Pecha Kucha Night was conceived by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham in Japan in 2003 as a place for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. It is now an extremely popular event across 110 locations worldwide.
Basically, each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each. Tonight’s event has a lineup of some rather cool speakers –
Lucid NYC is a monthly conference/ meetup/ party run by my friend David Friedlander that aims to start meaningful conversations about important topics. I spoke about my off consumption experiment at the October 2008 edition of Lucid NYC.
When: January, 15th 2009. Doors open 6:30, presentations begin at 8:00.
Where: 22 W. 27th St. 6th floor (buzz “For Your Imagination”), New York, NY 10001.
By the way, my belief in serendipity was reinforced when organizer David Friedlader invited me to speak at the event. I’m attending another event in NYC on the same day — The Feast Social Innovation Conference –
The Feast will gather 150 of the world’s leading creative mavericks, entrepreneurs, revolutionaries, radicals, and innovators together to inspire action to change the world. Anchored in innovative ideas with a focus on action, The Feast will take a cross-disciplinary look at digital answers to global problems, social design solutions and successful triple-bottom line business models.
If you are in NYC on October 16th, do drop in to one or both of the events.
Bye buy
Gaurav Mishra explains why he’s given away everything he owns. Photography Amit Chakravarty
On July 27, I gave away everything I had to five strangers. When I say everything, I do mean everything – furniture, electronics items, books, DVDs, – all the accumulated acquisitions of an intellectual yuppie.
I also gave away the life I had built over the last six years. It was a perfect life, with a fast-track corporate career, and a sea-facing house in Cuffe Parade, a short walk away from office.
I’m in month six of my year-long experiment in why we choose to consume, or not.
We derive our identity (and our happiness) basically in four ways — from the things we own, from the experiences we have, from the people we relate to, and from the meaning we create. These four elements are arranged in a “hierarchy of identities” that is not only different for each one of us, but also changes for each one of us over time.
[SLIDE 1] Good afternoon! My name is Gaurav Mishra and I’m the marketer who went off consumption. I know… I know… it’s weird enough to say “off” and “consumption” in the same sentence and if you add “marketer” to the mix, it become so strange that it’s almost sublime.
Well, I found myself in the unenviable position of having to explain it all to a twelve year old girl the other day and I all I could do was to talk about dolls.
[SLIDE 2] So, let’s start with a story about dolls. But, first, let me ask all the lovely women in the audience: how many of you have owned a doll? [most women raise their hands] Great! How many of you have owned a hundred dolls? [one or two giggles] Come on, don’t be shy, raise your hand. [one woman raises her hand] Great! Wow! A hundred dolls!
I had earlier decided to speak without any visual aids, but finally succumbed to the temptation of using slides. Clearly, the marketer who went off consumption still hasn’t gone off Powerpoint.
I’m looking forward to meet a bunch of really interesting fellow speakers at the conference.
Here’s the final schedule of the three sessions. For some reason, I am bunched with some serious heavyweights like Faris Yakob, Noah Brier, Nick Parish and Grant McCraken and I’m suddenly afraid that I’ll totally underwhelm the audience.
Confirmed Speakers
10:00 - 12:30 Mark Baltazar: How to get run over by a Metro North Train and Live Aaron Dignan: The game of life. How a generation approaches nearly every aspect of life as a game. Alex Rosu: Credo Quia Absurdum Est. Romanian Political Street Art (webcast from Romania) Allan Benamer & Jeff Tuller: Valuing Social Change: Towards a Better World With Numbers Irving Slesar: Understanding Dreams Amber Finlay & Bud Melman: Embracing Bastardization: what your reaction to Fan Fiction culture says about you Joel Johnson: I am my own Grandpa! The good, the bad and the ugly in reclaiming family history online.
Dipti Bramhandkar: Is Reader’s Digest right? Is laughter really the best medicine? Hillel Cooperman: Cheese, wine, and software? How software is crossing the artisanal divide Kevin Slavin: Dollhouse Earth - A survey of building on Earth as if someone?s watching from space.
An increasing number of consumers are rejecting their roles as consumers and refusing to define themselves by the things they buy. Instead, they are choosing to define their identities from the experiences they have, the relationships they build, and the meaning they create by expressing themselves creatively.
If you are a marketer, you can react to these trends in two ways. You can ignore them until they hit you, or you can immerse yourself in them, like I have chosen to.
After studying these trends for almost six months, I see that there is a way for brands to stay relevant, even if the seven social trends I talked about move closer to the mainstream.
Simplicity, authenticity and community are the three themes that run through the seven social trends that are changing consumption. Brands that help us clear the clutter in our lives, or enable us to have authentic experiences, or assist us in forming and connecting with communities will become the most important necessities, the only things we can’t do without.
As many of you know, I am in month six of my year long off consumption experiment. The experiment involves buying only the bare necessities, and nothing but the necessities, for an entire year, with the intent of immersing myself into the subculture of people who have chosen to define their identities by means other than buying or owning things.
As many of you know, I have been recording my experiences during the year in a blog called ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’, because, well, I am the marketer who went off consumption.
I have decided now that it’s time to say goodbye to the marketer who went off consumption and focus on other stories, on other people who have stepped off the work-watch-spend treadmill, or asked themselves difficult questions about identity, or chosen to define themselves by means other than buying or owning things.
So, I’ll continue to write the blog, and I’ll continue to tell my own stories, but the blog won’t be about me anymore. The focus of the blog will shift away from reality TV mode to immersive journalism or ethnography mode.
Why would a twenty-something, single, eligible, IIM-educated, upwardly mobile marketer on the corporate fast-track in India’s business capital decide to go ‘off consumption’ for a year?
Will a year off consumption, not buying anything that isn’t a necessity, leave him ill-equipped to handle life and work in Mumbai?
Or, will it leave him with invaluable insights into what drives us to consume, or not, into the nature of consumption, into human nature itself?
We derive our identity (and our happiness) basically in four ways — from the things we own, from the experiences we have, from the people we relate to, and from the meaning we create. These four elements are arranged in a “hierarchy of identities” that is not only different for each one of us, but also changes for each one of us over time.
