Ali Bytes: Bullet-sized strategies for modern living

I spent three days last week at the Indian School of Business for the Ashoka and Lemelson Foundation’s Tech4Society conference. It was a thought provoking, global, action oriented meeting of the minds. In the coming days I will synthesize some thoughts, but one conversation inspired this short blog post.

One fellow (who happened to also be a Fellow) came up to me with an unusual inquiry: he wanted to confirm that I was not the Ali Cherry he dated in college. In the course of this unique dialogue, some how mental health and Facebook came up simultaneously and Doug shared that he thinks Facebook is good for his mental health because sometimes meaningless is necessary. His theory is that we’re always searching for the consequential and that we need breaks from it. It was a very wise Seth Godin-esque moment that, combined with the ensuing conversations, made this guy one of my favorites of the few days.

So in that spirit, I’ll share some photos and musings from the last few weeks.

1. I live on Road Number 11 in Banjara Hills, a “posh” Hyderabad neighborhood. Like most roads in India, this one is shared by various motor vehicles, stray dogs, peeing men, speed bumps, grape sellers and people going about their day. While it may not sound like it, this combination makes quite the people watching scene. On my first day here I saw three camels on this road, but think it was a covert stunt to shock me into my new life because I haven’t seen any since.
2. I captured this store front in a drive-by shooting (of pictures) around Charminar. I can’t figure out what it does. Watch repair maybe? (Click here to see larger version to fully appreciate my sarcasm.) I asked my colleague to explain this to me and she laughed having with no idea why a store would need four signs. I think strategic signage consulting is a service that could do quite well here.  As far as I can tell, if a sign needs fixing or repainting, a new one is just put up; maintenance is not a core competency of India. 
3. Driving back from ISB a few weeks ago, I also shot this photo from the road. It is one of the best advertisements for targeted advertising I’ve seen. If you look closely there’s a Princeton Review GMAT class ad on a pole next to a shanty village. I would bet many of the people exposed to this sign don’t even go to the U.S. equivalent of high school. 
4. More than anything else, I’ve taken a lot of pictures of kids.  This is partly because almost every weekend I’ve volunteered at a school and partly because kids go crazy when you put a camera in front of them. For whatever reason, they love to wave to the camera though I can’t figure out why. These are some kids from a government school in Film Nagar.
5. I’m intrigued by advertising in this country. In addition to the poorly placed GMAT ad, public service-type announcements lack creativity and seem to have very little impact (like encouraging bikers to wear helmets).  This is a recent favorite: “do not jump signals.” It is actually necessary to promote following a law which would be like seeing a stop sign with a sign below it saying “obey the stop sign.”  Seems a bit redundant.
6. While the western notion of recycling is pretty uncommon, the adage “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is very much alive in India. In the dumpsters, groups of animals and people pick through to recover leftover food or reusable materials.  Here are some goats eating trash, a pretty typical scene in many neighborhoods. 
7. Instructions that articulate the obvious amuse me. For example, these rules posted on the back of a bathroom stall door include: “3. Very Important!! Please do not use the extra floor space of the last loo for any of your business”  I would love to hear the story that brought about this rule.
8. On Sundays, I like to go for a walk in KBR park.  It’s one of the few outdoor spaces where one can walk without having to be careful not to get hit by a moving vehicle.  It is interesting to me that what I consider exercise clothes aren’t very common. 
9. I took my new friend James out to dinner for his birthday and had the wait staff surprise him with a mini cake.  They then insisted that they take our picture while we awkwardly followed the Indian tradition of feeding one another cake. 
10. I didn’t hear about this until seeing this ad in the paper. Apparently Lays discovered some SMS and email messages that suggested their products are not entirely vegetarian. This ad included a full letter from the Director of Legal ensuring customers that they are in fact 100% vegetarian, reinforcing the need for culturally specific marketing.
    
11. Of course my cost of living is less than Washington, DC.  In an attempt at a literal apples to apples comparison, I took this picture of groceries that cost me 150Rs or about $3.  As you can see, it bought me a small loaf of bread, head of cauliflower, pack of gum, 5 bananas and 4 apples.  (And now you also know my pitiful dinner most nights.) 

This entry was posted on Monday, February 15th, 2010 at 4:56 am and is filed under india, pictures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.