Don't Flirt with Rural Marketing

Mr RV Rajan has condensed his forty years of rich experience in rural marketing into a four-hour reading capsule. So much is packed in so few pages! Just hundred pages, if you want to know what "few" means :)

If you have anything to do with rural marketing, it is very likely that you already know Mr Rajan. To others, let me introduce him as the Founder of Anugrah Marketing and then Anugrah Madison Advertising. Before that he worked with Clarion and Grant Kenyon & Eckhardt.

As many as a dozen detailed case studies and scores of anecdotes, spread over fourteen chapters, make "Don't Flirt" very reader-friendly. From the travels & travails of Shaw Wallace AV Van in interior Tamilnadu in the 1970s, to the more recent success of LG Electronics across India, you will hear about all of them here. 

Almost every chapter has some relevant lists, such as the coordinates of rural research organisations, rural marketing agencies, event management companies, secondary data sources on rural markets, dates of haats & melas in different states etc. Needless to say, such lists are a treasure, because a 'google search' doesn't produce these results!

Then there are tricks of the trade in the form of Do's & Don'ts for all conceivable rural marketing activities that make "Don't Flirt" an invaluable handbook for practitioners.

The real icing on the cake are a large number of insights sprinkled throughout the book, that only a seasoned rural marketer as Mr Rajan could draw out. For example, 

• distribution isn't as much a nightmare as it is made out to be, 
• importance of reliable local associates in designing & executing any programmes, 
• complementary role of BTL activities when the TVCs and other ATL communication made for urban audience are used in rural, 
• that solution to spurious products is not litigation or consumer education but efforts to raise incomes, 
• and so on...

The only addition I would've liked to see in the book is a chapter or a table on "Then & Now". Although one can get an idea about the transformation that took place in rural markets over these forty years from the book, a chapter explicitly highlighting Mr Rajan's own assessment of what has changed, what stayed the same in these forty years would have been wonderful. Also, such a chapter would naturally set the reader thinking of the likely scenarios in the next seven to ten years - the future of rural marketing, in this age or rurbanisation.

I enjoyed reading the book. Very likely you too will...

You can buy "Don't Flirt" from Amazon as well as Flipkart, or you can write to Mr Rajan at rvrajan42@gmail.com

PS: The "Don't Flirt" advise in the title is because many marketers are not walking the talk when it comes to rural marketing in terms of a comprehensive engagement, unlike in urban marketing.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Technically this is a "Watching Reco", because it's a film ;-)

Many of you may have already watched this 2007 film. The film is better known for its visual effects, but this reco is more for its terrific dialogues!

Incidentally, at US$300 million, this film is the most expensive movie ever made to date! 

Here are some dialogues from the film that I liked :)

Barbossa: Dying is the day worth living for.

Will Turner: No cause is lost if there is but one fool left to fight for it.

Jack Sparrow: Well that's even more than less than unhelpful

Will Turner: [to Elizabeth Swann] If you make your choices alone, how can I trust you?

Norrington: Our fates have been entwined, Elizabeth, but never joined.

Barbossa: You have to be lost to find a place that can't be found, elseways everyone would know where it was.

Jack Sparrow: William, have you noticed something? Or rather, have you noticed something that's not there to be noticed?

Barbossa: Still thinkin' of running, Jack? Think you can outrun the world? You know the problem with being the last of anything, by and by there be none left at all.

Jack Sparrow: I have no sympathy for any of you feculent maggots and no more patience to pretend otherwise. Gentlemen, I wash my hand of this weirdness.

Officer: [to Lord Cutler Beckett Officer about Jack Sparrow] Do you think he plans it all out, or just makes it up as he goes along?

Jack Sparrow: [about the condition of the tack line] It is neither proper nor suitable. It is not acceptable, nor adequate. It is, in obvious fact, an abomination.

Captain Sao Feng: The only way for a pirate to make a living these days is by betraying other pirates.

Jack Sparrow: Mr. Gibbs!
Gibbs: Aye, cap'n?
Jack Sparrow: You may throw my hat if you wish.
Gibbs: Aye, AYE! [Gibbs throws Jack's hat into the celebrating crowd]
Gibbs: Hurrah!
Jack Sparrow: Now go and get it.

Elizabeth Swann: Pretty speech from a captor, but words whispered through prison bars lose their charm.

Jack Sparrow: [to Tia Dalma] You add an agreeable sense of the macabre to any delirium.

Captain Barbossa: I do not renege on a bargain once struck but we agreed on ends only, the means are mine to decide.

Elizabeth Swann: You will listen to me! LISTEN! The other ships will still be looking to us, to the Black Pearl, to lead, and what will they see? Frightened bilgerats aboard a derelict ship? No, no they will see free men and freedom! And what the enemy will see, they will see the flash of our cannons, and they will hear the ringing of our swords, and they will know what we can do! By the sweat of our brow and the strength of our backs and the courage in our hearts! Gentlemen, hoist the colours!

‘The Wide Lens: A New Strategy for Innovation’ by Ron Adner

These days, it is enough to read the introduction and then quickly scan the rest of the content to absorb the essence of most management books. The Wide Lens is one book I have read cover to cover, and now am in my second round!

In today’s interdependent world, no matter your situation, your success depends not just on your own innovation and execution excellence, but also on the ability and willingness of the visible as well as invisible partners that make up your ecosystem. This is often a blind spot for many.

Using great examples from tyres to telecom – both successes and failures – Ron Adner introduces a new set of tools and frameworks that will uncover a company’s hidden sources of dependence in taking an innovation to market.

Here is a sneak peek into the Wide-Lens Tool-Box:

• Begin by gaining a clear view of your Value Blueprint. It will reveal hidden Co-innovation and Adoption Chain Risks. Drawing a clear blueprint will encourage you and your team to formulate a plan for dealing with problematic elements proactively, at the start of your journey. It will help you avoid the familiar improvisation of tactical adjustments that is the hallmark of incomplete strategy.

• Using the Leadership Prism to assess the distribution of expected surplus will help you identify who the natural ecosystem leadership candidates are, and whether you are among them. Using the First Mover Matrix will help you determine your ideal timing, letting you see whether the structure of interdependence is likely to reward early movers or hold them at the starting line waiting for the race to start.

• Exploring alternative blueprints using the Five Levers of Ecosystem Reconfiguration will help you arrive at a plan that can accept the constraints of your ecosystem and still deliver a complete value proposition. And coupling this exercise with the principles of the Minimum Viable Footprint, Staged Expansion, and Ecosystem Carryover, will help you identify the best sequence to follow in building toward your value proposition, and then leverage this achievement to extend your advantage to additional opportunities.

Bottom Line: Eliminate avoidable failure; strategise more robust success!

Aren’t the phrases Value Blueprint, Leadership Prism, Minimum Viable Footprint teasing you enough to grab the book at first opportunity?

The Little Blue Reasoning Book: 50 Powerful Principles for Clear and Effective Thinking

'The Little Blue Reasoning Book: 50 Powerful Principles for Clear and Effective Thinking' is written by Brandon Royal

Some 2,500 years ago, Socrates gave birth to the art and science of what we now call critical reasoning; also referred to as critical thinking, it may be defined broadly as “the process by which we evaluate information.” Notwithstanding our ability to read, no other single skill is more important than our ability to reason.

This book provides a distillation of the most useful reasoning concepts, presented as fifty tips interspersed through five chapters.

Chapter 1 on 'Perception & Mindset' provides an initial framework for reasoning.

Chapter 2 on 'Creative Thinking' introduces non-traditional thinking methods.

Chapter 3 on 'Decision Making' focuses on applied reasoning and introduces various tools, the major benefit of which is to structure or quantify the decision-making process.

Chapter 4 on 'Analyzing Arguments' shows us how to break arguments down according to classic argument structure: conclusion, evidence, and assumption.

Chapter 5 on 'Mastering Logic' provides the foundation for understanding some of the most relevant examples of reasoning flaws found in everyday conversation and speech.

Here is a glimpse of some of those Tips:

Tip #2: Think of mindsets as divided into four basic types: Analysts, Idealists, Realists, and Synthesists.

Tip #4: Convergent thinking focuses the mind; divergent thinking opens the mind.

Tip #6: Not challenging the obvious, evaluating ideas too quickly, and fear of looking the fool — these are the three greatest creativity inhibitors.

Tip #8: Brainstorming has rules: quantity of ideas is preferred, wacky ideas are welcome, delayed evaluation is mandatory, and “hitchhiking” is encouraged.

Tip #11: In selling creative ideas, most people are moved more by the depth of a person’s conviction and commitment than they are by the details of a logical presentation.

Tip #19: Evidence + Assumption = Conclusion. The assumption is the glue that holds the evidence to the conclusion.

Tip #21: The five most common critical reasoning errors people make include: comparing “apples with oranges,” over-generalizing on the basis of small samples, ignoring relevant evidence, confusing cause and effect, and failing to anticipate bottlenecks when plans are put into action.

Tip #34: Test the opposite scenario — if you hear that a full moon causes the crime rate to rise, always ask what the crime rate is like when the moon is not full.

Tip #40: Always look for potentially vague terms in an argument and ask for or seek clarification.

Tip #45: Necessary conditions are not the same as sufficient conditions. The statement “A person needs water to remain healthy” does not mean that water alone is enough to keep a person healthy. Water is a necessary but not sufficient condition for someone to remain healthy.

The book also presents 10 classic trade-offs:

1. Breadth vs. Depth
2. Control vs. Chance
3. Individual vs. Collective
4. Means vs. Ends
5. Quantity vs. Quality
6. Short-term vs. Long-term
7. Specific vs. General
8. Subjective vs. Objective
9. Theory vs. Practice
10. Tradition vs. Change

Seven Transformations of Leadership

‘Seven Transformations of Leadership’ is a 2005 HBR article by David Rooke & William Torbert.

The authors argue that great leaders are differentiated not by their personality or philosophy, but by their internal action logic! Action logic is how the leaders interpret their own and others’ behaviours, and how they maintain power or protect from threats.

Based on their research, the authors categorise action logics into seven distinct types. These action logics function as a leader’s dominant way of thinking. Here’s the list starting with the least productive (and least complex):

• Opportunist: Wins any way possible. Self-oriented. Manipulative. ‘Might makes right’ approach. Opportunists are good in emergencies and in pursuing sales, but few people want to follow them for the long term.

• Diplomat: Avoids conflict. Wants to belong. Obeys group norms; doesn’t rock the boat. Diplomat is a supportive glue in teams, but can’t provide painful feedback or make the hard decisions needed to improve performance.

• Expert: Rules by logic and expertise. Uses hard data to gain consensus and buy-in. Expert is a good individual contributor, but lacks emotional intelligence. Also lacks respect for those with less expertise.

• Achiever: Meets strategic goals. Promotes teamwork; juggles managerial duties and responds to market demands to achieve goals. Achiever is well suited for managerial work, but inhibits thinking outside the box.

• Individualist: Operates in unconventional ways. Ignores rules s/he regards as irrelevant. Individualist is effective in venture & consulting roles. But, irritates colleagues & bosses by ignoring key organizational processes & people.

• Strategist: Generates organizational and personal change. Highly collaborative; weaves visions with pragmatic, timely initiatives. Strategist challenges existing assumptions. Generates transformations over the short and long term.

• Alchemist: Generates social transformations. Reinvents organizations in historically significant ways. Alchemist leads society-wide change.

Interestingly, the same seven action logics can be used to describe teams and organisations as well.

In the sample set researched by the authors, there were 5% Opportunists, 12% Diplomats, 38% Experts, 30% Achievers, 10% Individualists, 4% Strategists and 1% Alchemists!

The most remarkable finding of the authors’ research is that leaders can transform from one action logic to another. Few may become alchemists, but many have the desire and potential to become Individualists and Strategists.

The article suggests ways in which leaders can transform from one action logic to another. Read it here, if you are interested.

Infinite Vision: The Story of Aravind Eye Care

"Infinite Vision: How Aravind Became the World's Greatest Business Case for Compassion" by Pavithra Mehta & Suchitra Shenoy

The mechanics of how Aravind works, are well documented by several business case studies, but they fall short on some fundamental questions like what created, and what continues to animate, the model. This is the crucial gap this book fills in.

The authors of the Aravind book start with an interesting inquiry: If Aravind is the extra-ordinary answer, what were Dr V's Questions? Discover they did, and how! The Indian Express columnist, Amulya Gopala Krishnan says, "A story about an organisational marvel, this book is somehow internally illuminated. It has a plot, poetry, and emotion - things you don't expect from a business title".

"To give sight for all" was Aravind's founder Dr V's vision! That's not a small goal even for world's governments, and Dr V was a retired person with no money, business plan, or safety net! According to the World Health Organisation's estimates, 39 million people in the world are blind, 80% of them needlessly so! But, when intuitive goodness is pitted against unthinkable odds, it stirs the imagination and awakens possibility. Spirituality was where Dr V found many answers! Through a continued process of aspiration, rejection, and surrender, Dr V was able to tap into an intelligence that went beyond the thinking mind. Aravind Eye Care System is actually named after Dr V's spiritual guru, the freedom-fighter-turned-mystic Sri Aurobindo.

It's not just this "spirit", but superb execution capabilities that made Aravind. That Aravind's assembly line systems and skill-based task delineation, ala McDonald's, maximise the Surgeon's productivity and deliver high quality service at low cost is probably well known, but how many know that it is the institutionalised quest for constant refinement that has perfected the model?

Sample this for an outcome of such perfection: UK National Health Service does 500,000 eye surgeries annually; Aravind alone does 300,000! That's not all... Aravind does it at less than 1% of Britain's costs! Because, Aravind model arose from a potent question "How much can we give for what we get?" vs. the more typical "How much can we get for what we give?" That question gave rise to a model defining insight, that there is a synergy between quality, cost, and the demand for services...

Combined with the non-negotiable service principle that there would be no difference in clinical outcomes between paid and free patients, and another insight, that the market price is set based on an average provider's cost and throughput, gave the strategic objective of phenomenal productivity, to give Aravind a decided edge in the marketplace.

Nurses are at the core of such productivity. They hand instruments to Surgeon in such a choreographed sequence, that the Surgeon's eyes don't even lift from the microscope! There is far more to the role of nurses than mere assembly-line efficiency; they are the scaffolding that holds the Aravind model in place and the most pervasive conveyors of its culture. The nurse recruitment process and the training system, described in the book, are pearls of wisdom in Human Resource Management.

Once the strategy is tested for its workability, the next step for any enterprise is scaling. "Start with a microcosm of what you're dreaming of; seeing it in motion will give the energy you and your team need" was Aravind's approach. Such insights pop-up through the book!

Taking on a goal that far exceeds your capacity has a powerful side effect. It primes you to find allies everywhere. At Aravind, the global mission led to counter-intuitive commitment to training its competition! That raises another important question "You can package and share what you do through workshops and training programs, but how do you systemetise and givee away what you are?" Read the book to find the answer :)

High volume is key to Aravind model, but eliminating curable blindness is not just about numbers, it's about reaching people in a human way.

With such deep insights into the evolution of a noble mission, the making of a strategy, the ring side view into execution details and the unique approaches to scaling of the world's greatest business case for compassion, I have no hesitation in commending the book as the Gita for social enterprises...

“How to Study with Mind Maps: The Concise Learning Method” by Toni Krasnic

Learning is a central human activity and has important implications for school, career, and life. It is the foundation for success in and enjoyment of life. But, in all of your years of attending school, did anyone ever teach you how to learn? Probably not. This book will teach you how!

Concise Learning is about turning studying into learning and about turning information into knowledge. This book will teach you how to make this significant transformation in your studies through a learning method that involves visual mapping, critical thinking, and problem solving. Don’t fret; this isn’t a book on learning theory. Rather, this book will provide you with a simple and intuitive, yet proven and powerful, method for learning and managing multiple sources of information. In other words, this book will serve you as a learning blueprint that you can apply immediately.

With so much to learn, you simply can’t absorb everything. Some information will be lost. What’s really important is that you have control over what information gets lost and what gets retained. Struggling students get bogged down in unfocused and unproductive reading, copying, and repetition, instead of focusing on key concepts and the pursuit of a complete picture, which really drives successful learning. Successful students apply an information filter early in the learning process because they know they can’t possibly absorb all of the information presented, nor do they have to. They select what is important to learn. They make a conscious decision to absorb only the key concepts, which in turn enables them to learn the course material better and faster and to be able to apply it to other areas of learning as well.

With Concise Learning Method (CLM), learning is achieved via a five-phase process (looking for puzzle pieces) that involves meaningfully organizing and connecting key concepts in a visual map (putting together the puzzle pieces), critically thinking, and asking key questions.

CLM allows you to readily consolidate information from multiple sources and look at it from multiple perspectives in a highly visual, interactive format. Further, it allows you to process the information as you encounter it rather than waiting for all of the “puzzle pieces” to fall into place. This free-form learning allows the brain to merge logic and creativity to enable maximum learning.

Visual maps are so powerful and work so well because they are based on memory principles that help you learn and retain new information. They are effective because they force you to be active, focus, concentrate, and think; they contain visual cues that strengthen memory; they provide connections and structure to organize information logically and meaningfully; and they provide a way to personalize information according to your interests and what makes sense to you.

The 5Ps - the five phases of learning - and the 4 steps within each of the 5Ps guide your thought processes, as you’re learning.

The 5 phases of CLM (illustrated from the perspective of a formal student, but are relevant for anyone) are:

1. Preview (preview the lecture material): Before class starts, preview the lecture material (textbook, lecture notes, etc.) to become familiar with the lecture topic and unfamiliar terms and concepts. This phase results in a high-level visual map (outline) that serves as the initial framework to organize and connect key concepts and make them relevant to your mind. The preview phase also prepares your mind for the information to be discussed in the lecture, resulting in increased interest, participation, and comprehension during the lecture.
2. Participate (participate actively in lectures): Active engagement in the lecture results in a revised key concepts framework (visual map) and further solidifies meaningful learning.
3. Process (process all lecture-related information into your visual map): Process the information from lecture, textbook, and other resources immediately or shortly after the lecture by organizing and connecting key concepts into a further refined and more detailed visual map. In this phase, you’re essentially processing all information in a very personal way so that it is meaningful to you. This helps transfer information from short-term memory to long-term memory.
4. Practice (practice by solving new problems): Don’t simply read through practice examples where the solution has been worked out for you. Also, don’t stick with repetitive practice examples. The key here is to apply what you’ve learned to situations you haven’t encountered before. Use your existing knowledge to tackle new problems of all sorts – concrete, abstract, factual, conceptual, and procedural. Approach practicing problems as though you were taking an exam by working examples you’ve never seen before. This phase gives you “hands on” experience, helps you review, and further solidifies what you’ve learned.
5. Produce (produce results and new ideas): As you critically think about new information, questions, and problems, your fresh perspective will result in a unique product of your understanding, concepts, experiences, ideas, and reasoning. Your mind will, in effect, produce new knowledge that is already well integrated with your existing knowledge.

Within each phase, the 4 following steps encourage active interaction and dialogue between the course materials, your visual map, and your thinking.

1. Identify key concepts: You decide what’s important and what you want to learn. You are not a passive recipient of information. Rather, you are an active agent in your learning and must determine what information you want to receive in order to learn best. Key concepts could be simple facts and ideas but most commonly represent a set of facts, ideas, attributes, or characteristics.
2. Meaningfully organize and connect key concepts using a visual map: You decide how you want to learn. You are not a passive recorder of information who simply memorizes key concepts. Rather, you construct your own meaning by organizing and connecting the key concepts in a meaningful framework (visual map). The visual map you compose reveals your understanding and deepens and extends your thinking. Notice that the information has now been accurately captured, reduced to key concepts, connected to other key concepts, and meaningfully organized.
3. Think critically: By organizing and connecting key concepts, you clear your thoughts and sharpen your understanding so you can think critically about what you’re learning. Critical thinking is a cognitive process that appears in several categories of the cognitive process dimension (see section 1.4) and involves reasoning things out on the basis of evidence and valid conclusions. To think critically means you understand and reconstruct what you hear and read into your own thinking and experience. The end result is a new creation, where someone else’s thinking now exists in your mind within your own framework.
4. Ask key questions: Critical thinking, in turn, allows you to develop and ask key questions that guide and propel your inquiry and problem solving throughout the 5Ps process. Key questions are questions that investigate information and experience, probe reasons and evidence, and examine interpretations and conclusions.

You know you’re on the right path when you’re actively observing and discovering, asking and answering questions, thinking, understanding and retaining what you’re learning, applying what you’ve learned, and, most importantly, feeling engaged and interested.