Storm the Norm Anisha Motwani

Almost 60 years back, the Canadian communication theorist Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “The medium is the message” to focus attention on the character, not just the content, of a medium. And he spoke of this when television was barely born and the internet was just about a germ of a thought, at best. In short, the media were not quite as complicated as we know them to be today.

But today the shadow of digital looms the largest over the media landscape. And other media – television, radio, out-of-home, print –are not extinct either. And that makes it messier. Or does it? 

Listen in as we storm this norm with none other than Sam Balsara, the doyen of the media industry. And as always powerful #StN Hacks to help you optimize your strategies in the right direction.

As we reflect upon MNC after MNC and how they’ve gone about their journeys in India, the three things that strike you immediately are: they play it safe, they prioritize testing the waters profitably from Day 1 over making a long-term commitment with lesser profitability in the early years, and they come with a “this is what we have, take it or leave it” mindset until India teaches them otherwise. And that’s the reason for today’s norm: Innovation at global companies only serves the niche.

And our guest today who’s stormed this norm with his disarmingly simple but insightful take is the Gulbahar Torani, CEO of global company Philips Domestic Appliances. And of course the 5 powerful hacks from Anisha & Narayan that will help you in your innovation journey!

Regardless of how progressive or woke an organization is, employees always start from a position of disadvantage, negotiating their way to a better place—either individually or collectively, formally or informally.
That’s the norm we storm in this episode of our podcast.
Listen in as Narayan & Anisha get chatting with a talented duo Aditiya & Gautam from the very aptly titled new age firm “TALENTED” and their attempt at creating a workplace model that’s trying its best to exceed employees’ expectations one HR policy at a time
 We also have for this episode Ritika Mathur, Partner – Human Capital Consulting, Grant Thornton Bharat for the GT Insights section to throw some light on how can companies deploy ESOPs in the best way to foster not just stock ownership but company ownership in the true sense of the phrase.

“The start-up economy today is only about moving money, not value creation.” This is the provocative norm we posed to veteran Fund Managing Partner,VT Bharadwaj, partner, A 91 Ventures & we began the discussion with something like this..venture capital firms basically mop up money from various sources – individuals and institutions, pension funds across the world, etc.—and then pool it up to then fund start-ups and new ventures. Basically, they move others’ money around and make more money by doing so. We pushed the argument further by saying that VCs are not “making” anything, in the traditional sense of manufacturing or creating. If anything, they’re manufacturers of belief, getting those with investible wealth to believe enough in ventures that don’t currently exist to back them with their surplus money.
In this entire reductionist approach, where is the conversation around sustainable value creation? Listen in to what he has to say…
#startups #Funding

In a world that’s all about the Web3 bubble, there’s no place for chewing gum bubbles.
Now, that’s a big and provocative norm to challenge about a category—and about large FMCG companies—that have built not just big customer bases for themselves but I daresay, also responsible for creating the kind of unparalleled mom-and-pop retail footprint in India that very few other categories can.
And I don’t say it lightly. The world of brands today seems to be about one or more of the following three things: purpose, planned purchase journeys, and pivots enabled by disruptive tech. Where’s the place for a frivolous, impulse-driven, unchanging product category in this world?
So how can an impulse category pivot to succeed in a D2C world, where the rules of commerce, culture and communications may be very different?And today’s norm is not just an existential question but a practical one that our guest Mr Rajesh Ramakrishnan, has been tackling at the helm of Perfetti even before the pandemic, but also through it.de!

Can we separate cryptocurrencies from blockchains?
Are coins a necessary part of securing a public blockchain?
There is a widespread public perception that exists that blockchain technology is worthwhile, but cryptocurrencies are not. You hear this decree all the time and with the regulatory overhang, it's only increasing by the day.
With some blistering critiques of cryptocurrencies, technocrats are trying to mitigate this stigma by focusing on the possible applications and changes that blockchains can bring about.
But the question remains .can we justify the separation of cryptocurrencies from blockchain technology?
Our guest Jonathan Caras explains..