"Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?""To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.""The dog did nothing in the night-time.""That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes. Source: "The Adventure of Silver Blaze", The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes While others were distracted by the events that... Continue Reading →
Top 5 Reasons Why Your Marketing Personas Fail
Put yourself in your customers’ shoes, goes the saying. To this end, marketers create a marketing persona of the target audience. The idea is to paint the picture of your ideal customer in as much detail as possible. Here’s an example: This is a good start. It’s better than campaigning without an eye on what... Continue Reading →
When Words Are Worth a Thousand Pictures
A picture is worth a thousand words, the saying goes. But I believe that some words are worth a thousand pictures. Thanks to the digital revolution, the audio-visual mediums of communication are now mainstream. Explainer videos are the new newspaper columns. Podcasts are the new blog. Their popularity proves that they are catering to the... Continue Reading →
The Write Way to Heal
"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” – Maya Angelou. That writing about your problems could have some merit may seem far-fetched in the era where LinkedIn too has joined the cringe-bandwagon. However, research indicates that there’s more to this than meets the eye. The crucial role of writing in... Continue Reading →
Nietzsche’s Three Metamorphoses
According to German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, there are three stages of human growth necessary for man to transform into the Übermensch (the superman). Nietzsche states that every student has to go through these stages. Camel At the beginning, every student is a beast of burden. The thirst for learning must take him to every pond... Continue Reading →
The Cost of Luxury Beliefs
Lately, I struggled to put a name to the phenomenon that I see in many elitist circles. These people are as conservative as it goes in their private life. Yet, they aggressively profess to stand by ‘enlightened’ beliefs in public. Imagine my delight when I saw that someone had coined a term, “luxury beliefs”, to... Continue Reading →
Common Good vs. Self-interest
I use the “Public Choice Theory” to make sense of otherwise inexplicable situations in politics and business.
Education Never Ends
“Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.” - Sherlock Holmes. In my college days, I used to flunk classes to visit the library. While the missed classes instantly reflected in poor grades, the knowledge gained at the library was of no immediate value. At the library,... Continue Reading →
Applying Systems Thinking to Population Problems
In a previous edition, we touched on why systems problems cannot be solved by rational reasoning alone. Let’s explore with examples. In 1967, Romania decided to reverse its population decline by making abortions illegal. It seemed to have the desired effect: the birth rate tripled. Yet, the birth rate not just crawled back to its... Continue Reading →
How PV Narasimha Rao transformed India
I pay my tributes to the statesman par excellence who successfully pulled India back from the brink.
Musings by Madhav 