Switching Through
One of the many stupid business ideas I keep getting, this one was penned sometime in the first trimester.
Switching through the channels got a glance of Karan Thapar talking to a pack of regular politicians. No two such discussions can be distinguished from each other as the subject of discussion is inevitably related to a recent incident. And incidents incidentally have a nasty habit of being recurrent.
The only reason why a person would want to watch such a superfluous talk (full of vague references to ‘secularism, hindutva, public interest’) is to be reassured about their own ideologies. It’s more of wordplay than any new insight into the people or the ideas they believe in or the principles that guide them. The only audience such talk shows attracts is the ‘interested in politics’ kind.
So I thought about a talk show which will be much worthwhile to watch and will attract the interest of the most ordinary person on the street. A talk show which will be well crafted plot, complete in itself. A plot involving the simplicity of a grandma’s tale, at the same time has the twists and the climax of a Roald Dahl short story.
Most of us are people with mixed premises. There might be a businessman who is really efficient and knows how to make things work but holds a belief that socialism is ‘inherently’ good. His actions embody the explicit premises but his ideology is based on the premises he hasn’t identified and analyzed. The talk show will capitalize on this dichotomy between the actions and ideas. The modus operandi will come later.
There are another set of people, the policymakers and the media men. These are the people who absolutely make sure that they don’t explicitly state their premises. In order to keep the smokescreens of confusion floating around them. The talk show aims at blowing the smokescreen away.
The idea of how to go about the exposing these people, was inspired by a fellow member at a forum. While introducing himself to the forum he added that in order to judge the personality of a new acquaintance he starts a discussion on the Élan Gonzalez incident. Small incidents, real or fictional have that ability to bring out the unidentified or hidden premises of a person. The most profound realizations are usually made through observing and analyzing simple incidents.
Since a fictional story is complete in itself, it can be made quite water tight, ensuring a single correct answer situation. In other words, the story will basically test your principles and not your managerial skills (which are tested by case a study….I was kind of worried about the similarities between the two things). The magic of the interviewer will lie in how he can prod the interviewee into arriving at obvious logical contradictions.
The real trick is to find out:
1. Are there enough prominent people who may be exposed? The answer should be yes, going by the magnitude of crap one hears these days. So the challenge is to identify all those people and the fundamental contradictions which they may be made to realize.
2. If such water tight stories can indeed be created? I guess yes, and it will involve a great deal of research on the interviewee and a great philosopher in the stable.
3. Will the stories be fool proof? Will the interviewee be able to sense what’s coming next and strategize accordingly. Hmmm…. then we will need to have a plan B. Plan B will be relating a recent incident from the interviewee’s life which contradicts what he says. So the idea is to create a story which is similar in content to the life and times of the prominent guest.
4. Can the contradictions be made obvious enough for the audience to identify them. Will depend solely on the interviewer’s skill. So the crucial Q is where to find one.
Will the outsourcing model work? No one of us is an expert at writing stories, or interviewing people or in media business. Who will want to risk his reputation at as crazy idea as this. And the issue is not about finding money, it’s about gaining credibility. After all a talk show is only as good as the interviewer is.
The reason why I stumbled upon the idea was the crap that the Indian talk shows are all about. The idea of …. might work even in a country like America where there is a general interest among people in things other than politics.
Hope it’s a great idea……if yes it’ll be a tough job going about it……if not …too bad.
PS: Clearly the idea doesn’t seem to hold much water, but then it’s not all that bad….at least it has made a good blogging material.
Switching through the channels got a glance of Karan Thapar talking to a pack of regular politicians. No two such discussions can be distinguished from each other as the subject of discussion is inevitably related to a recent incident. And incidents incidentally have a nasty habit of being recurrent.
The only reason why a person would want to watch such a superfluous talk (full of vague references to ‘secularism, hindutva, public interest’) is to be reassured about their own ideologies. It’s more of wordplay than any new insight into the people or the ideas they believe in or the principles that guide them. The only audience such talk shows attracts is the ‘interested in politics’ kind.
So I thought about a talk show which will be much worthwhile to watch and will attract the interest of the most ordinary person on the street. A talk show which will be well crafted plot, complete in itself. A plot involving the simplicity of a grandma’s tale, at the same time has the twists and the climax of a Roald Dahl short story.
Most of us are people with mixed premises. There might be a businessman who is really efficient and knows how to make things work but holds a belief that socialism is ‘inherently’ good. His actions embody the explicit premises but his ideology is based on the premises he hasn’t identified and analyzed. The talk show will capitalize on this dichotomy between the actions and ideas. The modus operandi will come later.
There are another set of people, the policymakers and the media men. These are the people who absolutely make sure that they don’t explicitly state their premises. In order to keep the smokescreens of confusion floating around them. The talk show aims at blowing the smokescreen away.
The idea of how to go about the exposing these people, was inspired by a fellow member at a forum. While introducing himself to the forum he added that in order to judge the personality of a new acquaintance he starts a discussion on the Élan Gonzalez incident. Small incidents, real or fictional have that ability to bring out the unidentified or hidden premises of a person. The most profound realizations are usually made through observing and analyzing simple incidents.
Since a fictional story is complete in itself, it can be made quite water tight, ensuring a single correct answer situation. In other words, the story will basically test your principles and not your managerial skills (which are tested by case a study….I was kind of worried about the similarities between the two things). The magic of the interviewer will lie in how he can prod the interviewee into arriving at obvious logical contradictions.
The real trick is to find out:
1. Are there enough prominent people who may be exposed? The answer should be yes, going by the magnitude of crap one hears these days. So the challenge is to identify all those people and the fundamental contradictions which they may be made to realize.
2. If such water tight stories can indeed be created? I guess yes, and it will involve a great deal of research on the interviewee and a great philosopher in the stable.
3. Will the stories be fool proof? Will the interviewee be able to sense what’s coming next and strategize accordingly. Hmmm…. then we will need to have a plan B. Plan B will be relating a recent incident from the interviewee’s life which contradicts what he says. So the idea is to create a story which is similar in content to the life and times of the prominent guest.
4. Can the contradictions be made obvious enough for the audience to identify them. Will depend solely on the interviewer’s skill. So the crucial Q is where to find one.
Will the outsourcing model work? No one of us is an expert at writing stories, or interviewing people or in media business. Who will want to risk his reputation at as crazy idea as this. And the issue is not about finding money, it’s about gaining credibility. After all a talk show is only as good as the interviewer is.
The reason why I stumbled upon the idea was the crap that the Indian talk shows are all about. The idea of …. might work even in a country like America where there is a general interest among people in things other than politics.
Hope it’s a great idea……if yes it’ll be a tough job going about it……if not …too bad.
PS: Clearly the idea doesn’t seem to hold much water, but then it’s not all that bad….at least it has made a good blogging material.
posted by The Lone Footballer @ 7:36 am
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