water and expecting to get through.

There's a point at which they come across another car parked on the left-hand side of the road.

It was abandoned for sure, since the owner would not have been able to proceed.

The Tesla, however, breezes through.

Making it to the dry stretch of road again. This is certainly not for the faint-hearted.

Elon Musk even tweeted about it saying 'Thrust via wheel rotation' is what gets the cars through.

But he doesn't recommend it either.

Maybe speedboats and automobile companies should collaborate and come up with amphibious design solutions for the times when roads become rivers.

A 'beard tax' probably seeded the shaving market

Shaving every day or every other day is now the accepted norm.

Starting off with cavemen who used clamshells to tweeze out individual hairs.

Must have taken them hours without the soapy lather or gel - not to speak of the sharp twinge of pain with each hair pulled out!

But beards through human history have waxed and waned depending on the style of the time. 

Imagine a profusion of males walking around with bushy long beards and morose looks. Hard to make out when they're smiling.

Peter the Great, a Russian Czar played a starring role in driving the change. After a two-year tour of Europe, he was so impressed with the clean-shaven looks of the Europeans, he made it the law in Russia.

He introduced a beard tax to ensure that people were clean-shaven and imposed fashion by diktat. This was back in the early 1700s.

Like passports and driving licenses today, every bearded male had to procure a token at a price. It looked like a small medallion and had to be shown to the 'Fashion police' who roamed the streets.

Peasants only had to pay a few kopecks, but nobles and military officers had to pay large sums as fines if they did not show 'proof of tax paid'.

This must have been one of the world's first tax avoidance schemes. Shave every day, to escape the tax.

And over the decades it became a daily habit.

We're still paying the tax. Except that it's now to the companies who enable smooth shaves, day after day!

Is there a bigger game behind Skater Girl on Netflix?

It ticks all the boxes for popular cinema.

The rags to riches story of a poverty-stricken girl.

Along with the run-ins with patriarchy and the small horizons children from remote villages can aspire to.

It's packaged with warmth and nostalgia.

Of a successful Creative Director returning to her roots in an Indian village from where her father migrated to the US. 

Her boyfriend, an ace skater follows her into the village. And they're on a mission to introduce children to the wonders of skating.

He goes ahead and buys skates for all of them and soon, the kids are creating havoc.

They disrupt the peace and quiet in the village with their boisterous exploits and are promptly sanctioned by the local authorities.

The compromise is to define where the children will skate and the land for the rink is donated by local royalty.

The building of the rink becomes a community affair and they're taught the 'moves' that will earn them fame and fortune.

The conflict is built around the girl's father who does not want her to spend time on frivolous pursuits.

But it all turns out well in the end.

So far, so good. But look at it from a marketing angle now. How do you introduce a sport that has no local fan following?

How do you build a new generation of stars? 

How do you make it about something larger than the person and equate it to a victory for womanhood?

Now, keep watching as skating tournaments and rinks sprout up across the country.

This was just the trailer.

Every week, I'll plant a few ideas in your mind on branding, behavior and markets. Triggers for your thoughts. Spread the word to your friends. All you have to do is click the link and enter an email address.

That's the premise Magic is working on.

It's not a password or a passphrase generator.

But aims to make life easy for both developers and users.

If remembering passwords is difficult for users, imagine the overload for developers who may have to login to hundreds of sites, over time. There's no way to memorise this, so the fallback is to go in for authentication through a trusted source.

Either locally through the browser or rely on massive entities like Google and Facebook.

The problem is not inconvenience alone. Password lock-in is a great way to ensure that users don't leave.

And migrating to another provider presents the same issues.

So, what is Magic doing differently?

First of all, it's decentralising the whole stack. And logins happen via 'magic' email links. No passwords required.

The user has a public key, which is the identifier. That is paired with a private key, stored in a blockchain, without which access is impossible.

This will probably be adopted by developers first because they understand technology better as well as the risks of getting hacked.

But there are sites like Medium, Slack and The Browser, which only ask for user emails and then send the login link. 

If more sites begin to enable this kind of login, it could create a domino effect. 

And the ties that bind us can finally be broken for good.

Should traffic lights remain simple?

They serve a clear purpose. Everyone who drives knows what they mean.

Can they be improved upon?

Of course they can. It's just three lights one below the other - and the only innovation has been to add some animation within the light or install countdowns.

The countdowns have been effective in getting people to be more compliant. And they'll watch it go down to zero and step on the accelerator the moment it turns green.

A Russian company has conceived of a new way to approach the design of the lights.

It's a single rectangular panel and the whole panel can change colour, so the visibility increases.

The panel can be divided into sections with a countdown meter at the bottom and programmed to show diversions, pedestrian crossings etc.

The real question is, how much more effective will it be? And are we trying to solve the wrong problem with design?

We know that coordinated signals between stretches to speed up traffic have not been successful beyond a point.

The new design conceptualizations introduce an element of novelty, for sure. And they look great. But it does nothing to drive compliance.

Designers see old and established ways of functioning as boring. They want to bring about change, for no other reason than the lights 'looking' predictable.

Maybe that's the point. Because right now, no one can hack a traffic light.

And that's a blessing.

Or do you feel differently?

A post-omelet story

What happens to all the eggshells after the eggs are eaten?

Well, they're coming back to decorate walls.

Around 250,000 tons of eggshells are discarded worldwide every year.

There are experiments being done with the waste to create dental implants because nature's materials are far more versatile but we're simply throwing it away.

Nature Squared, a company based in the Philippines is transforming it, as well as other bio waste from grass, seeds, bark, nuts, seashells, and feathers into useful building products like wall tiles.

They're hardy, easy to maintain and have a unique look and feel.

The project began with using waste from local bakeries to create the first set of tiles and when that worked out, they've expanded the horizon.

Collaborating with some of the leading luxury brands in the world to create finishes that withstand wear and tear as well as striking looks.

On the website are tiles that look like peacock feathers moulded into a tile, or the shine of seashells reflected on walls.

Some of the interiors of rooms on yachts look as if giant tapestries of dried leaves have been baked into the walls.

This is definitely a welcome trend.

When nature becomes fashionable, people will probably give it the respect it deserves.

Every week, I'll plant a few ideas in your mind on branding, behavior and markets. Triggers for your thoughts. Spread the word to your friends. All you have to do is click the link and enter an email address.

Quills made from bird feathers were some of the earliest writing instruments.

We graduated to fountain pens, which then gave way to disposable ball points.

A project on Kickstarter has raised way more money that requested.

And the strange thing is that it replicates the ancient way of writing with modern day machining techniques.

The instruments of inspiration go beyond the simple act of transferring thoughts to paper. 

We've gone all the way from tactile to virtual keyboards and then, some of us have hit the pause button.

It's as if we did not want a world in which everything was done within an environment you couldn't touch and feel.

It's not just writing. Vinyl records may not be the best reproductions of music. But they have a sound quality missing from the audio streams and the sales have been rising again.

In spite of E readers being so convenient, book lovers still want the tactile feel of books.

And back to pens. Here, artists can wield control again. The tip is available in 2 sizes and the choice of the body holding the modern 'quill' represents experiments with finishes and textures that give it a tactile quality suited to the artist's own sense of touch.

And that's the point - we should switch between the virtual and the real. 

Keep that divide alive because it keeps us in touch with the real world - and that's essential.

This fertiliser factory has millions of workers

But you can't see any of them

Some of the world's most essential crops - rice, and wheat require huge amounts of synthetic fertilisers.

Which is essentially nitrogen.

And over decades, farmers have had to steadily increase the number of fertilisers used to get the same yield.

The process of making nitrogen artificially is an energy-intensive process creating massive amounts of carbon dioxide.

The search for a natural alternative has been underway for decades.

When nitrogen is made by natural microbes, plants absorb it better. And there's simply no waste to dispose of.

The technology to create this at scale has been elusive.

But a company called Pivot Bio has found a way to get natural microbes to make nitrogen in the quantities that farmers require.

They had to isolate the microbes from the millions that are found in a single teaspoon of soil and determine if they were up to the task. Then create the conditions for them to replicate it in the lab.

The results have been impressive. The company has just raised $430 million in another funding round. And investors don't make such bets unless the technology is proven to work.

This may signal the move towards several bio-generated manufacturing processes, rather than the complex chemistry we've had to deploy.

It's as if we traveled a long way away from nature and are slowly finding our way back.

This could work far better than several carbon sequestration projects on the anvil.

How do you make it rain on stage, on cue?

We are in awe of amazing movie special effects but it's much harder to create real illusions on stage.

If you haven't heard of Es Devlin, here's an introduction.

She's a stage designer and the portfolio of work as well as the events she has conceived are almost unbelievable.

Watch Episode 3 from the series Abstract on Netflix (Season 1) and you'll understand how much goes into making things happen behind the scenes.

The amount of planning and split second execution required is surreal.

And the rain on stage did happen on cue - it wasn't even for a big name play. Just a small theater with an audience capacity of less than 100 people.

But she has also created spectacles for the big music stars.

She distils it beautifully when she explains how every minute has to be scripted but the audience will never know.

To paraphrase - The challenge is to focus the attention of an audience numbering tens of thousands of people on a single point - the performer. And the only way to do it is to play with light.

In the late 90s, I had watched a play on the Broadway stage - Miss Saigon. In the climax of the play, a helicopter descends on stage to rescue people on the ground.

The feeling was incredible - something no movie special effect has ever had.

I never Googled to find out how it was done. Some things are best left as mysteries.

Every week, I'll plant a few ideas in your mind on branding, behavior and markets. Triggers for your thoughts. Spread the word to your friends. All you have to do is click the link and enter an email address.

There's a point at which a game becomes a golden goose.

Then, the transformation happens because there's just too much at stake.

Everything from keeping audiences involved and TV rights that seem to touch stratospheres in every cycle.

The sheer passion with which cricket is still played in street corners and hot dusty grounds seems a whole world away from the global spectacle.

But money has a way of getting in the way.

What happened to baseball is now happening in cricket - as the article puts it, the Moneyball moment is here.

The old stats were about matches played, runs scored and centuries that added up.

Now, there are several layers folded into the mix.

The connections between the kind of balls bowled and the runs scored by hitting the ball to various parts of the ground.

And the fielding positions that either staunched the flow of runs or aided them - everything is studied by the computer's cold eye.

Hawk Eye and Virtual Eyes have had their eyes on matches since the early 2000s.

Marrying these points of data to predict possible outcomes is the next big thing.

It helped, of course, that cricket moved from the incredibly long 5 day tests, to the 50 overs match to the insanely popular T20.

That makes it more in line with football matches and being able to assess the flow of a game with batsmen, bowlers and fielders moving within fixed points creates patterns to map.

When data dominates the game, passion may have to take a back seat.

Do money troubles affect early child development?

There's a provocative research paper that relates how low-income households are at a disadvantage.

It’s related to a concept called the 'word gap'

Apparently, parents worried about regular incomes spoke far less to their children, especially towards the end of the month.

About three decades ago, researchers determined that children from these households hear tens of millions of less words spoken, compared to children from affluent households by the time they are admitted in school.

Does it matter?

Adults having financial problems tend to speak less to children - at least that's the pattern the research claims to have identified.

There's not enough detail on the sample size or the time period over which the research was conducted.

At an early age, children don't understand why money is important or the effects that it could have. What children from well-to-do households can take for granted, they cannot.

Some parents may be the strong, silent type. But they aren't contributing to their children's psyche.

The distress creates dissonance in homes. 

What seems to come through is that children are acutely aware that something is wrong, even while parents hide it from them.

They see themselves as different from the others and may develop coping mechanisms in response - cutting back on something they like. Or even by not asking for money.

It's as if they are forced to navigate a world and situations they aren't ready for.

A word handicap makes it even harder.

Subtitles are simple. Correct?

Wrong.

Let go through what comes into play when subtitles appear on screen - without going into the formats or the tech deployed.

First, some thoughtful UX moves. On Netflix and Amazon as well as the better OTT apps, the subtitles drop to the bottom of the frame when the progress bar disappears.

That ensures it does not cut into the action in the movie beyond a point.

For streaming platforms, the combinations can be overwhelming.

An English movie has subtitle options in 5-6 languages.

Now each of those languages have to be translated, encoded and available from the selection panel.

The size of the typefaces have to adjust to the device they are played on.

The subtitles on TV are among the ugliest because there are too many other factors to consider, and the viewer has less flexibility when operating the remote.

As streaming platforms attract viewers of films from multiple countries, the choice of subtitles gets even crazier.

And if you've watched YouTube's AI generated subtitles, you can see that real time display is still work in progress.

Imagine you're watching a Bengali film on OTT in Bangalore. Which languages should be available as subtitles? Local language plus English? And how many others?

The permutations and combinations required quickly add up when you introduce films from world cinema.

There are now dubbed options available but hearing the native language has an authenticity dubbed tracks can't match. Try it sometime and you'll hear the difference.

As to whether the subtitles are accurate translations, well, I'll leave that for a later post!

Every week, I'll plant a few ideas in your mind on branding, behavior and markets. Triggers for your thoughts. Spread the word to your friends. All you have to do is click the link and enter an email address.

When UX is done well, we barely notice.

When it is horrible, we not only notice - but we also get angry, frustrated and rant about it on social media.

What if you could experiment with bad UX?

Think of the worst ways to design an interface, so people have trouble getting anything done.

That's the experiment some programmers in Reddit tried out.

They asked for people to think of terrible ways in which the volume slider could be designed.

It started a firestorm of entries, and some are truly inventive.

Like the 'wobbling' slider. Every time you try moving the slider the entire panel tilts crazily like a seesaw. So, you can go from 80 to 0 and back to 100 in no time at all.

Or hilarious ones like the dice UX. You never know what you're going to get.

May be there is a lesson in all this.

Instead of trying to create great UX, you first do the most outlandish things.

And then, down the line, a great option will break through.

When we look at designs of great UX for inspiration, it's limiting. And people mostly imitate it.

When you ask them to intentionally do bad stuff, it's liberating.

And that's the point.

Unless you wade through a sea of mediocrity and terrible design, there's no way you'll arrive at something remarkable.

Try it on your next UX assignment.

What if happiness is anticipation?

Think about it.

When you have something to look forward to, there's a spring in your step.

And a gleam in your eye.

It could be a life-altering experience of a baby on the way.

And it's full of imagined future experiences, memories and how you plan to be a great parent.

Or a much smaller scale, take a trip you're planning with friends, months from now.

The anticipation builds with each of the exchanges you have in conversations, messages, the logistics and as the date approaches, the excitement builds.

The trip itself is great fun.

But then, you're worrying about how soon it will be over, and you need another bout of excitement in your life.

Or take career progression.

Entrepreneurs are driven by the anticipation of what they can achieve. It's how they become workaholics driven by impossible goals without pausing to see how it affects the rest of their life.

Or dial down to something as simple as anticipating a live concert from a favourite musician or tickets to a stand-up show.

In the days leading up to the performance, it's at the back of your mind, periodically pinging small rushes of dopamine.

You rarely question if the performances lived up to expectations because you're on to the next thing.

Apply this to all the things, big and small that you want to do and see if it fits.

Anticipation is that warm feeling of a build-up to something we are going to enjoy.

And maybe that's that the closest thing to being happy.

That was some sneeze!

A guy sits at a table.

He feels a sneeze coming on. A big one.

Then, there's a spurt of flame and all that's left is some clothes  and a cap on the chair.

You may not have heard of Kevin Parry.

But he's doing some great editing and special effects work on YouTube.

Found the channel through Kottke. But this work will earn him serious cred.

It's inventive and he's put in the work required on getting the details right.

He wears a yellow jumpsuit with a hoodie.

And falls forward towards the table, transforming at the last possible moment into a rocking banana.

What's surprising is how smoothly the transitions are executed

Like standing in the backyard with some melons around.

He jumps into the air and swivels.

As he lands, he transforms into a melon that shatters into pieces on the ground.

There's no jump cut in between. Or at least, it isn't evident.

There are several videos on TikTok that basically change the scale and size of objects. But this one is way above them in production values and humour - doesn't miss a beat.

They're homemade, given the setting. But this guy has what it takes.

And he goes on to share exactly how he achieves the effects - which gets lots of views as well. Let's see how far he goes.

Every week, I'll plant a few ideas in your mind on branding, behavior and markets. Triggers for your thoughts. Spread the word to your friends. All you have to do is click the link and enter an email address.

What if you could combine your current self with one from your childhood?

Or teen years.

Would it look like a father-son or a mother daughter picture?

Ard Gelinck does interesting things with celebrity portraits.

He merges their current look with a time difference of decades.

The effect is mesmerising.

While we see ourselves in the mirror each and every day, the gradual aging is never perceived - like a morph that happens in extreme slow motion.

Anyone with access to Photoshop or any image editing software could do it.

Take two pictures of the same person 20-30 years apart and combine them.

There's a sense of freezing time into a frame.

The celebrities that Ard Gelinck photoshopped were so happy with the effect, they shared it on their own Instagram stream.

The innovation is the natural interaction worked into two separate images.

Barack Obama jabs the cheek of the child he was ages ago

The adult Macaulay Culkin is almost unrecognisable as the young star of Home Alone.

Emma Watson from the Harry Potter films has grown into an assured and striking young woman.

This could be used to create a 'group' photo with the same person at various points in time in their life.

For once, time waits for man. Or women.

Maybe it's time to get back to handwriting

It seems regressive.

With teaching moving to smart boards and interactive lessons, handwriting has moved way down in the preferred list of teaching methods.

It probably needs to be prioritized.

In a study comparing students who learned a new language in 3 different ways - one set by handwriting, another set using typewriters and the third through video instructions, the students who wrote by hand outperformed the others.

Remember the time schools made students write copious notes of class lessons? On certain days, it would lead to cramps and stiff elbows.

But students were probably absorbing lessons better.

Thankfully writing is still an integral part of learning - and that should probably remain the norm.

But try getting children today to spend time practicing their handwriting and there will be huge resistance.

Typing, or even using voice to 'type' is so much easier.

One of the things we need to hardwire is that 'Easy come, easy go' applies to learning as well.

The work involved in learning a new subject or skill involves effort - and that should be underlined.

We're trying too hard to make learning 'easy' removing all the friction points in the fond hope that children will learn more if the process is made easier.

That's still a grey area. Because it's still not clear if interest alone will drive understanding.

How new concepts are absorbed and retained is still not understood. And that's where the focus should be.

The new game at Netflix

Netflix has got into gaming.

It’s another major move for the company that moved from CDs and DVDs to streaming to stay ahead of the market, not just the competition.

They started with video subscriptions in a market that made money out of late fees and destroyed the business of one of the most established players - Blockbuster.

Even after making a success of it, they moved into streaming technology and outgrew their existing model of mailing DVDs.

Within a few years, they scaled this across the world and built an entertainment colossus with over 200 million subscribers.

They spend billions on creating new content every year because the assets will continue to attract audiences far into the future.

As Reed Hastings once famously remarked - Sleep is their biggest competition.

So, this move should have been in the works for some years now.

Netflix has spent the past half-decade building a collection of exclusive TV series based on video game licenses, including animated series based on Castlevania, Dota 2 and a critically acclaimed, live-action version of The Witcher

The app to watch movies is already on millions of smartphones - all that's required is to give people the choice to play games as well.

And Netflix has confirmed the hire of an ex-EA and Oculus executive. Now, it remains to be seen if they can replicate or seamlessly move into a highly competitive category.

Every week, I'll plant a few ideas in your mind on branding, behavior and markets. Triggers for your thoughts. Spread the word to your friends. All you have to do is click the link and enter an email address.

It's as if they're made for each other.

Driving and music.

I find it monotonous to gaze out of windows in complete silence.

The music needs to be there. Its presence adding seasoning to the waxing and waning conversations within.

Back in college, we used to drive to a friend's estate which was over a couple of hours away.

The lush greenery on the route was dramatic with variations of green and patches of bright vivid colours breaking through the canopies overhead.

But the music comes rushing back as well.

It's like life needs background music - which is why it sounds natural in movies.

Back then, cars had to be fitted with 'cassette' and 'CD' players. It wasn't part of the standard features. You went to a mechanic who took a few hours to thread the wires, cut through the dashboard and fabric in car doors to install speakers.

All the controls were manual - from fast forwards to popping out the cassettes and flipping them over to hear songs on the other side.

Interior spaces in cars were strewn with cassettes and CDs stuffed into all available pockets.

There's something ethereal about the world slipping away and the twists and turns in the road being set to music. 

Hours of driving didn't seem to matter.

When some of those songs play on TV, they bring back a completely different set of memories.

The soundtrack of life being set by a choice of lilting or wistful melodies.

India joins the Silk rail route

These are long journeys

However, for cargo, it makes no difference

Paper products are now being shipped from Finland to India by rail

Earlier, I had written a LinkedIn post about Europe and China being connected by rail through Mongolia.

Various rail networks within countries are slowly snaking their way outwards.

Bringing a new dynamism to trade links that have existed for centuries.

New alternatives to shipping that are being built and extended throughout the world.

The surprising aspect is the time it saves.

What used to take 40 days to ship can now arrive at destinations in a couple of weeks - the Finland to Mumbai train is an example.

The possibilities of new trade links being forged also increases exponentially when goods only need to be shipped to the closest railway station, not a port.

The processes and paperwork need to evolve, of course.

But we've seen that trade is the great motivator.

Getting countries to sit down, negotiate and work out methods by which this can be managed.

We're seeing trade infrastructure evolve in new ways.

Some of it may threaten established shipping routes. But that is a long story and decades away.

It could even open up the romance of month-long train journeys for leisure passengers on holidays for which there may be possible demand.

Think of cruise ships and watching horizons of water as far as the eye can see in every direction.

On train journeys, the landscapes that unfold can be breathtaking.

The formula is fraying around the edges

How many crime shows and murder mysteries can you watch?

Especially the ones where the setup happens in the first five minutes and then the detective/police/lawyer has another 40 odd minutes to investigate, come up with twists and then grandly tie things up with a flourish?

The crime genre as well as the rom-coms and the dramedies are showing their age.

As well as the neatly packaged hospital dramas with their mysterious patients, doctor conflicts and nurses who flit in and out of the hospital rooms with clinical efficiency.

50-60 years ago, in the age when television first became popular, they ruled the airwaves.

There were exciting possibilities, and all kinds of combinations were explored.

A great set of actors and directors with a talented crew can still sustain interest but that's becoming the outlier, not the norm.

As production values scale, the plot points are finding it hard to break through the tried and tested, or even work around what audiences want and then deliver it time and again.

And while the storytelling and nuances have evolved, they still have to stick to the conventions of the formula

When you are binge watching to kingdom come, it's as if there's no shortage of brilliant films and serials to watch and enjoy.

The real question is whether there is a way out.

Maybe it is the human condition - we want variety but only within a certain range. 

Whether it is food or entertainment.

Every week, I'll plant a few ideas in your mind on branding, behavior and markets. Triggers for your thoughts. Spread the word to your friends. All you have to do is click the link and enter an email address.

We've heard the tales about simple scams

About millions to be routed through banks with minimal effort.

But scamming has evolved 

And here's one that shows you how deeply scammers think through their craft.

There's a fair amount of technical detail involved.

And I'm simplifying it as I understand - you're welcome to read the blog post link below to enjoy it at a programming level. Because turning the tables on scammers is always fun to read.

So, a guy is moving house and puts up his bed for sale on the Danish version of Craigslist. In the first few days, he gets hardly any responses.

Then, a WhatsApp message arrives. An offer to buy the bed and a link to Post Nord (the Danish equivalent of India Post) to receive the payment.

He is told they will pick up the bed and ship it as well - which makes things very convenient.

But when he is about to click on the link, he finds it's a decoy - a perfect copy of the site.

Now that he's understood the game, he adds a sneaky script to the form details - and scrambles the scammer's database by generating thousands of false combinations, wrecking his carefully built scam and making the database practically unusable.

The scammer may not have bargained for a tech guy to disrupt his scheme.

All those hours of careful plotting down the drain - and all because the techie detected the false notes.

In today's world, you can't afford to be careless. You have been warned.

Caution - plane crossing

We've seen traffic held up for trains to pass.

But there's an airport where the runway is right across one of the arterial roads.

Sounds impossible but it exists.

Gibraltar is too small to have enough space for a luxurious airport.

So, every time a plane comes in to take off or land, the roads have to be cordoned off.

Thankfully, there are only about 30 flights a week and mostly from Britain.

So, it's manageable at the moment.

This is a major constraint - and the airport obviously has no room to expand beyond a point.

However, this is no chicken and egg story.

It was constructed in the late 1930s as an emergency airport for Britain's Royal Navy during the second World war.

And that replaced the existing race course!

So, there was a shortage of space even back then and priorities had to be decided.

And the city grew around it.

Are film courses worth the money?

They are among the most expensive.

And teach students all aspects of the craft.

Unfortunately, the costs of doing the courses can be huge, especially from private colleges.

Columbia's graduate program costs nearly $200,000 - that's probably the budget of several small Indian short films!

This is an eternal debate. Can film making be taught or is apprenticeship a better option?

In India, successful directors attract hordes of 'assistants'

They'll flash by in the end credits of the film but life can be really hard.

Doing everything from hard labour on the sets to putting up with the whims and fancies of stars.

But over time, they build a network with the crew across all disciplines and get to build relationships in the industry.

It's not a fixed course schedule - and to a large extent, they have to hitch their wagon to a director and hope that they will continue to make films and succeed.

And eke out a hard life while having starry dreams.

The clichés abound about stars having to struggle for success. But every department in the film world has to find ways to survive while improving their craft. Right from set design to sound engineering to location hunting and casting.

That's possibly the reason why the high-priced courses at universities don't get graduates too far.

Unless they have made films on their own, they've acquired theoretical knowledge - but not the experience.

And that cannot be taught.

Every week, I'll plant a few ideas in your mind on branding, behavior and markets. Triggers for your thoughts. Spread the word to your friends. All you have to do is click the link and enter an email address.