Samanvay day one Lecture: Mr.Prasad Narasimhan

‘There is no adequate defence, except stupidity, against the impact of a new idea.’

-the quote from the Nobel laureate physicist Percy W. Bridgman resounded with the session’s essence. It was so simple but so powerful! Everybody seemed ruminating on the message it conveyed. The session had just got over. It was 9^th of September, the first day of Samanvay. The honourable guest, Mr. Prasad Narasimhan had just finished his lecture.

1 hour earlier…

The media centre hall was chock-a-bloc with people looking forward to listen to Mr.Prasad Narasimhan speak.
An alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad, He began his career with ITC India Pvt. Ltd. Post his stint at ITC, he was Unilever's leading global resource on War Gaming and had in addition worked & directed global brand projects in over 20 countries. Afterwards, he was the Vice-President, Marketing for TVS India Pvt. Ltd. where he was responsible for new product development and strategy, apart from leading Marketing. There he successfully conceived the design and launched TVS Star, Apache and Flame. He was also responsible for introducing a path-breaking concept of 99 colours for scooty bike for the first time in India. Next he joined virgin mobile India as the CMO. He was named one of India's top 10 CMOs and the best Telecom CMO. His work has won top awards across creative platforms including Cannes, EFFIEs, Spikes Asia, Goa Fest and Yahoo Big Chair.
He joined the Brandgym as Managing Partner, Asia in August 2010 and lives in Bangalore.

The lecture started.

Mr Narasimhan stressed on the point that in a creative economy, ideas had to be the currency. He told that personal branding was needed to make one’s mark and to do something different. And how to do something different was the most enriching and engrossing discussion afterwards. It just flowed effortlessly with the guidelines for getting ideas that he mentioned;
He spoke about enjoying work while objecting to conformity and the mindset to find one right answer for each problem. He encouraged seeing like a child and asking questions, to break rules, to be free. Because as the saying goes-‘Genius is the mind of a child recovered at will’ .A mind set on goals, with a hunger for new ideas would have to be gluttonous on inputs. The most creative people, he stressed, are the ones who read, listen, observe, interact a lot and in turn, try to get that one spark from all the inputs combined. Being brave and lateral thinking were some more of the important aspects that he touched upon. Because, it is very easy to kill an idea, one has to be brave to move it forward.

1 hour was over...so fast!

The lecture opened new avenues of thinking. It spoke of being unique in the most unique way-being simple, being inquisitive, having fun. It spoke that a mix of work and play sets the playground for new ideas. Really, Mr.Narasimhan upheld the point that it was indeed stupid not to welcome new ideas.

And it kept us thinking.

Compiled By:
Mauryanath Das
DoMS Interface
Class of 2013