Gauravonomics Blog

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(Cross-posted on my fellowship blog - How International Values Shape Communications Technologies)

Here’s a brilliant TED presentation by Hans Rosling on how to look differently at development indicators across countries and continents, using Gapminder’s trend visualization tool Trendalyzer –

I spent an hour playing around with Gapmindmer and discovered some interesting trends related to the diffusion of communications technologies in BRIC countries.

In all these charts comparing Brazil, Russia, India, China and United States, the X axis represents the income per person (in fixed PPP$) on a logarithmic scale while the Y axis changes. By pressing the ‘play’ button, you can see how the variable changes for these five countries over years.

Let’s start with the Y axis representing the number of cell phones users on a logarithmic scale. It’s fascinating how each country seems to stay close to the X axis until something happens and it rises vertically. It happens to the USA in 1980, China in 1986, Brazil in 1989, Russia in 1990 and India in 1994. As of now, these five countries have the biggest cell phone user bases across the world¹ (China at #1 with 601 million, India at #2 with 305 million, USA at #3 with 260 million, Russia at #4 with 172 million and Brazil at #5 with 135 million).

Quick Summary: Check out my new book-as-a-blog ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’, a year-long experiment in why we choose to consume, or not.

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 (no eating out, no going out for movies or music or plays, no television or newspapers, no shopping except for necessities) 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?

‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’ is a blog in which I document my year off consumption. It is also a book-in-progress, in search of a publisher with a multi-million dollar advance.

Do spend an hour reading it, do subscribe to it, and don’t forget to tell me that you absolutely adore it.

As marketers, we often forget that consumers are people too.

Adam Crowe’s Facebook group called Stop Calling Me a Consumer! might serve as a timely reminder (via Get Shouty).

Given that you have only one sidebar in your browser, what would you use it for? For chatting (Google Talk), for social networking (Mozilla ProjectCoop), for social bookmarking (del.icio.us), or for something else? (via Red/Write Web)