Skip to main content

Department of useless information

The way information is consumed has changed. When we were young, we sat in front of the TV and absorbed all it blared. Or read books.

Since I was more of the latter, I had a storehouse of information - which I labelled - Department of Useless Information. This information was not useless - it did enable me to win quizzes and suchlike till I met bigger hoarders of information who I could not defeat.

Today, the way information is consumed is over the internet and the Department of useless information gatherers have never had it so good. Except for the arrival of non-googleable quizzes.

That means that the internet is a great place to build curiosity - almost like the library of yore - provided of course one uses it for the right things.

So, the kid potters around on youtube - mostly on science sites like ASAP science and Ted-ed and suchlike.

Soon comes with a question after a round of retail therapy by the parent.
Are you happy with the purchase?
Well, ya, kind of.
Ok.
It wont last very long. Research that happiness of a purchase doesnt last for more than 12.5 seconds.

And another day

Did you know cats can increase the happiness of a person by about 30%?

Yet another day

How many books do you read in a year?
Maybe 25 to 30?
Oh so you are average.
What?
Yes, apparently people on an average read about 25-30 books a year.

What will this do to the future of content? Will movies become shorter - given that short form content is in vogue? Today the feature film running length is about 120 odd minutes give or take a few. Will it become shorter?


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The man who saved Pumpelsdrop

This was a story we had in college if I am not mistaken. Perhaps it was in school, but a delightful story it was. The story goes somewhat like this ( reproduced from here ), but the college version we had was slightly different from this.  I t was a dull, gloomy and a depressing morning in a town named Pumpelsdrop in northern England. The Great Depression had brought all the businesses to a standstill. The bored automobile dealer was spending time alone, as usual. But, this seems to be an unusual morning as an odd entity (customer) appeared on the horizon. A man in a bright suit walks up to the dealer and says, "I need to buy a Rolls Royce Phantom II. We have a business conference coming up and I need to impress my customers". Then proceeds to pay 10% of the deal with a single check for 2000 pounds. The rest he says will pay when he takes the delivery.   The auto dealer was stunned. He was delighted to hear that someone is holding a business conference of some kind and ...

And the unconference happened

 Most conferences have an agenda. No, not the stated agenda, but an agenda of marketing, airtime to sponsors, ensuring the past and future customers are invited, of ensuring that the "stars" of the industry are invited and attention showered of them. All in all it is a your scratch my back, I scratch your back syndrome. Some of these become cliques and claques and therefore the real point behind a conference is lost. And then there is the unconference - organised and run by the alumni of the ISABS ODCP program. And as the name suggests, this is truly an un-conference organised by the alumni, for the alumni. No funders - except the alumni themselves. No sponsors. Just the team.  I havent seen a more tastefully organised conference (yes, its an unconference).  To begin with - the location - not a typical star hotel, but an outdoorsy place. The food - simple. The welcome - personal. It was like a homecoming. The setting was warm and welcoming. It was a smaller conference. Ju...

Why does elearning exist?

 Elearning is one of those niches that does not deserve to exist. Yes, it was a novelty 20 years ago, but not now. It cannot exist. But somehow it does. Disclaimer: I used to head a content team once upon a time. And I used to ask those whom I hired - tell me the last thing you learnt from an e-learning. The answer is - pretty much nothing (and this is a good decade ago).  Why?  If you want to learn a recipe, you go to Youtube, or Reels or something like that. If you are terribly old fashioned - as in, you read - then you go to a website and read the recipe and make it.  Most other things you learn by doing or learning on the job or asking an expert.  If you have to learn something in depth, then there are other ways.  So, where does e-learning fit in all this? E-learning is one of those products that the customer hates, but has no choice, because someone has decided it is the best way. For instance, you have to learn a new CRM or some other product - you w...