History of Loneliness, This is Marketing, and Michael Lewis
Three stories that stood out for me last week:
This long form essay appeared in The Economist and talks about how millions of us are discovering the joys and disappointments of solitude in the current pandemic. While this article is a review of two books on loneliness/solitude (A Biography of Loneliness by Fay Alberti and A History of Solitude by David Vincent), it captures much more. It compares how pursing solitude has become increasingly difficult in the current times given handy access to networking means (phones and social media). There is a fine balance between complete isolation (which is often a harsh punishment doled out to hardened criminals) and solitude sought for recuperation. ‘The history of solitude is thus a history of extremes,’ the essay states, ‘of people who have willingly sat on top of pillars for decades and of prison reformers who aim to use loneliness to break men’s souls’. Currently, some of us seek refuge from the information overload (for instance, heading for ‘digital detoxes’ in mountainous meditation retreats), while others aim to escape enforced sociability by aspiring solo life (according to the essay, perhaps half of Swedish households, for instance, comprise one person). The current lockdown is forcing solitude on us. And it’s in these times that some of us are struggling with this curse, while some have discovered the great blessing it confers. Thanks to a virus,’ the essay concludes, ‘more people than ever are getting a chance to experience both’.
Is all Marketing evil? So asks Seth Godin towards the tail end of his book This is Marketing that I just finished reading. Marketing is a tool in the hands of marketers, who may choose to use it for evil purposes, for example, in one extreme example, nudging children to smoke. So some marketers may be evil but marketing per se is needed, for we as consumers don’t know what all good things that we need exist. We need marketers and marketing to help us discover these. I picked up Godin’s book to refresh my perspective on the art of marketing. If you follow his blog, then his form of writing will come across as familiar to you — short disciplined essays, written lucidly and staying away from cliches. It’s an easy, refreshing read. Some of the concepts that I took away from the book are around how to ‘organise around the minimum’, i.e. what’s the smallest size of customers that I wish to delight. How, instead of pleasing everyone, we should create something keeping in mind the 100 people who would love it (an idea borrowed from Kevin Kelly’s ‘1000 True Fans’ approach). If you can’t succeed with the small what makes you think that you can succeed in the large. Also, good to remember that everything now is just a click away and sometimes our customers know more about our competition than we do. That should make us think if being better than everyone else in a category is good enough, or should we aim to be the only one by creating a new category (Tesla vs Ford). Innovative marketers invent new solutions that work with old emotions. In these times, we are all marketers and if we want to teach ourselves the basics of good marketing, then I recommend to start with Godin’s books and blogs before exploring other sources.
If you have enjoyed Michael Lewis’ books — Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Blind Side to name a few — then you may be interested in this deep dive interview he did with Tim Ferris. It’s two hours long but worth a listen if you want to understand Lewis’ creative process. What stood out for me was the way he became a writer without any formal training. He actually started writing quite late in his life and left a lucrative career in finance to pursue writing full time. Also, for a small part of the interview, Michael talks about being happy. Interestingly, he talks about being happy as a muscle that one needs to practice regularly. For him, his happiness was a chance discovery, but then he decided to continue practicing being happy. What an interesting insight, I thought! Could happiness be a habit that we can all cultivate?
A quote that I read last week:
“The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours”
— Amos Tversky
