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:

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.

This concept is very applicable to change management. I think the idea of treating your follower as an equal is genius. Probably the most crucial point for any movement is its embryonic stage. It has not been emphasized enough in popular leadership theories as far as I can tell.  This video is entertaining and clever.

And so, I’d like to thank all of my Twitter buddies for “following me”:)

When he mentioned the example of Cirque De Soleil, I instantly connected it to the Blue Ocean Strategy. We are kind of talking about the same thing. Just more creativity and intuition in decision making. I will read the book and post again. But I do think that people struggle with the idea of using too much intuition in business especially in public companies with stockholder pressure and a epitite for short-term gains.

At the same time, if wall street is OK with taking ridiculous risks with “mortgage backed securities” why not take a risk with some of these other “crazy” ideas.

1-1 relationship marketing has been my fascination until Zafar Iqbal, one my favorite MBA professors, introduced me to the amazing world of analytical tools and strategic frameworks for business sustainability. Most of these models are tend to solve marketing problems through aggregation.

Although marketing decision making needs simplified models but think there have to be models that support granularity just because we now have data. Instead of asking “what should we do with all this data” why not try to change the models that we try to fit this data into.

So today I launch my campaign against linear purchase funnel (awareness, consideration…). In know this is not new. People have been talking about it but can someone evolve a new purchase cycle instead of showing a big cloud clip-art in their power points?

Take long awaited mobile revolution? After years and years of text messaging being the coolest thing Sony, LG and Samsung “smartphones” could offer, Apple finally invented something that stirred something up. All of a sudden everyone has figured out how to make touch-screens work.

We seriously lack real innovation. There is just too much marketing fluff. Is this a side effect of our version of free market economy that does not have a real solution to the ’short term gains’ issue?

When I ask a recently graduated Interactive designer about his/her web design curriculum, I always get the same response. They’ve taken a course in HTML and one in FLASH where they built a “project” and designed a “website”. Try and ask them about their thought-process on information architecture or usability or a simple question like as “How did you come up with the navigation?” It often leaves them fumbling for some sort of response.

Don’t get me wrong. These students are usually very talented. I would just stay away from evaluating their potential based on this school project.

At these schools, besides HTML and Flash course, the rest of their time is usually spent on making a spinning 3D robot because that’s one of the media in “multimedia.”

To any design school instructors or administrators reading this: please realize that an Interactive design program should be similar to an Architecture program where the guiding principle is “form follows function.”

Students need to spend their time learning about information design, usability, visualization, iterative design, prototyping, wireframing, behavioral profiling, heuristics, ergonomics and knowledge management. Good web design is not just about Dreamweaver and FLASH skills.

Also, enough with the “multimedia”. The industry doesn’t need a 3D game developer, video editor and web designer packaged into one career. That time is gone. Give us analytical, creative thinkers who know the real meaning of user-centered design.

We need fresh talent that’s savvier than today’s school kids. This is the one area that I don’t feel we are ready for the mobile revolution. As if there is no user-centered design, there is no mobile revolution.