Ideas Into Action - Session III

(IIA is an informal platform for interaction with a small group of peers and professional friends, invited to discuss ideas, share thoughts and best practices from which we all can learn. A time to spend a relaxed evening sharing thoughts, converting ‘Ideas’ into ‘Action’)

IIA - III held on 28th Feb, 2018 at Hilton Hotel - Bengaluru was all about the City, the Millennial and Social Media

It took us some time to bring to you another session of IIA, as people were busy with Festivals, however we think it was worth the wait. Though we limit the event at 20+ guests, in order to have a real sharing of thoughts and camaraderie, I am happy to say 30+ guests did not feel like a disconnected group.

The sessions are planned based around topics which the invited guests are passionate about. It is a long process based on our discussion with invited guests over a period of time. So we have had guests like Marnik Vermeulan of IBM, Partha Pratim Bhattacharyya of Conduent, Amit Somani of Prime Ventures specifically talking about 'Millennial' along with Malini of JFrog and Arti Sharma of Symmetric providing the millennial perspective while Shashidhar from C&W i.e. me, T P S Raman from Toli, Gitesh Agarwal, Queensland Trade & Investment commissioner took the lead on 'Social Media'. But the first topic of discussion was for the invitees, who are passionate about Bengaluru like Murali Nair from DellEMC, Abhishek Sundaram from Architectural firm Symmetrics, Ramita Arora from C&W. Prem Kumar of Infosys, Kiran Mistry from FHD, Taranjot Gulati from KEF Infra and Devanshi Patel from ANSR. They are also the people who are prepared to do something about the city - Bengaluru.

Let us talk about Bengaluru!

In one of the sessions of Times Of India Lit festival of Bengaluru which I had attended in January, the distinguished panel talked about the reason Bengaluru is such a great place to grow (They called it "The Magic Sauce"). At the end of the discussion, my friend Naresh from Venkataramanan Associates asked a very pertinent question, "It is all fine what Bengaluru has given the corporate, but what the corporate have given back to the city?" That struck a chord with me and hence this topic. The idea was to find out the ways and means of doing something for the city as an individual as well as corporate since most of us in the room represented Commercial Real Estate in one way or the other. As the discussion progressed, most of us agreed that as an individual, one can not make a difference. However, I think it is all about passion. If Manjhi can carve a road out of mountain, then every one of us has a chance to make a change, if we are passionate enough.

Anand Balakrishnan from Commscope started the discussion with a thought that we do have a challenge and there is need to take corrective action. Kiran added that the Private / Public partnership does not happen most of the times. There is an urgent need to find solution for water scarcity in near future, as Bengaluru does not have permanent water resource. While Murali highlighted that the amount of revenue generated by the Govt. is huge, however there is no transparency. This is required in order to see what we are doing about the infrastructure in and around Bengaluru. Govt Machinery has to have a proper system and process rather than corporate acting on their own. It was suggested that there are challenges every where and the corporate need to form a forum, to which many of the attendees said that there are already many, working on their separate needs and ways. However the idea that came out in dicussion, was to have a consolidated large body to have some leverage in having a say in the city's planned development. As we talked about, we could count the number of things corporate have provided the city of Bengaluru on our fingers which is not very great. Ramita added that there are 130 Million SFT of Commercial Real Estate in Bengaluru and with commercial absorption slated at 13 million SFT this year, we are going to have more and more people coming in to the city. Added to that, is the fact that all these Ola / Uber drivers, are in the city as floating populations from the suburbs which is adding woes to the city traffic which is the most glaring and often cited problem.

"Rather than complain about infrastructure woes of Bangalore, each corporate and its citizens should contribute in a small way - even something as simple as incentivising carpooling, riding bicycles to work or taking public transport can start making a small but meaningful dent in Bangalore's future." - Amit Somani (Prime Ventures)

Marnik added that the Bangalore city authorities are reactive rather than proactive with regards to how the city develops / should develop, leading to chaos and depletion of natural resources. This is starting to resonate in international press Combining this to other risks - such as the re orientation of IT skills as well as the fact that other cities such as Hyderabad seem to be more visionary, may lead to Bangalore loosing its competitive position and a fast redirection of work to other cities. Bangalore lacks a visionary plan like La Defence once was for Paris or the Parque de Valdebebas in Alcobendas - Madrid - Spain.

Sushma of Cushman & wakefield shared her experience that she had met many Govt officials and they have clear vision and plan but then there is lack of focus from the State Govt. which mostly end up derailing the projects that do get kick started.

Who Are The Millennial?

There is growing thought that the Millennial are driving the work place strategy with agile, collaborative and over the top recreation facilities within the office space and to get to the root of this issue, there is a need to identify who are these millennial and how they are driving this change. The discussion was spearheaded by Marnik along with Partha and Amit.

Marnik said that linking the new work space to the millennial is wrong since there are two (separate) evolution : (a) the nature of work is changing, with new technologies enabling extremely short cycles between product concepting and delivery, which in itself requires people to work differently together, enabled by new work space designs (collaborative - agile) and (b) the millennial generation seeks a different work experience, which is found in the way they manage and are being managed amongst others through (a) challenging jobs which enable them to learn, develop and contribute, (b) constant feedback, (c) freedom in how they organize work - they want to be measured on deliverable, not on how they deliver. 

Partha thinks that they are the folks who would change the world. The World has been always revolutionized by the youth and they come in every generations as Millennial (with different names) it’s the thought process which change over the generations. The upcoming generation - the millennial are Fun loving, vibrant, social, and confident. Education is not a very must and they will confidently explore all avenues, which will provide satisfaction and independence. Their family life is likely to be uncertain, as they have mostly lived in nuclear society with one kid and the fear of being isolated. Communication is ceases to be direct and they would prefer to be more communicative by using technology, mobile and other platform. There is a great sense of the world turning virtual. Instead of Work life balance being preached by the previous generation, the Millennial will have both - work and life being properly balanced

The other spear head on the topic was Amit Somani, who brought in his experience of dealing with startups, as he deals with them day in, day out as some of them do end up on his door steps for venture capital. He said, that while the term "Millennial" is much ballyhooed, it is frame of mind. Certainly in India, the generation "born on the internet" is unique and different. They have had universal access to information; they have grown up in a more open and prosperous India and hence are fearless, more entrepreneurial and open to new ways to live and work. I think we should collaborate with them and learn new behaviors that are conducive to our own growth, while also continuing to nurture values that are everlasting. It is highly likely that many, if not most of us, will be working for millennial in some way or another in the next decade.

Probably the most important comment from the perspective of whether or not the millennial are driving the work place strategy, came from Abhishek. He said, the Millennial are the proverbial Trojan horse to unleash the creative, agile, collaborative as well as disruptive design / creative expressions. However to counter, Edward - Country Manager Bene shared the gist of a report which says that the top three requirements of the young generation to join a new firm is a) Work Environment, b) Facilities and then comes c) The remuneration.

"The (Millennial) phenomenon is over hyped and is leading to almost a whole marketing and industry of its own." - Marnik (IBM)

And that brings us to the next topic of discussion, which I was sure will ruffle many feathers of the millennial present in the room... and it did.

Is Social Media is a form of Creative Expression?

As I see the explosion of people, sharing the photographs of the breakfasts, lunch and dinner they have had or the lovely poetry some one has forwarded of long lost poet / author on WhatsApp or other such social media group. they all expect people to treat their posts as creative expressions and like, and share. That was the trigger that got us to put this question in front of the group. Do you think that the social media is a form of creative expression? What do you think? That was the question Raman, Gitesh, me as the spear head of the group tackled in one of the most talked about discussion over dinner. We had the millennial like Malini and Arti in the room, who did share their thoughts over the social media but they are the sensible one's, not the fake news mongers, social-evangelists, pseudo-medical experts or the fear mongers of everything that is going bad; which needs to be served hot and fast to the public at large - for likes and shares. The social media for me is another battle ground like electronic media fighting for TRP's, without substance, leave alone creativity.

As Gitesh took over the platform to talk about creative expression, sharing his daughter's poetry as a form of creativity, which she sends over to him almost every day over WhatsApp, the stage was set for a hot discussion among us.

"Social media is just like a brush, is a tool to produce creative art, social media are vehicles to convey creative new ideas through modern media." - Marnik

However, just as there exists much crappy "art" produced through paint brushes, most of the material conveyed through the social media are equally crappy.... The challenge is to find the pearls in the rivers of information... And I agree with Marnik. Kiran Mistry of FHD feels that social media is a great platform for sharing the content. Creativity however is a different ball game all together as creativity is a subjective term for the beholder. While we can safely say that we can still fly in or out from any airport, eat in any restaurant, watch any movies, attend any event or visit any place of attraction without declaring it to the whole word on social media, there is no stopping from the fact that Social media gives a platform for creating and sharing contents which has a deep and instant reach. 

"What all we share on the social media is not necessarily creativity but what we create is." - Shashidhar

Special thanks to Smita Nair of Cushman & Wakefield and Premkumar of Infosys to invite their friends and peers as well as share enthusiastically their thoughts and passion. And thank you Arti Shrama to diligently take notes to put this article up.

Recommended Books:

Technology: The Millennial Myth by Crystal Kadakia. (recommended by Marnik)

Business: Connect by John Browne

Thoughts: Enlightenment Now by Stephen Pinker

Creativity: Ten Letters to Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

"IDEAS INTO ACTION - IV" WILL BE HELD IN APRIL, 2018

The 'Ideas Into Action' event is periodically held at Hilton Hotel, EGL, Bengaluru in collaboration with Edward Kumar (Bene), T P S Raman (Toli) and Shashidhar Sharma (Cushman & Wakefield).

Please get in touch with us to be invited to this event, if you are passionate about something.

Check out Ideas Into Action - I | Ideas Into Action - II