Marketing and Manufacuring; The Age of Entertainment

The model followed by the developed nations should not be followed by developing nations, said the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. The advanced countries essentially looted the third world countries and became rich. They have taken natural resources from the developing countries, and sold ‘processed and packaged’ products back to these countries, and thereby got rich. This model cannot be replicated on a large scale. Japan is the only exception to this; China tried it but we don’t know how successful it would be.

‘China-made’ has the same ring to it as had the Made in Japan label, before it became a symbol of prestige. Like the guy in Inscrutable Americans (Satish), the strange thing about America is that is has so many Japanese goods. But for other third world countries Japan is a hard act to emulate.

One thing that goes with the assimilation of Indian economy into the world economy is that there is excess baggage in the form of the consumerist culture. If you look at any ‘modern’ product, there more money is spent on packaging and marketing than on production. The product not only meets a demand, but also aims to entertain. Consider the glue sticks – they are modeled on lip stick dispensers: the amount of plastic can produce 4 bottles of glue: it takes a bit of time to use the glue bottles with a brush in them (and you can reuse them).

What is happening in the west is that nobody wants to study hardcore science and technology: more and more people go for marketing, management, economy, and law. More and more third world countries and people from third world countries are doing fundamental research. The agenda for fundamental research, however, is set forth by moneybags in the advanced countries. As Peter Drucker remarked, the relation between basic and applied science has turned upside down; instead of applied science (technology) leveraging the findings of fundamental research, now the direction of fundamental research programs is decided by technology.

That means, more money goes into wireless communication projects than into newer, safer varieties of seeds (in the field of agriculture).

The Age of Entertainment
There was this book called Age of Entertainment: I am unable to find it on the web now and I don’t remember the author. The main spoint made by the book is that, with the machines taking over the work of humans, basic questions like food security and health and so on no longer require human attention. That leaves humans with a lot of time on their hands and we need means to keep ourselves engaged. Unfortunately, according to www.thehungersite.com, we have a long way to go to food security and basic health.

Today is the D-day for Yeddy
The Karnataka high court postponed the verdict on the disqualified MLAs to Thursday. More tension for Mr B S Yeddyurappa. We don’t know anything about the other hearing – in the Andhra Pradesh high court pertaining to in-house entertainment.
Bottomline: Marketing is just liquor and guessing – Dilbert.