UNIQUENESS — how to bring it up…

This is a simple and small write up (more of a response) to a friend’s article on Uniqueness. I’m quoting her article as well, to bring about the views … something I felt we all might be thinking, and definitely might our own 2 bits to give out.

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Oindrilla’s Bit on Uniqueness …. a well composed article..

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At work our only constant companion is the need to be churn something different something unique all the time. Being unique today is truck load more difficult that what it was even half a decade ago ! The probability that what I think is a novel thought would have been used maybe minutes back by someone and my big idea would just remain a good idea already used.

When my friends in brand management talk over the phone as meeting is more rare than solar eclipse we always allocate time to discuss this problem! And yet have not come up with solution !

Thinking out of the box is easy to talk about than follow and some methodologies available makes life much more simpler but innovating all the time does take a toll on our mental health. Out performing each time, every time is no longer an option to most of us, its become a way of life. You do have option, either you are in the race or you are out. So actually speaking thinking you have an option is a mirage that some how makes you feel powerful and in control.

I started thinking why are we getting competitive at neurotic pace, why are needs so high and satisfaction levels so low ? Why does our hunger for variety never cease and stability only means stagnancy ? Why is polygamy in and monogamy boring ? Why is danger sexy and right seem so stupid ?

Well this is what I think is the cause of our plight today. Today we have 1000 things which we do not really need and have gone ahead and labeled them as necessity. We want to satisfy others, we are more tuned to strangers and yet we turn deaf ear to the call from with in. Further more we today look around us for strength, for inspiration, for thoughts, for ideas and have forgotten to look inside us. We have forgotten US .. the unique person that each one is, with a set of goods, bads, madness, thoughts, values, preferences etc. Maybe if we spend more time with ourselves, making it a conscious choice we will be able to understand the most basic human relation, the one we share with our own selves, once we reach a stage when this relationship with self turns harmonious, we will be able to transfer this uniqueness from us as a being to our job, to our way of handling problems, to evolve as better people both on and off job.

An acquaintance would always comment saying “you marketing professionals are this” and “you marketing professionals are that”. I always told him “my profession does not define my individuality.” and now to add to it, lets add individuality to our profession only if we understand ourselves better and then bring this understanding to our work. Uniqueness will follow !

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My 2 bit on it…

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Uniqueness is something that does come from within, but I guess it’s easier said than done, to have something coming out. Why does this stop, is cause we have been programmed to be delivering something that has been tested and proven. What makes it even more funny is that, its been tested and proven from a land far beyond us. Is innovating new things uniqueness. Is making a different style of presentation uniqueness. Is thinking and drawing the next big thing on a piece of paper uniqueness..

Yea sounds all weird, but that’s something I’ve gone through. I’ve been part of the big thing, that the world’s known out of India, after the curry, snake charmers and tandori chicken. We are geeks, but funny thing, is that we do not innovate. Our forefathers (read the generation, still alive in the IT industry and often been label’d as the father figures) forgot that innovation stopped with them. Its all processes and mundane lines of re-processes.

Our education system (and not something coming out of 3idiots, though which is something I strongly believe in), is complete kuku’d off (if there is a word like that and also due to my lack of vocabulary).. We do not give the students something to work with. I’m telling this from an experience of 10 yrs, where I’ve been going to colleges to hire fresh talent for our company. All I get for a response, when asked a jumbled up query is “I doubt we were taught this, do not know what it means, definitely out of the syllabus”. Am I to believe that these young and fresh mind, untouched by the corporate hulla hoop would be bringing out fresh ideas in the plate. Not that we do not get astonishingly bright folks, who change the way we think, but that’s a rare case, as rare as you getting a double large for the large drink u ordered in a club

Anyhow, the bottom line, speaking again from facts, that our grass route levels need to work. We have folks being taught in the professional institutes, by giving them “NOTES”….. we are asked questions, from the syllabus, as otherwise, we have a right to comment that it’s out of syllabus!!! We are told to read something from a particular book and a particular explanation only, else otherwise, you are seen as an overtly smart ass who is trying to prove an aged old professor wrong…

But yes, I also agree that one can change immediately, after s/he has joined professional services (or otherwise). In my career and especially, after starting my kicking coaching training program, I’ve had the opportunity to sweat it out with folks from different career streams and understood their working style. But the common point, I’ve seen is that mostly, everyone is curbed with processes and points, that needs to be adhered. This has also made me realise that one can change into the spectrum by learning from the folks around u. This is something I’ve learnt. To be unique, I need to learn from all the elements around me, including the human element. And after dwelling in my mind with all this, I can then make something unique out of it… how ever, would be a byproduct of all the learning I’ve done. So is that uniqueness? Well I tend to think so, cause atleast I’m listening

Anyhow, the point being brought here, after all the rubbish being put across and you having to endure this long paras of utter nonsense, uniqueness can’t just come… one has to figure within him/herself and unlearn those things taught in the school/ college, about having to go through mundane acts like notes and stuff and spoon feeding. Maybe then, uniqueness will value out…

Could be absolutely wrong, but hey, wouldn’t hurt letting out my 2 bit, eh!!

- kNiGhTrIdEr

Tags: education, education system, engineering, marketing, professional, professionalism, smartness, studies, unique, uniqueness, work