We had the second meetup of the Society for Intellectual Thinking today at the same location, the Marina Beach near Gandhi statue. We had a turnout of 8 people. More can be found on the SIT blog. We were half way through the brainstorming session when one lad in kurta-dhoti came to us and asked us what we were doing.
We, being pretty unclear about what to do, errupted in laughter, much to the discomfort of that lad!
He then told us that he (along with some friends) was trying to organize a signature campaign to ask the Government to plant more trees and so on. He also asked if we would sign. We, being the cheerful and noble guys, decided to oblige and sign.
Once we were done signing, the lad opened up the long piece of vinyl to reveal a poster that must’ve been specifically designed to cause vision problems. The briliant usage of colours just confirmed this fact. It was to promote some event which involved some dance, games and stuff. Apart from this, they were also gonna plant some 1 Lakh trees in and around Chennai. Their marketing was clearly mis-oriented!
The lad asked “are yawl OK with this?”
Srinath said “I’m OK with the trees……but not the dance and music”
Again we all errupted in laughter. Anyone would, given the situation and Srinath’s briliant timing.
The lad clearly couldn’t handle all of us. He decided to introduce one more guy and walk away. This second guy was a 2007 passout from Banaras Hindu University. Incidentally, the Central Govt has given an IIT status to this university this year only. This guy conveniently put it to use and claimed to be from an IIT. I didn’t recognize this clever claim. Srinath and Vijay, however, did.
The lad went on and on about how you need focus in life and how you can reach much much greater heights if you have focus and concentration. Then he moved to the importance of control over emotions. Then about developing good tolerance. I simply didn’t and don’t realize what planting trees had/has to do with concentration, focus, control over emotions and improved tolerance!
Their mode of presentation was totally hopeless and none of us understood anything. If you’ve decided to do two disjoint things, claim that there are two things that you need to tell the listener.
Or, don’t try to make a single approach to market both.
They intended to tell me that the theme of the event was planting trees and that there were courses conducted by experts on concentration, focus, control over emotions and tolerance. The whole thing was sponsored/organized by ‘The Art of Living’ Foundation. In all, they wasted their time talking to 8 people and got nothing across clearly. It’s a waste of time for both parties.
Yours Skepticaly,
uleadin
P.S. The females in the group were decent looking and hence we managed to stay there and listen to their crap. Otherwise, walk off only!!! Moral – If your cause is weak/dumb, have some gorgeous babes in your group. It works most of the time with guy-target-audiences.
