About everything, and nothing in particular, of course.

Spiraling Down, Mumbai, India

A train of thought from Dubai to business as unusual to supporting people “doing cool stuff”. Follow along.

Stretch, Mumbai, India

Dubai
A classic example of “dumb growth” and the perils of focusing on allocating rather than creating: Umair Haque, Why Dubai Defaulted — And What America Should Learn From It:

Dubai was a mini-America: finance and real estate made up the lion’s share of its economy. Today, both are discovering the consequence is unsustainable, brittle, meaningless growth; growth that is bubble-driven, prone to crash, in many ways illusory, and that fails to create an authentically shared prosperity.

I call that “dumb” growth. Dubai’s real problem wasn’t debt itself: it was that dumb growth required debt, and misallocated that debt to its least productive uses.

“Business as unusual”
Highlighting a comment by Brooks Jordan in full,

Those who are always after you for examples, Umair, should read this one.

… Yes, the vision does seem somewhat surreal and, no, there are few examples in modern history because this is truly a break point in history. That’s why, in the absence of multiple examples, you’re having to paint these pictures via scenarios and other narratives of what business could/must do to align with a relationship and attention-based economy.

That is very hard to do, and I applaud you for it.

More of us, including readers of this blog, need to step across that threshold to help paint that picture and, shortly, create actual examples of businesses that thrive when they focus on social outcomes. To keep asking for examples, or scenarios that have as many details as an actual example, is to be stuck in the world we have left not the one we’re entering.

This is business as unusual. There’s no playbook. Let’s do our part to create it.

Exactly. Blueprints and playbooks don’t work forever. Theses are the new playbooks. Rough, incomplete, first drafts, but powerful, meaningful and actionable.

Supporting people “doing cool stuff”
Interestingly, Lloyd Davis explained a bit yesterday at Counterpoint / Tuttle about how Tuttle works by focusing on how people “do cool stuff”.

What makes “cool stuff” powerful? Me, about marketing through passion:

What are the keys? Passion, meaningfully directed. Transparency. Authority. A unique point of view. An ability to connect discrete actions to a meaningful cause. Resonance with a community. An obvious, transparent business model that “fits” the product, service, experience and community.

“Cool stuff” grows only if it resonates, if it’s meaningful, if people care. “Cool stuff” are the small-scale, human examples of the power of focusing on creating rather than capturing, of focusing on product instead of marketing. Demonstrations of the power of living a life too cool to ignore.

My hope? That we’ll create the playbooks for turning “cool stuff” and “cool lives” into sustainable, meaningful, value-creating, profitable lives and businesses.

Perhaps we should figure out how to invest in superstars?

A story, and 12 seconds from a 2 hour taxi ride in Mumbai, India.

It started with a question and a misplaced assumption.

“Can I get a taxi to the airport?”

“Yes,” the hotel guard replied.

“International airport, non-AC, cheapest, yeah?”

“Yes, yes.”

And so he walks into the street with me trailing behind, pulls out his whistle, starts looking for taxis on the busy street, and hails a taxi sitting in front of the hotel next door. The taxi driver slowly edges up the twenty feet to the hotel guard and I, and the hotel guard starts explaining what I want in Hindi.

“500 rupees, ok?”

“Meter. Use the meter,” I reply.

“No, 500 rupees,” with a shake of the head and the positive body language of an expected agreement.

“No, use the meter.”

A bit of a conversation between the hotel guard and the taxi driver ensues.

“Ok, 450 rupees”, the taxi driver says, as he gets out of the car and opens the door.

“300 rupees.”

General derisiveness ensues, with various versions of “300 too cheap” bandied about by the hotel guard and the taxi driver.

“I’ve paid 300 rupees before,” I reply, holding my ground, even though my memory isn’t spot-on.

“No, 300 too cheap.”

“No it’s not. I’ve taken this ride before. 300 rupees, or use the meter.”

“From here? Maybe to domestic airport? International is farther.”

“Yep, from around here, to international airport, Sahara.”

Perhaps this is when both the taxi driver and the hotel guard discard their initial assumption. In any case, the taxi driver gives up, and with a wave of his hand and a shake of his head, gets back in his car and backs up back to his waiting spot in front of the fancier hotel.

The hotel guard hails another taxi, has a little conversation with the driver and then pulls down the flag on the meter.

“This man is a good man, take this taxi.”

“Using the meter? Good. Thank you.”

As I get in the taxi, a longer conversation in Hindi ensues, perhaps meaningful, perhaps not, but it ends with the hotel guard wishing me a good day and the taxi driver taking off.

2 hours later, after braving the crowded, dusty, bustling Mumbai streets, a 30 km battle of man vs. car vs. bus vs. rickshaw vs. motorbike vs. pedestrian vs. construction vs. general rubble vs. disorganization vs. too many people vs. good common sense, we arrive at the airport. The taxi driver checks out the meter, pulls out the rate card and figures out the appropriate fare, all in front of me in the light so I can see the meter and the rate card.

“291 rupees,” he says.

I hand him 330 rupees as I leave, surprised by my memory, amazed by the ride, excited to be at the airport, thankful that the taxi driver took care of me, and wishing I could go back to the hotel guard and the original taxi driver and say “see? see?”.

Was I originally getting ripped off? Probably not. Was I treated differently because I was a foreigner? A little, but not as much as you might think. Did they make a misplaced assumption that they owned an information asymmetry advantage? Yes.

But remember, that happens everywhere. All that matters is that I was safe at the airport, ready for another hop, one step closer to home.

First Steps, Pune, Maharashtra, India

More photos from a wedding experience, still to come…