The Right Problem

Good salesmanship is about solving the customer's problem.

But even more effective salesmanship is about drawing the customer's attention to the right problem, rather than the one he is superficially addressing.

Two instances come to my mind.

First - as part of a team managing a college fest, we had rented out food stalls. A location assigned to a vendor somehow got occupied by someone else. So when this guy showed up around lunch time to set up his stall, he came to us and complained. We spent around 15 min arguing on the 'Why' part of things until one of my friends came up and pointed out the right problem - the location really doesn't matter, but if he is not setting up his stall during lunch time, he IS going to lose business. Problem solved.

Second - more recently, I made a trip to Chennai with my parents. We just had to rent out a hotel room to spend one night, so we didn't need anything to luxurious. We considered a modest hotel. I went on to ask the attendant whether they had hot water running in their bathroom. And he pointed out to me - we were in Chennai! Nobody would ever use hot water there. Once again, addressing the real problem behind the question, thus helping us choose the right factors in making our decision easy.

It's funny how funny is underrated.

As any newly (post(yes,showing off))graduated bachelor will tell you, dinner time conversation with friends/(batch-mates) is in part a crib session about their respective jobs. This time, my flat mate was talking about how his company was cost cutting at their annual party by 

1. not having booze (99% crib), and 

2. (1%) downgrading the entertainment from Parikrama (previous year) to some random standup comedian.

(The cribbing weightage does make sense given that an intoxicated brain happens to be a lot more appreciative, irrespective of the performer.)

Anyways, turns out the audience had a far more entertaining evening thanks to the new option. What, however, was interesting, is the fact that, universally, the audience had expected it to be not-so-good. (Even compared to a rock band which will mostly play covers of songs which most of you have never heard or figured out beyond one line. ("ohhh o o.. sweet child o mine")).

Have attended 3-4 local standup comedy acts, I have a strong admiration for that community. Mostly for the way they manage to delve into details and point out those little funny things, which are a part of our routine, yet which most of us fail to observe. Hence the way the audience tended to initially dismiss off of this mode of entertainment was really surprising to me.

Which brings me to this post. (So much for brevity being the soul of wit and all that shit.. :-s)

Being low budget and all, Funny often seems to be fall-back option. 

"Ok, I don't want to win the National Award. So let me make a funny movie (cheap - literally and often figuratively) and rake in the money". (Sajid Khan)

"Ok, I don't want to win the Nobel prize for Literature. I will just write some random book with cheap humor and sell a million copies." (Chetan Bhagat)

'Yup. I type LOL with an
unchanged expression.'

"Ok, I don't want to have any accreditation. I will tie up with foreign universities." (name undisclosed since I don't have the resources to pursue a court case in Gwalior or Guwahati).

Hell, even chicks mostly tend to dig the dark, brooding guy. With the funny one just being pampered to provide some dose of fun.

Of course, all is not lost. There are two places where humor is stronger than ever before. More and more awesomer and awesomer sitcoms are being made. (TBBT, Modern Family are my current favs). And of course, the internet seems to popping with all kinds of humor - right from the geeky xkcd to the sarcastic faking news sites to some really witty blogs to nice plain memes. For now, that should do.

Anyways, here's hoping for a time when Funny gets some serious respect. Till then, I'll think whether to take life with a pinch of salt, or with a dash of humor.

A disease called TB (Tabbed Browsing)

I started using tabbed browsing when the Chrome browser was launched. Mind = blown. It was too awesome a feature. (Ok, Mozilla had it, but the way you could move around and play with the tabs on Chrome was too goddamn pleasing.) I loved it.

Now I hate it.

Why?

1. A tab, once opened, is not read beyond one para.

2. A tab, once opened, is never closed. No, you don't get rid of guilt pangs that easy.

The silver lining of course, was the fact that Chrome was quite unstable. Every once in a while it would crash in a way that the 'Recover all tabs' feature would fail. 

Now that that issue seems to have been fixed, my crib has extended to include an additional point.

3. Pray, why must that YouTube video be in PLAY mode by default? Hunting for that one (if lucky, else more) tab which is generating is the most irritating thing ever. And whatever is that video anyways? As if TED talks have ever done any long term good. Bloody pseudo intellectual self glorification.

And the worst bit. It reminds me I am aging.

4. Open new tab. Watch cursor blink at the address bar. FORGET in < 1 sec, why you wanted a new tab.

Too late to the party

Not all those who wander are lost. Only the ones using iPhone maps.

Shit shit shit. Why couldn't I make this up earlier? :(

Life is a Jigsaw puzzle

The pieces are all scattered and you don't know where to pick them up. And to make it harder, somebody forgot to put a picture on the box.

But, wait, doesn't that give you a chance to draw a picture of your own?