The truth is out there

What are the threads that connect star gazing, birding and people-watching? Besides curiosity of course. 

Last weekend I spent some time trailing an astronomer and a bird watcher as these two different people went about their work. Some fascinating connections emerged between their domain of work and mine. 

But the truth does not come with a label

To the uninitiated a statement like ‘Let's go star gazing or bird watching’, creates a mental image, an expectation that whatever one is out to see would be ‘out there’ right in front of your eyes, magnified, labelled and perhaps within enough range to be able to take a praiseworthy picture. If there are interconnections the trajectory for those would also be chalked out. The expectation then is to experience space as one would in a planetarium or a forest bird as one would in a documentary. 

The reality is quite the opposite. One can spend hours and not find anything noteworthy. Worse still, one could be amidst a group of people some of whom point to rare sightings of birds and constellations, while others feel frustrated or foolish since they are not able to see what the others have been able to. 

What I gathered is, whether it is a behavioural insight or a constellation or a rare bird, while it is ‘out there’, it could be distant, could be very well camouflaged amidst the noise, and will definitely not come with a neat little label or a spotlight shining on its head. Hence while it is there, it is seldom visible to an untrained eye - even on a clear night sky or in the middle of a forest with birds aplenty 

One has to seek out the truth. 

And technology (whether it was a telescope or a sophisticated lens or a data-churning tool) does not make the process of discovery any easier. In fact quite the contrary - it is the human, the expert whose senses (eyes, ears, brain) have got attuned to the nuances of that search will spot it first. It is the human expert who makes the interconnections between the call of the bird, the direction it comes from, and correlates it with the subtle movements around the trees and hypothesizes something is there. Technology only does the job of amplifying it.  

Like a forest or the star-filled sky, a new subject of research feels overwhelming at first. One does not know where to start, or how big, wide or deep the problem is. But there are always markers - like the twin stars that signal the constellation of Gemini is somewhere close or the three in a row to signal one has landed on Orian. In a social problem too, the Polaris will make its presence felt by something that one hears repeatedly at different points of time in a discussion or from different individuals. That is when one has landed on the first marker which has the potential to unravel the rest. 

The truth which is not definitive

Everyone looked at the same sky or forest but everyone saw different things. Often a single question that someone asked would trigger off an animated discussion on subjects ranging from culture, and history to philosophy. We spotted the twin stars - Arundhati and Vashishta through the telescope, not visible to the naked eye. As part of a ritual, these two stars were shown to newlyweds as an auspicious symbol of a supportive marriage. This triggered the discussion about - whether there would have had telescopes in marriage halls. The fact that they could spot these stars in earlier times without any equipment meant they had perfect vision and clearer skies which we do not have today due to light pollution apart from air pollution. How electricity has altered our bio-rhythms and maybe distant gazing also kept their vision healthy in earlier days. 

If we would have spotted another constellation that day and not the Big Dipper that the twin stars were a part of, our discussions would have turned in a different direction. 

When we study a subject in research, at any point we unearth only a part of the overwhelming complex truth about it. And what we end up understanding depends so much on the questions we chose to ask. At a different time, the same phenomenon being studied would reveal a new dimension or facet of the truth. Nothing is constant in nature and in life too people think differently about the same subject depending on the filters they use. Like it is with the universe, so it is with the human mind, it is only over time can we start piecing the puzzle together. 

If we do not know what we are looking for, we don't end up finding anything. 

The last lesson from the trip was to define the success criteria at the outset. 

While trailing the birder who was deftly spotting and photographing birds, if we had defined our success criteria as being able to spot as many birds as he does or as quickly as him, we would not have accomplished anything since the landscape is so dynamic - a bird sits on a tree for not more than a few seconds. 

Hence very quickly, we reframed our success criteria - we were there to learn now what he spots but how he spots them. My focus shifted from watching the birds to watching him and his reflexes and later questioning him about how he recognizes bird calls or differentiates one type of eagle from another from a distance. 

At the end of the research, very often there is a sense of overwhelm with all that one has heard and read. The overdose of information can almost create a sense of inertia in decision-making. At such times, the success criteria defined before one can start the journey act as beacons of light to help a weary traveller navigate one's way back home. 

Hope the next time you are out there people-watching or culture gazing some of these thoughts return to your mind and add to your meaning-making experience. 

Until next time, when I stumbled upon some more random dots that connect and unravel a constellation of thoughts.

Monkey see - monkey do

What are the dots that connect the broken window theory, unique baby names and a 200-square-foot cafe on a high street in the city? Behavioural scientists called it the ‘social nudge.’ In common parlance it is described as monkey see - monkey do :)

There is a (relatively) new cafe on 12th Main, Indiranagar. It is unlike the regular cafes that seem mostly empty, with inviting interiors and where one can spend many hours just looking outside the window. 

Instead, this one has a crowd of people not less than 50, on weekends it could easily go up to 100 standing outside, jostling for space for their share of their morning idli. Whenever I passed by, I always wondered what is so special about their idli? Turns out, many others think like me. I had a neighbour who travelled 12 km one Sunday morning to unravel this mystery. She did not come back with any revealing insights. The idli was the same as any other. Many days later, I happened to make a pit spot there. I noticed the cafe operates from a space that was 200 sq. feet. They have a partially open kitchen and a cash till. So by default, anyone who is a customer is standing in the outside space. They save on high street rents and also pull the crowds by the sheer number of people crowded there. Because monkeys see - monkeys do. Their crowds spill over onto the 12th Main. I guess that must have prompted them to rent out the space occupied by Naturals next door. A win-win for both. One business gets space, the other gets footfalls. 

Coming back to the ‘social nudge’ - what makes it such an interesting idea is while it is powerful, to unravel the power of a social nudge to create a desirable outcome, one has to wade through the sticky terrain of social norms, before one can taste sweet success. In some cases, like for the cafe business owners it could have been happenstance. How do we create this intentionally?

Norms become hardwired and become like the holy cow that no one questions. They are right because everyone is following them and because everyone is following them, these ideas start to seem even more right. Is there a circuit breaker that we could use to initiate behaviour change?

There is a school of thought that believes if we dig deep and think hard, we will stumble upon that one disruptive thought that would somehow create a behaviour change. I am not from that school of that and hence I don't believe there is a secret sauce that will do the trick. What instinctively makes sense to me and what I have seen over and over again is that like the wheels of time, the wheels of change also turn slowly. 

Overnight changes do happen but those are triggered by disasters staring at us in the face. We all learnt to wash our hands and wear a mask. People still do, which reveals another aspect of behaviour - that once behaviour change takes on a certain momentum it is difficult to expect a sudden halt or reversal. 

So what can break a default thinking/doing pattern? I got this answer from a Potato Trader in Agra who shared his native business wisdom as part of the interview I did with him. Stay with me!

The business of trading in perishables is not for the faint-hearted. Fortunes are made and can get wiped out overnight. What set him apart from the rest was his mindset. He said, “If I suffer a loss of 2 lakhs today from my potato business, I will find a way of recovering the money from the same business.” It sounded over simplistic at first but when he explained how; it made complete sense. He was living the maxim problems and opportunities are two sides of the same coin.  

The potato-trader logic made me realise - If any aspect of social behaviour has got intensified due to norms, the way to initiate momentum in a new direction would also come from creating new social norms.

It cant be just information or a catchphrase that creates the shift. If that were the case we would all have coloured hair by now because we are all worth it! 

The social behaviour comes from a belief (not a fact) 

Fact: 90% of Brain Growth Happens Before Kindergarten. 

Belief: Brain = learning and learning = read/write/recite numbers and words

Behaviour: Making children read and write as early as 3

The fact points to the idea that at that age play and exploration contributes to brain development. But the mental model (how we make sense of the world) that is based on a bouquet of beliefs gets in the way.

Mental model: 

Some of the mental models around learning that we have internalised over the years 

1. Memory strengthens by retrieval. Retrieval only works if there is something to retrieve. This is why we need books, teachers and classes. 
2. Knowledge grows exponentially. How much you’re able to learn depends on what you already know. (If my child learns the alphabet and numbers before entering school, once he is there he will be able to build on this foundation)
3. Practice at a task makes you better at it. (Hence make the child do the same reading and writing again and again)
4. Success is the best teacher. We learn from success more than we do from failure (hence stick to the tried and tested and do not venture into unchartered territories) 

Unsurprisingly, despite so much information about brain development in early years linked to play, parents and even schools still make little children read and write. And while a large majority operate in auto-pilot mode, there are always cracks in everything and that is how the light gets in. The crack could be making an occasional change, testing the waters and building on that success. Or it could be thinking about the possibilities that fall between the two extremes. While dirt is generally associated with bad and clean is considered good, Surf decided to use ‘mother earth’ to make a point that there is something between the two extremes that straddles the two worlds of dirt and good. The cracks could come by accidents but the stories could be amplified for others to follow. 

In her talk on ‘The Secret Life of Social Norms’, Michele Gelfand points to an important truth. “culture is not destiny, harness norms that are getting loose and loosen up norms that are getting too tight. Humans invented norms to better their lives and we need to go back to that truth”. 

#socialnudge #behavioralscience #socialnorms #earlychildhoodeducation

Functional entertainment

Functional / Useful entertainment was seeming like an emerging trend in 2017. The cusp between use value and entertainment value. For a long time, brands have tried to occupy this middle ground between 'do good' and 'feel good'. Maggi tried to say taste bhi...health bhi. The die-hard Maggi fans still have it for the sheer joy of slurping those long-winding noodles. Health is hardly on their mind while consuming or making the decision to buy it. The line taste bhi health just assuages some of the guilt then. 

Functional entertainment I feel is when the product delivery lives up to that value. For a lot of folks out there, WhatsApp serves the purpose. For me, a brand that really lives up to the idea is TedTalks. 

Time is the last frontier that humans have not been able to conquer. Ironic since time is a man-made concept. Everyone is starting to experience time in fragments and brands that perch themselves in these fragments will start to be viewed differently. 

What can I do in the 15 minutes of wait time I have before my next appointment? 
What can a rickshaw driver do while waiting at the traffic signal? 
What can a street vendor do sitting by the pavement while waiting for his next customer?

Right now - they purely entertain themselves with Insta reels or YouTube videos. 

As long as time remains a precious commodity, the category of functional entertainment will grow. 

What have you experienced in the space of #functionalentertainment?

Alexa, “where are you taking us?”

 The possible impact of robotic interactions on children

Alexa first intrigued me when my four and a half year old came back home from school one day and excitedly told me that one of her classmates asked Alexa to play the song What a wonderful world and the song actually started to play on the speaker. Let’s get Alexa mama, I too could tell her to play the songs I want.

It couldn’t have got more ironical than that, I thought. There was the wonderful world that Louis Armstrong was crooning about…trees of green and skies of blue and then there was the gateway to the world – a grey cylindrical robot talking with a strange accent! What a wonderful world indeed! I spent the next two hours trying to convince a feisty argumentative kid on why we don’t have an Alexa at home and why I don’t intend getting one. I did not see that conversation we were having coming so soon, I wasn’t prepared with my arguments and nothing was working until I told her – why do you need Alexa – when you have me – tell me the songs you want and I’ll play those for you. Pretend play came to my rescue that day and I had to contend with being Alexa for sometime while the child amused herself with requests.

A year or so later, we met another mom and kid at a play date (I hate to use that phrase). Exhausted as all moms perpetually are, we thought lets distract the kids with music. We play songs, they tire themselves dancing, they sleep and we can live happily ever after. The only spanner in the works to our fairy-tale evening that day was thrown by Alexa. The kids were patient for exactly one song. Post which, one of them walked up to Alexa and asked Alexa to play the song, which she wanted to dance on. It goes without saying this wouldn’t be the song that the other child wanted. While Child 1 happily danced to her favourite tune, Child 2 stood at a corner looking a little miffed. As soon as the song finished Child 2 walked up to Alexa and demanded Alexa play her song. Alexa of course complied. But Child 1 couldn’t wait her turn and hence interrupted by asking Alexa to go back to playing her song. Child 2 who had waited patiently now was unwilling to and made an even louder request and so it continued. You get the drift. These untimely demands had to stop and the hostess-mom rightfully intervened and decided to take control of the situation. Alexa was told in a firm, loud voice to stop playing all songs.

The third scene I witnessed (and bear with me, this is the last one) was the video of a child walking up to Alexa and requesting Alexa to make animal sounds and giggling and clapping at each sound made.

I couldn’t help wonder about how all this could alter a child’s perceptions about the idea of instant gratification at such an early age. With a gadget in the house that is always available to respond, what would happen to the notion of boredom? Without much room for idle time, when and how would the child make connections in his / her brain, the connections that happen subconsciously and lead to creative sparks? What else could change?

Could this lead to children getting more demanding or feel a sense of entitlement about how quickly each request made by them would need to be responded to. Unless the child understood the difference between technology and humans and that both would need to be interacted with differently, could this behaviour with gadgets extend to the way a child would interact with his peers or parents? Google and Amazon have corrected that to an extent and with their A.I. bots now reminding children to use the magic words.

Though what would be a tough program to code would be one that involves making a judgement about when or whether to fulfil a request or delay gratification to a later date or how not to interrupt something already playing.

What about learning? Would access to these gadgets make children any smarter by giving them access to a whole lot of information?

I remember the pre-Google days, yes we did have less information available but we also read more and remembered much more as a result. The kind of learning that happens when a child is challenged and the arguments that ensue back and forth is very different from the kind of learning that happens in the instantaneous question-answer mode. Easy come; easy go I would be inclined to think. Why tax your mind to remember facts when you can ask a gadget. We have already seen some of the effects of this with our generation. How many of us remember phone numbers of more than five people? In the era of landlines when phone numbers were not easily stored in the phone memory people remembered phone numbers of almost all significant people they knew whether that number was 10 or 20 or more.

This is just the beginning. How such devices would influence an entire generation growing up with them is a question even Alexa does not have an answer to. Somethings lessons are only learnt in hindsight I guess.

Time travel

The confluence of brands, music, nostalgia, reverse ageing....

A few years ago a Nissan Micra television commercial featured Ranbir Kapoor yodelling on the streets of Mumbai of the yesteryears. His fantasy comes to an end abruptly as the context changes and he is suddenly finds himself scrambling for a parking slot. Na woh purane din wapas aayenge ; na woh khali sadkein (neither will those days return ; nor those empty streets) but thank God for the Micra.

Nostalgia is a tricky emotion for a brand to use in communication. Tricky since it is alluring yet impractical. Quite like ‘snow’ – easy to admire from a distance and difficult to experience first-hand. Its no surprise then that very few brands have been able to leverage this emotion despite knowing how strong a connect it makes with people.

A product that has done a brilliant job of leveraging nostalgia is the SaReGaMa Caravan. Right from the physical product form down to the content, every small detail only works to recreate so perfectly, the experience of listening to music the way we did as children.

In the late 70s / early 80s, there were few electronic devices even in homes in urban India which perhaps makes some of those unforgettable. The radio was one such object of adoration. Perched on a high cabinet to make sure it was away from the reach of little fingers and close enough to a window to catch uninterrupted signals. Its brown exterior often covered by a leather cover cut at just the right places to manipulate the silver buttons. The large silver dial on the top-right, a few other buttons hidden away on its side panel. Ameen Sayani’s unmistakable voice on the Geetmala. The crystal clear sounds of non-digitized musical instruments. The appetite and appreciation it created for a variety of music genres since there was no way of predicting what came next.

The Caravan seems to have captured it all. Right from the sound quality to the retro content and even the random order in which the tracks play recreate the nostalgic experience of listening to music on a radio down to the last detail.

In the 70s a psychologist called Ellen Langer carried out an experiment to understand the effect the physical environment had on the mental thought process of an individual in the context of reversing ageing. In 1979 a group of geriatrics were taken to a retreat for what she called ‘the week of reminiscence’. Everything in that space belong to the 1950s – the furniture, the newspapers and the music. There were no mirrors in that space, the group was not assisted in their everyday chores and were tested on physiological parameters before and after that week. In the interim they spent their time living as though they lived in the 50s – they spoke about events as though those were happening in real time, listening to musical tracks that were popular in the 50s etc. At the end of a week the results astounded everyone when the group had wiped several years of their age tested on physical parameters. The BBC team was so intrigued by the experiment and the results that they decided to follow up the study and later create a documentary reporting their findings. 

For me, the presence of a Caravan in my living room does just that. I time travel effortlessly through the decades and feel like a child again. Enjoying once again the music that MTV and Indie-pop had succeeded in wiping off from my memory in the 90s. And when I learn that it can actively contribute to making me look and feel younger, it’s an affordance that makes the product even more endearing.