February 2025
- Pavan Soni
- Apr 29
- 2 min read
Here're a few stories for you. We talk about the strategic genius of Taylor Swift, how Internet search would never remain the same, the conditions of using design thinking, Murakami's style of writing, and leadership lessons from Manekshaw.
At age 35, Taylor Swift has been at the top of the music industry for two decades, and with a net worth estimated at $1.6 billion, she is one of the most financially successful musicians of her generation. What's the secret? The author argues for strategic choices she made: 1) targeting untapped markets, 2) finding opportunities to create stickiness, 3) maintaining productive paranoia, and 4) adapting to radical shifts in platforms. (Source: HBR)
No more keyword searching. No more sorting through links to click. Instead, we’re entering an era of conversational search. Which means instead of keywords, you use real questions, expressed in natural language. And instead of links, you’ll increasingly be met with answers, written by generative AI and based on live information from all across the internet. One of the real fears is 'zero-click', which destroys long standing business models. (Source: MIT Tech Review)
It's often thought that design thinking could be adopted in every kind of a problem solving expedition. But that's certainly not the case. There are specific conditions under which the methodology makes more sense. These conditions are: 1) Audacity of goal, 2) Ambiguity of context, 3) Availability of time, 4) Access to customers, and 5) Diversity of team. Hope this helps you in your problem solving expedition. (Source: Youtube)
Writes the famous author: "When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at four a.m. and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for ten kilometres or swim for fifteen hundred meters (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at nine p.m. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind." (Source: The Paris Review)
Taking risks personally is one aspect, but enabling your team to play bold is another. And that’s where leaders differ markedly from managers. Leaders fuel risk; managers contain risk. Managers have a skin in the game, but leaders have their very soul invested. The piece talks about the lives of Robert Oppenheimer and General Sam Manekshaw on how they led from the front and their leadership styles during the crisis. (Source: Deccan Herald)
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