I am no expert on education. In my working life of 17 years I have never had the opportunity to work with a school. So, when Vaswati Misra, a dancer and teacher came to me. I was curious to know more.
I visited the Dhwani Zaroorat school 2 days back and was amazed to find an island of excellence in an area full of poverty and despair. What makes the difference is not just the quality of education but the fact that children from below poverty line families are given simultaneous training in performing arts. A training in the arts gives them the tools not only of self-expression, but also of a future career within the arts as a performer or teacher.
Unlike other schools, Dhwani has virtually no dropouts and almost 90% attendance. Children are happy to be part of a large family like atmosphere full of music, dance, theatre and a commitment towards quality education.
It was interesting to read Future trends 2010 for UK but the talking points in India are likely to be substantially different, from this list, in 2010. A list that is likely to be collated soon.
In our context, some points that seemed interesting to deliberate on are listed here.
1. Food and Eating out – The writer talks about a trend towards genetically modified food, eating at home being considered by more people. The affluent Indian customer though is increasingly exploring more options for entertainment and eating out. Meanwhile the debate on genetically modified foods here rages on. Most people , likely are not sure about the pros and cons. The food challenge that must be addressed is about food purity and to a much larger sense food security to a large part of our country.
2. Music consumption moving from download to streaming – Streaming music may be something that is being talked about there but there is much more potential in a digital delivery model that allows a user to play music irrespective of internet connectivity. In our case, broadband speeds and pricing are not exactly conducive to streaming music for the near term. Today there was an article that talks about music delivery in India on pen drives and sd cards . While interesting, it seems another wasted opportunity by the music industry while at the same time increasing digital waste that have still no clear recycle processes. The music shopping experience needs to improve dramatically and consider innovative options to deliver legal music to the customer. It is interesting that digital delivery of music has only recently launched in India with Nokia Music’s offer on selected phones. I will write a more detailed view on music delivery in another post.
What , in your view, are some of the topics and trends that India will be talking about in 2010.
In recent times , one has heard of social networking sites considering exploring music storefronts. For them it seems logical but as a music lover one must think….
Why should a user have to be a member of a social network site to buy music ? Surely not because of friend’s recommendations because people can be friends and have fairly different tastes in music.
Will a social network with its emphasis on so many features , provide a single unified music experience from music discovery, concerts, downloads for various media ? Current evidence does not seem to suggest that. There is quite a bit of spam-ware available. Explore the simplistic feel of Live Plasma for discovery
Availability of music online is limited to certain traditional markets such as US, Uk and some european regions. The rest of the regions really seem to have no services to talk of.
From a personal stand point, there are far too many sounds and songs that are not available to me. It does seem like opportunity lost for the music industry.
Mobile usage is certainly very exciting thus the platform of choice could be the mobile platform. Consider this
Handset Providers – Apple and Nokia have already got mobile versions of their music stores. I am not sure about Sony Ericsson though.
Telcos are interested , they have seen their revenues from music related VAS but how they manage partnerships and content would be worth watching.
But overall, it still seems that the opportunity has not been leveraged by anyone.
The music industry has to identify its blue oceans by keeping the user at the center of their business model.
Music is an experience and yet the buying and exploring music bit is anything but a good experience.
We are sending music to other solar systems and galaxies but people on earth seem to struggle to find a way of playing the sound file they have just purchased or tried to purchase..
Give the customer the music they want, when they want and it should work on the multiple devices that the customer has.
Figuring out how and keeping it simple , is for the people who run the business .
A company’s sustainability strategy is best delivered through the marketing department, according to Unilever’s new chief marketing and communications officer ...more
In the world that the leader of Faceborg lives in, he thinks of Faceborg as a country on the planet. His ambitions include making Faceborg the center of this planet or maybe replace the name of all people, countries and even the planet. Welcome he says because resistance is futile.
It is interesting that Faceborg thinks of itself as a country. The country is not a democracy and infact they do not hold free and fair elections to anything. They just decide and rule and then change their mind and make new rules. To rule.
In this assimilated world there is only one option you have only one place to turn to. Faceborg and the option to Like.
Faceborg thinks of inhabitants as objects. Objects to be manipulated and mashed and shared with other participants such as the builders who make newer applications that manipulate them. They have forgotten that these are not objects but real people who need to be treated with respect.
In reality, Faceborg is just a company with some customers. A company that has mistakenly thought of its customers as objects. It thinks that its real customers are developers, advertisers etc. The mistake it is repeatedly making is that it is ignoring the people who have made this company.
The Faceborg of the past and the company of today are two different things. The people who signed up for it made the mistake of not understanding the ambitions of this company or were perhaps the company has diverged from its original path. If there is one thing that the history of this planet tells us, mistakes are often corrected, belatedly sometimes .
If Faceborg had their way, they would assimilate but there are enough people who feel that assimilation is futile. We are people who will find a better alternatives away from the greed and ambition of Faceborg.
If you are concerned about your Faceborg account think about this and join the resistance.
If you want to leave this Faceborg, why is there just a deactivation and why not a complete deletion. Why are they profiting from your individuality even after you have stopped the service?
If there is a problem, do you know of any easy way of contacting anyone in Faceborg. There have been many problems people have faced. Have they got a satisfactory response? What is the safety and support net
Why is it not possible to see who of these unknown third parties access your information and to what end they use it?
Should a company have access to so much data just because they can. What are the checks and measures that various countries are going to build so that their citizens are safe from the predatory practices of Faceborg?
Assimilation is Futile. What are your thoughts on Facebook?more
Comments
on July 18th, 2010
Thanks Fabian for the comment.You are right, there is a need to put in sustainability related checks and measures into ...more
on July 18th, 2010
Hi Namrata. Thanks for this very interesting insight. I agree with you on the importance of marketing for sustainability. I also think that the marketing function has a very important role to play ...more
on July 15th, 2010
(There was a similar conversation going on about gender with regards to CSR somewhere else quite recently, so I apologize if I'm cross-posting.)As a man working in CSR, I get the ...more
on July 14th, 2010
The stereotypes are just that: statistically significant behavioural patterns that are broadly applicable to populations. That is why they rile people. But the people who are leading CSR efforts in ...more
on June 9th, 2010
Great thoughts on mentoring Syamant - I wrote a post titled "8 Lessons I Learned on Being ...more
Written on April 5th, 2010 by namrata
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=67e12515-3fad-4355-a677-eb4670c9f846)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=1012c98c-e930-4c26-b92c-c093b52d6385)
