social

My experiments with Instagram

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Picture stories have been the nerve centre of this website. It is in the long hard look at images that the words and stories have emerged. Over several years. As my Instagram page begins to hog a dab more of my attention than it did earlier, my experiments with Instagram embolden me to weave more stories.

Ever since the shift in career trajectory, there have been many experiments in the recent times that I have been running. When the view of life in itself is viewed as a series of experiments there is only discovery and learning all the way around, experiments and learning on social are also default. Several of social ones are on my Instagram page.

To try and bring a story alive in what is essentially a siloed and image based medium has been a bucket of work with droplets of learning here and there. I have learnt the power of images and how much they can chew up everything else. The importance of filters, lenses, hashtags and what all they can stand in for, and gently gloss over is omnipresent. But to spot the story behind the dominant narrative, has been such fun.

This house, where many of the young are permanently stationed is often viewed as an abode of narcissism by the old. Ok, older. I am finding it to be a very interesting and different platform. I try and keep the play with filters to the minimum and add some shade, contrast and brightness with words. Especially about the places and people that I encounter. If at all it is about me, it is only through the micro accounts stories that I tell there. “Thats not how the medium works” many have told me, shaking their heads with a smug smile lurking in the corner of their lip. Perhaps, they are right. For the way I use Instagram is not what Instagram has bet its shirt on. Instagram’s soul lies in its filters and the words are clearly optional extras. In more ways than one, I am harbouring some old fashioned beliefs. Some of them go like this : Good stories draw people. Good stories are often a combination of pictures and words. etc. etc.

But who cares. Its never about a platform as much as its about the users, their imagination and what they do with it. So I believe. So my page there is become something of a mini blog. Needless to say, my difficulty in adapting to the ready-shoot-filter-publish model is evident in every post. At least in my head. Sometimes though, I receive appreciation. Like the one today from this gentleman whose work I admire hugely, which read  “Love the stories behind your posts. Amazing patience and ‘care’ “.  That chuffed my heart and set me thinking.

The missus added some sense into the dose of kaapi on an otherwise busy Sunday evening to suggest that I need to consider the fact that some of the ‘short posts’ and pictures merited a ‘fuller’ post on the website. “Not everybody is on Instagram you know”, she began. And then quickly went on to other things like “assuming too much” etc, which I thought was fresh brew from another world.

Promptly this blogpost was thought of and some quick-fire decisions were made. Some pictures and accounts from Instagram will get here as well. Some of it shared on other platforms. In any case, its all experiments. So, if you are still reading, do follow me on Instagram and let me know how the page is evolving. My page on Instagram is here : https://www.instagram.com/kavi.arasu/

For, am going to be at it. Chasing a bunch of hypotheses and relishing whatever emerges. When you don’t break into a  sweat on the numbers of likes or followers and are focused on being present with people, their pictures and their stories, there is joy.

Try.

Wheels of Change!

Learning & Change, , ,

Its a bright, brilliant Sunday. My nephew, who is all of seven years, is up and about. As I slip on the running shoes, he wants to smell the outdoors with me. ‘Lets walk’. He says. It isn’t often that such privileges nudge me. I agree in a flash

His seven year old legs are growing stronger. I notice. His limbs are slim. His hair in one irreverent lock that is bouncy and chirpy. Just like him. ‘How long are we going to walk?’, he asks, a few steps into our walk. As our incessant chatter steals a march over the energy expended on the walk.

Soon, I realise, like all of us he too has several windows to the world. His school. His friends and of course, his dad’s tablet.

Today, he paints a ‘I am a super hero’ picture to me. As you can imagine, I am remarkably pleased. Its been ages since anyone has tried to impress me. I let him know how impressed I was. We walk another fifty meters and I think he is slowing down.

‘Are you tired?’, I ask.

‘No’. He says. With the same singular chirpiness. ‘It is now 99’ he adds. My brain scrambles to assemble some sleepy resources to figure what the ’99’ is all about. After a bit of silence, I ask him, ‘err..but what is this 99?’

There are points in time, when kids lose all their respect in an adult’s prowess. The taller the pedestal they put the adult on, the harder the adult falls. When that moment comes, its not a pleasant feeling. This was that moment, when the push from the pedestal happened. He stopped walking. Put his hands on his hips. An expression that left something like ‘You didn’t know this….?’, largely unnecessary. He merely says, ‘My battery’. (Pronounced BAH-TTERY. With suitable emphasis for effect). “My body battery, when we started out from home it was 100. Now it is 99′.

Of course the ‘battery draining’ and ‘recharging’ have established themselves as common everyday living and lingua that are well woven into modern day language. But this quantified expression from this 7 year old, hands me a knock out punch.

We carry on with our walk. Speaking of other things. He with some of his questions and me with mine. The words he uses reveal the depth of his questions and the rich texture of his worlds . We speak of his sports day and the medals that his track running got him. The super hero in him emerges. Again. ‘I beat them all’. ‘By a lot of distance’. He says.

‘A lot of distance?’ I ask. Sensing an opportunity for a lesson in English grammar.

‘Yes. yes.’ He says. Vehemently. With a flourish, he adds, ‘They haven’t upgraded their bodies’, he says. I smile. Now that is profound, I think. I drop the idea of English grammar. I pursue this ‘upgrade’ line of thought. Having lost all of my respect on the battery front, I can afford to play dumb.

‘What does that mean?’, I ask. ‘Upgraded their bodies’?

In a seamless flow, he begins. “They are not becoming stronger, faster. And they don’t come upto me and say, ‘ I will beat you in the race’ ” That is what is ‘updgrade‘ is” he says. This is getting profound!

Our talk meanders on a straight road. Gradually the topic drifts to ‘what is the one most interesting thing that you can spend hours on end doing?’

‘I like cars’. He says. Almost impatient to allow me to complete my sentence. I too was greatly fascinated by cars in days of carefree boyhood. Perhaps it runs in the family, I think. I tentatively ask him, ‘Which cars?’ thinking that I would hear the the likes of BMW or an Audi!

He takes off.

“There are 183 different types”. He then rattles of a names that to me sound like random assemblages of vowels and consonants. Finally, resting on, “and sometimes, the ‘Dodge Viper.’ “

Dodge Viper

Thats the only car I am familiar with from his list. His dad had gifted a scaled down model to me many years ago. A model that sits on my desk to date. It was my dream car for a long while, until someone educated me on how many arms and legs I would have to give up to turn the wheels of something like that!

Today, I hold onto the Dodge Viper. And ask him, ‘Dodge Viper? But where have you seen the Dodge Viper?’

In ‘Asphalt 8’. He says. With a shrug of his shoulder. With a ‘I hope you know where that is’, look on his face. Hesitatingly adding, ‘I am sure you have seen it there’.

I am lost. I say, ‘Hmm’. Like an amateur boxer who is recuperating in his corner bleeding from three cuts that a friendly jab of a professional boxer caused.

Of course, ‘Asphalt 8’, ‘Need for speed Most Wanted’, are all video games. I am blissfully unaware of an entire ecosystem that is powering the world of my own nephew! He is unstoppable now. ‘There is Henessey Venom GT’ he says. And speaks about how fast it can go, how good looking that is and how expensive it is too. The prices he quotes are the prices of the video games. He seems confident.

Here is a guy who doesn’t like to sit in a real car, yet someone who prefers to play with them via a window. Me and brother were very different. We had to see them. I used to go to friends houses, because their neighbour had bought a new car. Touching the new car, just lying down and checking out the undersides and rushing to scarce books to read up more seemed so worth every passing second.

We have covered significant distance. 3-4 kilometers. I ask him, ‘Are you tired?’ It takes a while before he answers, ‘NOooo’.

The obvious and most common narrative that emerges from the previous generation talking to a younger generation, is often about how glorious the past was! And as a natural extension, how broken the present is. To see the present as a lament would be to view it through the lens of a time that is gone by.

The greater chance of living a fulfilled, productive, joyous life is to embrace the change and start off by speaking a different language. The onus is not on the newer generation to change. It is for the older generation to reach out and embrace the new. To make sense of the what is coming and to help the new flow well, learning from the mistakes of the old!

The world will belong to the new. In a short while! The first change perhaps is in how I think. Maybe language is a good point of synthesis. I ask my nephew, ‘Is the battery about 48?’ I ask.

Hmm. ‘Noooo. Its about 30′ He says. Ah. Thats a lesson learnt well. The next time, I wont ask him ‘Are you tired?’

The wheels of change. They keep spinning. If we need to get somewhere, we need to keep steering! We walk for a bit in silence. He drifting, perhaps, into his world of cars. I drifting into the world of change and how much more I have to! Bringing about substantial change within, is after all no walk in the park!

Am tired of social

Social Business, , ,

I am getting a bit tired of ‘Social’.  ‘Enterprise 2.0’. ‘Social Learning’.  And labels of that nature. Every conference has speakers waxing eloquence on it and its magical prowess of transforming organisations. The usual smirks by those that dont agree and the vigorous nods by those who do, follow. I used to be another who vigorously nodded. Now, my nod is less pronounced, if at all.

The power of what essentially is ‘social’ hasn’t diminished one bit. In fact, it has only gotten augmented by all the conversation about it. But there is something that just isnt right. Infact something is wrong, when you realise that nothing is changing on the ground.

Some poking around the ground and some conversation later, these are my thoughts.

a. ‘Social’ is not a set of a skills. Its a way of working. Its a mindset, in my opinion. Sure, it does help to have  set of  ‘social’ skills that can be built over time. In the absence of a fundamentally different mindset however, we begin to use these newly acquired skills of using social tools, using the mindset that fit a different era.  It is easy to mistake familiarity with these tools as presence of a social mindset. It can be jarring.

b. This means, significantly unlearning (and sometimes dismantling) what we are so used to doing as routine and approach work, learning and life, ground up. Jane Hart wrote very interesting post about ‘Fauxial Learning‘ a while ago. It is a pointer to how and where the conversation must move to : helping people see value in fundamentally different areas.

c. Our focus and our conversations revolving around  ‘outcomes’ and how seamlessly we reach there will be far more fruitful. More often than not, thats going to involve fundamentally redesigning work. That is tough work. It is just not technology. It requires change processes to be deployed over time. But thats the work that needs to be done.

The more the time we spend on discussing features of the next “new, improved, shiny social too” we are going to be that much more longer away from fundamentally impacting organisations, by leveraging social.

So there. Am tired of the noise around ‘social’. Am tired of the wrappers that announce ‘social’. The wrapper mistaken for the toffee can cause more damage to what the toffee is perceived to be.

I understand that we have to go through this phase too. Its just that I am impatient for it to pass, ushering in a time when we debate our dilemmas on the way our social mindsets are evolving.