I just saw his speech again and this time, I really understood his perspective on what harmony is about. He is talking in context of story telling but I believe it applies to the creative process for brand building, design and business in general.

He never says but rather assumes that harmony is what we need to look for in a creation , not perfection. (That is genius right there).

He explains that harmony is not about seeking resolution, it is more about the acceptance of contradiction. A good story is told at many different levels and it is OK if the elements of the story do not jive together perfectly. Every loophole does not have to be closed. Even in some of the great Hollywood movies, the creators compromise the intellectual quality just to provide a complete resolution at the end.

We, the agency folks, do the same thing only at a much stricter level. Because of the noise and competition out there, we have gone crazy with  ‘follow the brand guidelines’ thing. We are not being creative, we are just being the brand police. Sad. As Shekar says, “We prepare too much. We think too much. Knowledge becomes a weight upon wisdom.”

NIKE. Just do it.  — Think of all the levels this line plays at; emotional, political, mystical, good, bad, … who care? Let it be. That is the acceptance of contradiction. That is harmony. That is genius.

Here is Shekar’s speech. If you have not seen the movie Elizabeth and you do not have 21 minutes, you can skip the first few minutes:

Offering an escape from reality is big business. Its everywhere: sci-fi literature, comic books, movies, gaming platforms, social networks… you name it. Every new leap in technology is followed by some sort of attempt at creating virtual environments.

While James Cameron is good at telling stories and visualizing such environments, the sustainability of interactive platforms created so far, is very much in question.

Remember Second Life? The cool 3D world / social network that became famous in 2006-2007. Let’s look at its Google Trends curve. It’s pretty much dead as compared to where it was.

Now let’s look at the popularity of ZYNGA’s big social game, Farmville:

Similar, right? Pet Society is the same way. To Zynga’s defense, this could be just the typical life-cycle of its products. Overall idea may be more sustainable but… I don’t know. I guess, I’m not really feelin’ it!

I think we should look at technology differently. It definitely offers proven and sustainable business value when we try to make our “real” environments better. Virtual environments are just our little way to escape from the overall human condition. Some day we will ditch the Facebooks and match.coms to start over by introducing ourselves to our real neighbors!

For that matter, I think that the financial markets, with their crazy out-of-control algorithms, are a big fake virtual environment on their path to self destruction. I hope we, the humans, realize it early on and not destroy our “real” selves in this virtual game.

As I try to apply it to discover unique value propositions of different businesses, I am realizing that the metaphor of “blue ocean” has a problem. It suggests that you have to set on a “long  journey into the unknown” in order to find non-competitive markets. Not always. Sometimes, blue ocean is right underneath you in the middle of the red ocean as the competition fights itself to death.

Conventional business school wisdom suggests offering value-cost trade-offs through product-line extension. That approach has created so much clutter and craziness in the marketplace. BOS approach suggests otherwise. It says: Break the value-cost trade-off. I feel that in some industries (like appliances) that is all you have to do: simplify the damn product line.

Apple is the obvious example (sorry, seems like we don’t have much else to talk about now-a-days). Motorola, Sony, Blackberry, even HTC are still looking at their versions of the consumer perception maps and treating it as a battle ground. They are too busy playing the game of positioning new product offerings to cover gaps in the market. You know what? That’s the deadly red ocean right there. Stop the craziness. Consumer is pissed off.

You know how hard it is to find a washer, or for that matter, a toothbrush. Now, I understand the problem that CPG brands  but for high-involvement products like appliances, I think someone just has to go for it. Eliminate all models. design one washer that does everything but has one button on it, like an iPod. I know, it only takes courage to break the fixed cost structure and convince people who would think you are crazy – a classic blue ocean hurdle.

Very interesting that Apple iPad pitch is all about basic intuition uses lines like “holding internet in your hands” and “you don’t think about it, you just do!”. I think the next sustainable revolution is intuitive devices like these.

I find some bloggers to be somewhat introverted and that they use social media as a platform to express themselves. You probably want to avoid these guys on your brand. In general, I think some personality traits are more important than skills and experience.

In a community manager, I would look for conscientiousness, agreeableness and some level of extroversion as the desirable qualities. My most important question would be if their personality naturally fits my brand’s personality? Or even more importantly, do they talk the talk and walk the walk of my customers.

As far as experience and skills are concerned, they are really not as important. These things are extremely easy to learn and they will keep changing anyway. They probably have already changed since you started thinking about it.

Intense competition and caffeine overdose has pushed us into the era where good old creativity, gut-feelings are not enough to run a business; where dreams and passion are not all you need to invent something great. You have to know what statistical confidence really means and why yes and no are never the only two choices. As for the creativity, it may take a genius to create a successful business proposition for once or twice, maybe. But to do it every time, the way Apple or Google do it, there’s lot of math behind that creativity. There is definitely some statistical intuition going on over there!

(I really don’t know what that means though)