Platonic

After reading Blink I began to connect the dots. Ten minutes later I was proud of a giraffe.

[Advertising & Jobs]

I had been sitting at my corner desk, brandished with a self-imposed designation OCD (Oddly Creative Director) on the pin-up board, surfing in a paradoxical wave of ideas.

*Or daydreaming porn in other words. Funny how my boss would call me in on it every-freakin-time.*

As a copywriter, working in advertising, I was given the challenge of coming up with erotic content for a condom brand.

[Yippee! Followed by a victory dance, is what happened in my head earlier during the week, when this assignment was handed over to me.]

The kinky-led-porn-education-lasting-three-whole-days that followed only gave me a handful of jerky conclusions. I realised I hadn’t been inspired, nor had I been transported into an elevated state where the mind can seamlessly forge kick-ass words to form beautiful lines.

With only an hour left to the deadline my boss stepped up to my desk, scanned the lines I had been chasing in hope of brilliance to strike any-moment-now and in the blink of an eye connected line four to nine to three to eleven (scrapping away residue), making one giant mental note as if being spiritually taken.

Three and a half seconds later, he was out smoking in the hallway because he’d put together the most stimulating copy before our eyes like a magician seconds before.

[While others, used to such displays of genius, labelled it experience, I was convinced that my boss was secretly Superman.]

Only after reading Blink many years later did I realise my boss was the perfect example of instinctive thinking. He would, like a snooty designer, decide if something would work or not in seconds of sight.

Even Steve Jobs took snap decisions throughout his career and followed a similar school of thought. From discovering a mouse at XEROX to introducing the iPod, Jobs defied experts and consumer focus groups. He was known to walk into a room and have his team work on something because he knew what experts with tons of data could never imagine.

“Consumers cannot tell you what they need,” – Steve Jobs.

Malcolm has outlined this with a beautiful Pepsi & Coke challenge. Its the perfect example of market research experts funnelling millions of dollars into an orgy of ambiguous pursuits.

A sweeter drink will always pass the taste test and Coke never realised their victory was at the bottom of the can. (Read the book to know more.)

Often graphic designers or advertising-folk fight with clients over ideas because their gardener (apparently better perspective) or two-year-old, suckling on a nipple (sarcasm intended) have better foresight of their business. In other words, if you were to ask an architect to write you a prescription for migraines, you better be prepared to deal with a whole new set of problems.

[Women & Clients]

If you were to ask a girl what kind of a man she’s looking for and then have her meet ten different men, you’d be surprised she’d pick the one far off the list. Hey! There’s research to prove it. Said Malcolm himself.

I personally enjoyed this chapter for the obvious reasons but also because Neil Strauss (The Game) from the pickup-artist world had a similar theory on the subject.

[Book review on The Game also coming soon. BTW. In a matter-of-fact tone.]

How do you impress a hot girl at the bar or a boss in an elevator in less than 30 seconds? By effectively understanding how people thin-slice you can overcome this anxiety of pitch. In both scenarios you’re trying to sell yourself.

And I think Guy Kawasaki had the best solution to the new client/boss problem (not mentioned in the book). If you’re going to pitch to a client with only 30 seconds (assume time taken in elevator to travel from ground floor to the 2nd floor) then you better focus on selling the idea of what it is you do.

[Jobs inspired people in the same time in an elevator.]

Neil Strauss teaches you to frame and prime girls with anecdotes, memorised lines and some practiced bar tricks. In short, 30 seconds and you blow the girls mind. BANG! You’ve scored “A” on first impression as the most interesting man (like, ever).

Simply put, women have no idea what they’re chasing (like consumers who’ve got no clue of what they want). And because we thin-slice (make snap judgements) based on stereotypical prejudices you can be rest-assured this affects us all.

[Conclusion]

Blink is nothing short of genius. The book illustrates with various thought-evoking examples of how instinctive-thinking or snap decisions can do extremely well or go horribly wrong if born from a naive and unexperienced expert.

Ever heard people rant about how they loved their school days, and if they’d get a chance to go back in time, they’d do it in a blink of an eye. Well, that is certainly not my case. I dreaded school, the very thought of school, even now, makes my stomach hurl – sickening, really.

And, to my plight, there was no escaping going to school, even when I begged, pleaded, whined, made puppy dog faces, cried and hid from my parents under the bed, under the kitchen table, behind the tree on the lawn, in the boot of the car – nothing. I had to be part of a mundane educational system that inspired zero creativity and imagination.

This rudimentary system of education, which made sense in the early half of the 19th century, was made to cater to the industrial revolution. That’s why your mommy and daddy wanted you to be either an engineer or doctor – so you could get a job, and that’s why they frowned upon arts because there was no future there. Or at least that’s what they thought.

The learning environment i.e. hierarchy of curriculum (science at top and arts at the bottom) and basic infrastructure never evolved with time, causing a conflict between the educational systems itself and the demands of the professional world – which no longer only consists of engineers and doctors.

Simply put, technologies and opportunities, which were never heard of when we were kids (like Facebook, Google and other creative platforms i.e. mobile, graphic design and advertising) are fields, which have created a surplus demand for individuals which no educational system of today is prepared for.

Let’s closely, for a moment, observe a typical day in school from my eyes. I’ve gotten into the military suit (the god-forsaken uniform), strapped on a bag full of books which couldn’t intrigue a flint of curiosity, a lunch box with my favourite – bread jam or Maggie, a thermos filled with ice-cold Roohafza (a sweet drink of survival).

There I am, in a class full of kids that are anxious for the teacher to walk in and put tiny stars on their faces – well, they did their homework. I, on the other hand, loathe the very thought of doing any homework. I guess it’s the “work” in-home that disheartened my kid-like spirits.

A daydream ensued the moment the teacher opened her mouth. Physically, there was very little I could do about my situation, but mentally no one could control my imaginative and inquisitive nature. I spent all my time observing birds, trees, the endless blue sky (courtesy of big windows), the girls from the school next door (I went to an all-boys school), the way a teacher carried her/himself, their character, the wood of my table, the smell of the concrete floors, the fan, the smell of chalk, the flee on my table and so on.

Often, I’d sit in class and wonder about the liberating life beyond the walls of my school.

How badly I wanted to escape the prison of pointless garble that came in the form of Maths, Science, History and the likes. I remained stoned-thick in the head. I didn’t want to be educated by a bunch of nincompoops – nothing but rote learning. Teachers would thrash my behind, knuckles and palms (corporal punishment was allowed back then) but their attempts proved futile.

Around exam time, I’d get a double thrashing from home simply because I’d pick up my bicycle and circled around town, again, observing people, things and why they were the way they were. The results of these activities proved quite fatal on my report cards.

If I were to put it in simple words, my report cards were like a visit to the theme park and riding the rollercoaster meant only for kids above 25 years of age. Obviously, my parents used to get nightmares and forego sleep on the days when a parent-teacher meeting was called. We’d park far away and leave before anybody could notice. In short, I was the cutest looking embarrassment (oh, come on, I used to have dimples and the whole puppy dog thing going for me).

Anyhow, while other kids showed up on the day of the exam, chirpy and excited – huddled around each other, outscoring each other’s brain – I’d stand peacefully to a side and think about all the things I was going to do once the exam was over.

And, although, I was never prepared for an exam, my swagger was full of confidence. It used to take me exactly 2 minutes and 35 seconds to finish any exam – after all, how long does it take someone to write their name. On one such occasion, I ended up writing my best friend’s name. Imagine explaining that in front of my Principal, teacher and parents – this is when my mom gave me an exclusive thrashing of a lifetime.

Sadly for my parents, and to my luck, I was thrown out of a couple of schools. My dad must have had a tough time bringing up a retard like a kid. I bet he’d pray to god, had he waited that day at work. In the corporate world, people hop from one company to another for money and “change”, I did it because I failed according to the educational system, but also because I liked the idea of going someplace new.

At present, I run an advertising agency that is working closely with a client to set up an International boarding school, which proposes an International curriculum – an irony for the guy who hates the very idea of schools. But after three months of extensive research and learning, I’ve learnt that the education sector is under a massive revolution/overhaul.

Sir Ken Robinson, a world leader in the development of innovation, creativity and human resources talks about how education till now has only stressed the left side of the brain – creating only professors for school and how the current system of education kills creativity. See the video.

All these years, I had this repulsive fungus-like anger hidden in the far corners of my heart, buried deep, deep down, under a tank of revolt. But, to my surprise, my views of schools and the education system have all gone for a toss. I can finally sit back and look at education with a promising smile on my face.

In the future, no longer the sciences and maths will be put on celestial podiums. There will be room made for the arts, not above or below, but as an equal. Right from the school building – the environment in which a child will learn, grow and imagine to liberating a child’s true passion by nurturing his or her’s true talent and creativity – the schools of tomorrow will teach kids to lead with curiosity.

Read this on GQ INDIA.