Navi Mumbai

NPR had a great story the other week about Navi Mumbai (New Mumbai), the second city that has been built next to Mumbai to ease the over crowding, pollution and sky high property prices brought on by that city's growth. As the world's largest planned (and ost modern) planned city it's an interesting observation in centralized urban planning and wealth.

In a striking bit of foresight, the need for a new city was recognized way back in the 1960's and started draining swampland accordingly. In an attempt to avoid mistakes from the past, the planner eschewed creating zones for different types of economic activity (residential, industrial etc.) and instead went for a node or network structure, creating 14 separate but connected areas for mixed use, all with the right transportation connections. This help create a more village type environment and less urban sprawl.

But all this was in an era which championed relatively socialist principals and centralized planning. As the world has become flatter and India has embraced market driven development, there has been a push to re-centralize Mumbai's activities and turn it into a truly global metropolis. Navi Mumbai, in the mean time, has turned into an American shopping mall hell.

Similar developments in China make one begin to wonder: while we think we have learned the lessons of planning, is controlled (in terms of speed) organic evolution of a city not a better method, a way for ideas to build on each other?

@ PSFK

PSFK held a great conference in SF last week from which I have only just recovered.

There were some great presenters including Ed Cotton giving a great break down on types of trends and how they matter, Chris Riley talking about some of the people in the Bay Area who inspire him , and Gareth running a panel which included Frank Striefler of Media Arts lab talking about inspiration (with an interesting reminder that creating constraints can inspire.

For me, one of the most interesting and inspiring people at the conference was Max Schorr , co-founder of GOOD. He has an extremely down to earth, genuine speaker with a real understanding of how to get people to do things. This was underlined by one key slide he put up: the world Altruism in all caps with a line through it. He knew that people simply don;t do things out of the goodness of their heart to help others that often - but by bringing lots of communities together and offering a little something (in the form of the magazine, it encourages others to give back to. Be the change....

I was speaking on a panel talking about social media with Adrian Ho , Rohit Bhargava, and Lynn Casey , all hosted by George Parker. The panel went well and we seem to cover a lot of ground (including why PR firms seem to get so many social media assignments and why we seem to be making the mistake of treating this technology as media vs. a greater way to connect). However, I think we need another installment to get deeper below the surface.

There were various other cool people there who were great to meet and speak with including Jeremy Townsend from Ghetto Gourmet, the founder of 20x200 Jen Beckman and a really smart PhD candidate in cultural studies at the University of Arizona called Mandy Weinberger among others.

It was all on video so check out PSFK for the detailed highlights

subtle habits

How subtle are your habits? What prompts them. Since most of our habits are unconscious, its often hard to answer this, yet this challenge is often key to solving marketing challenges. The New York Times had an excellent article talking about research into this issue and it's application in developing good habits connected to health and safety (e.g. washing hands in developing countries to prevent the spread of disease).

The research showed that most habits - habits that by their estimate are 45% of our behavior - have specific cues that fall into four categories:

• a time
  
• a location
• certain people
• certain moods

All of these cues have to happen fairly frequently for a habit to form.

Most of these things cannot be cued with messages because they get formed with actual behavior - you can't associate a location with using a product unless someone actually uses it there for a while. However, advertising can suggest it in subtle ways, can own certain time slots and certainly some moods.

But all of this is very subtle, and none of it is one would call "messaging". This where strategy, production and promotion have to meld together to subtly suggest or create behavior which has value to people (if it didn't have value this would be malicious). But while this just confirms what the blogosphere has been filling about messages and propositions, it does suggest a role for repetition.

But really, how long did it take you to get into the Starbucks habit?

PSFK San Francisco Conference

This week I'll be taking part in a panel in PSFK's San Francisco conference which promises to be a great set of discussions and debates about a wide range of topics.

I'll be speaking on a panel with Adrian Ho of Zeus Jones, Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy PR and Lynn Casey of Noesis called "Using it" and will discuss social media on a practical level - what is really happening that works in real world. Suggestions or submissions of what to discuss/dismiss are welcome.

The panel is being moderated by George Parker of AdScam fame, so it promises to be lively (if you see George on the day don't forget to say happy birthday"

menorah morph

Menorahs - the 8 prognged candlestick used by Jews to celebrate Chanukah and other holidays - are usually up right and..well..multi pronged. Which is why this Menorah Morph - redesigned by Karim Rashid is so unique.

The design seems to mirror the pools of molten wax which always fall from the candles onto the nice sideboard. On a practical level, those pools will now hopefully fall onto the Menorah itself.

friday stroll

We're very fortunate to be given Friday afternoons off during the summer, although I have to say that it often ends up that I stay on finish things u at the office. But when I do get the chance I use that extra time to wander around the City and find various odd/interesting things.

Last Friday we (our planning intern Dibakar and I) were actually working, wondering around interviewing mechanics, when we stumbled upon this shoe (those are computer keys on there in case my horrible photo did make that clear) and various other exhibits in a store window.

Even better, they are dam comfortable!



It turns out that the store belongs to Keetsa an eco friendly mattress shop owned by the artist who created the shoe. They make the mattresses using mostly recycled foam and other material (including springs). Even better, because of the design the mattresses can fold up into a box which is 4'x2'x2', which means less packaging material and transportation resources.