What therapy tells us about people

Therapy has never been as relevant as it has been now in these lockdown times of Covid. Often understated, this time by ourselves is leading to enough self-introspection to reach out to that therapist, life coach, best friend, or even perfecting that sourdough bread that may as well be called coronoabread going by the number of posts by people trying their hand out at baking bread.

But when it comes down to what really feels therapeutic, the coronabread is not the only option. People are dabbling with dancing, painting, and maybe even doing the dishes!

It’s a little surprising though, that what feels therapeutic for one person, may even be stressful for another. Dishes for example is a huge source of stress for many people. For me though, this is therapeutic. And I’m not alone here. Bill Gates himself does this, and he’s clearly not short of people or machines who could do this for him.

What is it that makes doing the dishes therapeutic for people like us, and coronabread for the others?

To understand this, we need to know the operations of System 1 and System 2 in the brain. System 1 is the operations of the limbic brain while System 2 is the neocortex brain. All mammals have the limbic brain which gives us basic emotions like fear, hunger or even having sex. Humans are blessed with the neocortex or the cognitive brain that gives us rational thought processing and made us all-powerful.

However, we give the neocortex too much credit. We tend to believe that our neocortex is operational through most of our waking day, but in truth, the neocortex is only marginally more active when we are awake than we are asleep. It is the limbic brain that remains most active even when we are awake.

Continuously operating the neocortex is exhausting. Which is why, it is a default mode for us to quickly find the best way to operationalize or standardize a task, so that the limbic brain can take over, giving our brain the rest it always craves for.

Increasing the operations of the neocortex is of course possible, and there are two ways to do this. Through meditation, which is akin to a sharpener if our neocortex were the pencil. Or through performing tasks that use up our limbic brain, so that it is well rested enough to then fire the neocortex.

Yuval Noah Harari meditates 2 hours a day, which gives him enough brain power to write books like Sapiens and Homo Deus, and then some to even write 21 lessons that nobody wants to read. Bill Gates does the dishes so that he has defaulted to his limbic brain for long enough to figure the solution to the corona crisis.

Given most of us don’t meditate, since the results appear a lot slower than the cuts on your biceps after a month of bicep curls, we tend to use the limbic brain more, thereby leading to tasks that are in effect, therapeutic for us.

The limbic brain is as different for us as our neocortex is. Just as how the neocortex for one person is sharpened to Jave code, while for another it is playing Fornite, the limbic brain also differs in the exact same way. For one person it is painting, for another it is dishes.

The reason for this difference goes down to the fundamental operations of our brain. When it comes to the dishes, there is a certain geometry and arrangement involved, and this lies in the limbic for some people, while when it comes to painting, it is the brush strokes that lie in the limbic.

It is up to each of us to identify what exactly it is that fires System 1 and therefore makes this therapeutic for us. But the bottomline is, it can be very different for each of us.  

Why Marketeers will be one of the last to go in the age of automation

That’s a pretty bold statement when marketeers are being laid off by the dozen around me. But the way I see it, technology is freeing up so much of our time, much like many other professions, that it has freed enough time from the job of an erstwhile marketeer, to no longer require a fulltime human resource to do that job.

This is what is leading to the layoffs of marketeers currently, since you can combine 2-3 jobs into a single fulltime resource. And this figure may only get worse off as technology improves. The most recent technological disruption I noticed was the Voice Automation by Microsoft.

Microsoft has subtly created the best speech-to-text software ever, and somehow nobody is talking about it. We are all familiar with Amazon through Alexa, Apple through Siri and even Google through their voice search and maps. But Microsoft has built in their feature in their business chat app of Microsoft Teams, and in my experience, it outperforms anything else I have seen before.

There is the perfect capture of words, grammar and punctuation. Apple and Google don’t even come close to this. And what has this tiny feature done? Make that marketing intern who used to take minutes of meetings redundant.

This is just one example. As technology improves, we would have RPAs for all tracking and monitoring, machine learning algorithms for programmatic media buying, and maybe even AIs for creative judgement.

But there is one key task of the marketeer that may be held out by machines for a long time, and this is insight generation.

To understand this better, we first need to understand that all tasks can be bucketed under logic or magic. Logic is straightforward. If a set of inputs give a desired output, then the inputs can be coded in order to generate that output at all points in time. These are the operational tasks that all of us do. Magic is more complex, it’s what the creative ones around us do. But today, you have AI composing music and painting canvases. So even magic can be coded to some extent.

The complications arise when you have a combination of magic and logic. And this will exist in many professions, and it is what will retain some humans at work. An extreme example is that of a doctor. Technology may replace every prognosis, diagnosis and even surgical operations that a doctor does, but when you want the news of a terminal illness delivered to you, you’d rather it be from a human than a machine.

Therefore, jobs that involve a healthy mix of logic and magic will continue to exist for a long time. And the specific task of insight generation by the marketeer, is such a potent mix of logic and magic, that it will be a while before a machine learns to do that.

To explain this simply, it took a marketeer to tell us that dirt is good. Fabric wash started as a simple cleaning product for clothes and then evolved into brands that communicated one of the only three benefits with washing clothes; whites, brights and perfume. But when everyone started saying the same thing, the only differentiator came when Surf said dirt is good. This is pure insight. It unlocked creative messages, broke the shackles of functional benefit communication, and brought out consumerism at its best; make us feel good about buying something, even it is just a pack of fabric detergent!

This is the job of a marketeer, and will remain as the only relevant job of a marketeer as machines take over the rest. But they will still not make the marketeer redundant, because there happens to be this one peculiar task of insight generation that involves both magic and logic, and also because spending money is the surest dopamine fix that we as humans will always need as a species.

Therefore, just as sure as we will need doctors so long as we remain mortal, we will also need marketeers as long as consumerism exists. 

And yes, that would make marketing one of the last professions we lose out to automation.

Time to make a difference; Unilever vs Coronavirus

This situation of Coronovirus today reminds me of the lockdown I experienced once in Mumbai. It was the time terrorists took over the Taj Gateway hotel, forcing a military shutdown of the neighborhood which included the erstwhile Hindustan Unilever office, and the guesthouse where I stayed.

I was stuck to my room as it was unsafe to even step out, let alone visit office. This was a time when Skype and Netflix didn’t exist, to allow you to work or pretend-work from home. Thankfully I had just copied all seasons of Boston Legal from a friend onto my shoebox size 10gb HDD. And spent the 4 days locked in at home, doing nothing else but watching these shows.

Times are different now. The lockdown is for an entirely different reason, and most importantly, likely to go on for far longer than 4 days.

I can once again choose to work or be tempted to turn on that TV that is so easily accessible.

But it occurred to me, that there cannot be a time more important than now to work harder than we ever have.

It is a time such as now, when the simple addition of hot water to a pack of Knorr soup, can provide a meal both tasty and nutritious to compensate for those empty shelves of fresh produce at grocery stores.

It is this time that consumers more than ever need to practice personal hygiene through handwashes and hand-sanitizers.

It is also the time to bring a smile on our faces with a treat such as an ice cream when we’re hauled up in the confines of our house.

And if we don’t go to work at this time, we are at best denying people of their sanity, and at worst, increasing the queues outside hospital doors.

We’re always saying how our work is not brain surgery or rocket science, but it is this time when it happens to be just as serious as all those scientists and doctors working hard to find a solution to this, because we are the ones who can hold fort until such a solution is made available en masse.

So I realized we have to make those virtual meetings happen, take those extra precautions while making sales calls or running the factory line, but work harder than we ever have, to prevent an H.G. Wells situation of the War of Worlds happening to our own species instead of aliens.

It’s time now to practice what we’ve always preached.

It’s time now to make a real difference.

What is home?

A question of such simplicity and relevance, but manages to evoke a wide variety of responses from people. From a place where you see your family, to a place where you sleep best, home can be so many things. 

I tried capturing 4 basic elements that can define a home:

1)     Home is the base for mobility

This one is borrowed from an article I read, and the term ‘base for Mobility’ sounds like an oxymoron, but it makes a lot of sense. Like the hub of a hub-spoke model, you always go back to the hub to re-route to your next destination. Home does that for us, both physically and mentally. From the Hub you recharge your batteries and then decide which is the next destination to head to. The Hub is also the place where you are mentally in the best frame of mind to reach out to the people you want to connect with. Therefore, home has both physical and mental manifestations.

2)     Home is where the inanimate extensions of your personality reside

Have you ever noticed how the simple placement of your personal coffee mug on a work-desk suddenly makes that desk your own? Home is a lot like that. You place all those things that represent you as an individual around you, and suddenly, even a hotel room could be your home.

3)     Home is where you are valued

Like a phrase I once read, ‘you go where you are invited, but stay where you are valued’, and this is completely true for home as well, since that is the place where you are truly valued. Even the bed in your house values you enough to lend you the best sleep you can get. Everything in your home values you as an individual, both people and things that reside there.

4)     Home is your center of gravity

Just as how the carrying of a heavy rucksack can temporarily destabilize you, home is where you always need to go back to, in order to find that stability. Once you are home and stabilized and grounded, you are ready to now carry the metaphorical rucksack towards your next activity.

Well, that’s me. 
What is home for you? 

Lessons from an Apple presentation

1)     Set the supremacy context

a.      Making statements like “we’re not the number 1 smartwatch in the world, we are the number 1 watch period” energizes the audience right at the start of the presentation.

b.      This keeps them engrossed to hear what got them here, and more importantly, what’s going to keep them here.

2)     Land one big reveal

a.      Every Apple launch is studded with one big feature that no other device offers, and somehow becomes the staple of the market once they’ve come out with it.

b.      Face recognition, finger print recognition, smartwatch, touch screen, going back all the way to GUI and the mouse, Apple has always set the standard in electronic device features, and this time was no different with the ECG feature on the Apple watch.

c.      Apple watch becomes the first OTC device to measure ECG, something doctors have struggled prognosing so far given the time gap between the moment the patient experiences a symptom to the moment their statistics are recorded.

3)     Celebrate the incremental achievements

a.      Most Apple features are just incremental changes, but they’re still always celebrating them, crediting the teams that have turned these around in just one year, a time frame that is almost impossible to achieve even the smallest packaging change where I work.

b.      9x faster core processing, 1/10 the power usage, 30% bigger screen size; some of these sound too technical, and possibly not even noteworthy, but just think about the last time your own organization presented something that changed a trajectory by 30%! In Apple’s case, its almost the base level increment, while most things move in x factor like 9x and 0.1x

4) Be the change you wish to see outside

a.      Being purposeful is part of the vision statement for most organization and brands right now, but what's rare to see is how this is internalized before going outright with activations - MCD with the reversed arches on Womens Day is a classic case of backfiring when the organization isn't authentic about their purpose
b.   In the case of Apple, being authentic to their sustainability is showcased through a number of actions like the the zero carbon footprint office space they have created and by installing the robot (very nicely called Daisy) to disassemble iPhones to reuse or recycle them as required

5)     Finish with an encore

a.      Just when you think you’ve heard it all, Apple comes up, “oh, by the way..”. They’ve done this with the Apple watch in the past, and this time it was the iPhone XR; the phone to democratize the X experience with the lower price point of $750.

b.      The price point of $750 sounds ludicrous for something to be democratized, but then again, you know people will still stretch themselves to still go ahead and buy it.

c.      The X UI is going to be commonplace in the coming months.  Will be interesting to see what Apple does to further stretch themselves in the next releases. My guesses are speech recognition and a completely sealed phone (no charging point therefore).

Catch of the day

Hooked a chunk of beef as bait on the other end of the flexible Baracasha wood fishing rod, since this was no ordinary fish, but the deadly piranha we were hunting. 

Within seconds of lowering the line, there was a tug, but the rod came back up with just the bait missing. 

Hooked another chunk of beef. Same result.
Repeated this more than 20 times. 

This was not just a deadly, but a really smart piranha. 

Began wondering if the activity is piranha fishing or piranha feeding!

Just when the boatman said it’s our last 5 minutes, there was a tug again, but this time, the tug didn’t disappear as quickly as it did the last 20 times. 

This one was a religious repeated tug. This was man vs beast now. 

Reeled the line quickly back in to find one of the deadliest of all piranhas, the red bellied piranha, with teeth so razor sharp that the Yagua cheiftain used one on these to sharpen his arrows. 

Once we got back, there on my lunch platter was the piranha that troubled me all morning, lying harmless and delicious. A true catch of the day.

Kolkata: Bangdu Wedding

This was our first unofficial trip to Kolkata. We thankfully had one before while working on a project together in office way back in 2010, and wanted to make a personal trip ever since, and this is how it finally happened.

We got to Kolkata on Jan 23, Monday afternoon, a little too late for the fancy 6 Ballygunge lunch that Boka planned with everyone, and a little too early for the Sundown party with the to-be married couple.
So Geet and I caught lunch at a place called Malgudi, right opposite Relax Inn hotel where we stayed, and turned out to be just what the doctor ordered as we got hot Rasam, which was perfect for the sore throat I've been nursing.

By 'sundown', the boys got ready in their blacks with white shoes that we'd planned and headed to Nocturne.
I had prepared a video for Bangdu and Nocturne offered a nice big screen to show it, but that was the end of the benefits the club offered, as I went literally insane trying to get the video to actually play.
First it wouldn't work off my laptop as the DJ only had HDMI cables that my laptop wasn't compatible with. So we arranged another laptop, but then realised my office laptop screws up any pen drive I insert into it. So only option was to upload the file and then download on the other laptop. Now I had to do this twice coz our fancy DJ needed Audio and Video files separately.
Anyway, while in the process of transferring, the second laptop runs out of charge, so now I had to get a third laptop, and repeat the whole process again. By this time lots of people were trying to help, including Mihir who was risking his life holding the laptop charger within the socket given a loose connection to ensure the transfer happens.
After all of that, the DJ plays the files separately, introducing a lag that ruined the output. I anyway was too tired to care by then and just glad I got the video out of the way.

But then, I went and shot a mannequin after that, which actually turned out well, so there began my video editing work right again.

Anyway we sat up a bit at Relax Inn after that till Thakur went nuts and then called it a night, only to hear him break the door next to ours trying to get Kataria out to join him for a drink. What a seriously insane guy!

Next day we rushed to the venue for Baarat which was to start at 9am, but only after a mouth watering road side breakfast of Poori Bhajji and Jalebi.
Bangdu soon came on a Harley Fat Boy and we danced around till he wed Poonam.
Lots of photos later, we got back to Relax Inn as the last of the friends to leave the venue and Geet immediately left shopping with (thankfully) Ritika for company while I caught some shut eye and thankfully a slightly better situation to attend a very fancy reception at Calcutta Golf Club where we had to choose between cuisines rather than dishes that were on offer.

After much Japanese and Punjabi food with Bengali sweets and chaat, we called it a night to get back to work straight the next day. However, Bangdu dropped in to give us our return gifts which ensured I only slept 2 hours before work; but well worth the wait as he doled out some really fancy silverware.
Perfect finishing touches to an already perfect wedding.