what i can't help but do & why
lectures & workshops
i began putting students to sleep in 2000 at kc college of management studies (kccms, mumbai), and went on to sharing some tricks & traits of copywriting & creative development with the younglings at xavier’s institute of communication (xic, mumbai) & st. paul’s institute of communication excellence (spice, mumbai). in 2005, i was also invited to review & formulate the evaluation & paper patterns for the “copywriting module” in the bachelor’s in mass media (bmm) course conducted by the mumbai university.
topics students often snooze to include: understanding advertising & the industry • creative thinking • creative development processes • copywriting.
what began as extensions of my lectures, has made way for a handful of invitations to share my follies with aspiring professionals & creative folk. as an speaker (motivational or otherwise), i've been asked to never return by corporations like bank15 & university of breda (nl), parque del sol (austria), the edutainment show by times of india, the indiefolio network, the yes foundation, and research & innovation incubation design laboratory (riidl) to name a few my failing memory can recollect.
seminars one should absolutely avoid: unschooling • the art of storytelling • how to sustain as a creative professional • the questionable life of a copywriter.
career guidance & personal coaching
in addition to being boring & uninspiring, i’ve done substantial amounts of misleading & misguiding. as an "industry mentor" at some dignified institutions, and the founder of one of most undignified incubators in the country, i have evaluated portfolios & puzzled kids for long. some referrals have found themselves floundering in schools such as london school of communication (uk), school of visual art (usa), the prague film school (czech republic) & national institute of design (india).
subjects you shouldn't ask me questions regarding include : career mapping & guidance • portfolio evaluations • mock interviews
brand mentoring & assessment
having fathered a ‘start-up’ a tad before the “start-up era”, and run several brands spectacularly aground, i’m hesitantly invited by corporate kamikaze to help navigate young brands through various stages of flight. amongst the feathers in my mentoring cap are brands such as desihangover, the tribe, the swapna foundation & the marquis group of hotels amongst a few unfortunate others.
subjects i pretend to mentor on: brand positioning & personality development • brand imagery & aesthetic • vision & mission statement • creative troubleshooting.
creative direction & development
having run several brands spectacularly into the ground, i am hesitantly invited by corporate kamikaze to help navigate young brands through various stages of meander. young businesses are quite like younglings. older ones suffer from the occasional puff of puberty. both however need a bit of sitting down and some grounding from time to time. corporate laundering is where we loosen the ties that often strangle blood flow to the brain, and do what scarcely happens in boardrooms – think. reason. solve. and, sometimes, drink.
topics: creative troubleshooting • corporate positioning exercises • brand mentoring