Blasphemy - Tehmina Durrani

Blasphemy is a heart wrenching, soul stirring book about the depths of human depravity. Considering the book is (large) part fact and (little) part fiction, I only hope some of the stories of incest and violence are the parts which are not completely true.

In a largely well-written book, there are some lines that resonate deep within. At one point she makes the astute observation that only minor mistakes are big crimes, while sustained and horrific incidents of incest, rape and cruelty are accepted as a way of life.

In the few days after reading this book, i felt that my problems were really small compared to what hundreds of other women have to put up with, but this insight can only really impact me in the short term. Our minds operate within a frame of reference, and we always judge what we want by what we have always had. If you expect me (or anyone) to be happy with their lot in life because 'it could have been much worse', then we might as well retort by saying 'it could have also been much better'.

It is as easy to feel sorry for a 20-year old single mother as it is difficult to feel happy for a really successful 25-year-old! Other's lives can be judged by who they are and where they have come from, and similarly, we can judge our own lives only by all the experiences we have had

This book also wonderfully brings out how we are the masters of our own happiness. The protagonists marital bed was a hell hole for her, but a tool of power for another in her place.

Overly explicit in parts, and (i can only hope) exaggerated too, this book tells it like it is. A must-read for women because there are some things that only a woman can understand about this book

Blackberry outage and the lesson in it for us

Blackberry services have been erratic over the last 3 days - to say the least. No one is quite sure what brought it all on, but people in the know have indicated that this was expected to happen, sooner than later. Apparently, the servers of BB (as it is affectionately called by die hard loyalists), were wilting under the pressure of increased, and unanticipated user activity. Apparently, the in-house techies had tried to raise the red flag on this a few months ago, but the bosses had decided to keep pushing their luck.

We event managers keep pushing our luck - how we can be such incurable optimists beats me. I have lost count of the number of times that people don't report small activity glitches to a client on the assumption that they will not visit that particular activity location - after all, considering the number of locations in total, the odds are weak.

What separates the really effective and successful event managers from the rest is the determination to beat Murphy, at his game. I would go by the maxim - if I can fix anything, I will (whether the client is looking or not). Its simple, it works, makes you feel like a star at trouble-shooting, and, by a stroke of luck, if the client finds out - you've got him for life!

The truth is that no one, not even the biggest guys in the business are infallible. Our past performance can take us some distance, but at the end of the day - you are only as good as your last event.

Crowd sourcing, events and how the cookie crumbles

Here are brands (and social media gurus) that are crying themselves hoarse about products that have been developed using crowd-sourcing as the main inspiration. YAWN! we (the Indian events guys) have been doing this for years, quietly and efficiently.

How many times have we created a theme song 'LIVE', with inputs from a live audience. lyrics are contributed by the audience, an efficient copywriter puts together a couple of verses inspired by the contributions, and a prominent musician puts a tune to it. The anthem sounds good, the brand team pat themselves on the back, the audience gushes at their new-found lyrical abilities and we have a success on our hands.

Now here is where I begin to worry. Why were we one of the first to adopt crowd sourcing, and about the last to scale it up, specially when events and BTL are about understanding the pulse of the audience? Here is an idea

We are always looking for new and exciting event properties to create. How about a concept called 'We are the Party'. We encourage youngsters (movers and shakers among students and the hip crowd in general), to come up with the kind of micro-events that they and their pals would like to attend. Like a party on an aircraft  or a stand-up act or anything for that matter. Something which they just do not have the wherewithall to organise themselves. They viral their idea and generate WOM in their circles to get people who would like to buy tickets to the event. The property comes to life  - they give the idea and get the audience, we get sponsors and the act. The anchor (who came up with the idea and got his friends to sign up) gets a share of proceeds, and we have a hugely PR-able idea on our hands.

Never mind my rambling, Im sure you get the drift. Someone do something along these lines...please. Our industry needs it.

Dare I say Social Media is a fad!

Nothing Beats the Real Thing. It's that simple.

I read a very interesting article on www.warc.com today. It was an article on social media fatigue. They quoted a Gartner research that revealed that about 24% of respondents across 11 markets use their favourite social network sites less often than they initially did. Not surprising.

I mean, what kind of a person would rather watch AR Rehman (or the Black Eyed Peas or anyone else) on a live stream than go to a concert?! The same holds true for practically any experience - from watching a Wimbledon match to catching up with a friend. Even clients would rather call for a face-to-face meeting than close deals over a video conference.

There is an undeniable magic to live, personal experiences that can not be matched in the virtual world. The euphoria of being inches away from star players at a cricket match; the adrenaline rush from being in an actual, physical race etc. can only be experienced in a physical space and time. So what makes below-the-line experiences evergreen?

1. The senses: The more senses an experience involves, the more likely it is to stay with you, longer. I would even go as far as to say the impact of an experience grows exponentially with the every additional sensory involvement. When I watch something being cooked on Youtube, for example, just because I can't smell it, does not mean that I don't smell anything. In fact while my attention is directed towards what I am watching, my sense of smell is exposed to whatever is in my physical environment. So, not only does my virtual experience 'miss out' on the chance to include the sense of smell, it also faces the threat of that sense becoming a distraction to the 'video experience' as a result of whatever olfactory stimulus exists in my physical environment.

2. The sensation of 'surround': If I am immersed in my experience in such a way that I am physically surrounded by it, it creates a much more lasting impact than if all the stimulus is received from in front of me. When I interact with a screen, what I see, hear and feel, is most likely unidirectional. It is all right there in front of me. In a 'real' experience, everything surrounding me is the experience

3. Size matters: Close on the heels of the 'surround' argument, is the the logic that size matters. A virtual experience is limited to the size of the screen with which I am interacting. A physical experience is all around me in it's actual size. There is no escaping it!

4. 'Real' is more 'social': A 'real' or 'physical' experience needs me to be more physically involved than in a virtual experience. Most often, a physical experience needs me to walk more, talk more, move more and be conscious of the way I carry myself because there are others observing me in a social environment.

Having said all that, virtual, social media has 2 distinct advantages - geographical reach and sheer numbers. But with all the might of both these things...it still does not stand a chance against experiential marketing

When EEMA decided to Kill-the-Darlings

EEMA (Event and Entertainment Management Association) is a fabulous attempt at bringing a highly fragmented industry together. In this very short span since its inception, the association has made a headway on several fronts; taking up the permissions issue with the government, giving inputs on event education etc.

The recently concluded EEMAGINE conference was another fine example of the good work being done by EEMA. The content was pithy and entertaining. The sessions covered everything of interest, and there was something in it for everyone. So we had sessions on relatively new avenues like sports marketing and getting press for your event, while also covering age old issues like risk management and music licensing. yet there was not a boring moment. They remembered to 'kill the darlings'. 

'Kill the darlings' is a phrase often used in literary circles to mean the elimination of superfluous content by the authors even if they are emotionally attached to it. William Faulkner popularised this concept when he spoke of eliminating words that are unnecessary, no matter how attached you are to them because of the effort that you (as the author) have put into creating/carefully choosing them. The 'authors' of the EEMAGINE convention have done just that. I imagine they chalked out all that needs to be discussed in the BTL universe (and there must have been many!), then they worked out the relationship each of the issues had with each other. They picked those topics that were intrinsically woven into a story, one that somewhere involved all the individual topics. It is almost as if they chose only those topics that were separated from any other by a maximum of a single degree of separation. If the connection was too tangential, then they just eliminated it, no matter how close it might have been to them or how much time they had invested in considering it.

The well scripted conference ended on a great note with the announcement of the EEMAX awards. Considering how hard the industry works, it seems only fair that there be some light at the end of the tunnel. The awards were mostly won by the usual suspects, but what was encouraging was the odd gold being won by a lesser known agency. 

It's heartening to see that organised thought is greater than an unorganised industry.

Nothing plagues the Indian event industry like plagiarism

Ever stopped to think why clients, who consider plagiarism to be among the most serious of offenses when it comes to their corporate products, think nothing of lifting ideas off a great event pitch presentation...and handing them over to their 'trusted' agency to execute? There are two possible explanations. 

The first is that they believe that it can't be a particularly serious offense in the BTL industry considering that the agency at the receiving end of the idea-theft comes right back to the same client (for the next project) in the hope of eventually being awarded the business. After all it is a big client, and in a industry where the agencies' earning is a percentage of the billing, size does not only matter, it's everything. The second reason is the event industries' failure to put a cost to intellectual property. The prospect of copying something that has no financial value specifically assigned to it, does not seem to be a particularly serious offense - it's not like it's costing the agency anything! 

There are several possible ways to get around this problem, each more difficult to realise than the other! For one, the big players in the industry can come together and develop a cost structure for pitch presentations. Another possibility is for an organised body like the EEMA to develop a common legal services wing that takes up such issues. Whatever the route we take, what seems insurmountable is getting BTL agencies to agree on a modus operandi and putting in precious time and money to make it happen.

The history of the formation of the earliest unions show that an occurence of catastrophic proportions is what it takes for people who have been wronged for years to stand up and speak out. Trade unions, for example, originated in Europe, during the Industrial revolution of the 18th century, when the employers' bargaining power catapulted because of the sheer volumes of unskilled labour looking for employment.

Makes me wonder when we will have our own 'industrial revolution'...if that is what it takes