Category: Storytime

When you’re traveling abroad, you want to fully understand the place you’re in. Food, history, culture, politics, art, the weight of its geography, all of it.

While traveling you may mind connecting with locals because of obvious language barrier.

But if you take the risk and befriend them, they will take you to places you never would have found on your own.

I got the chance to meet a guy near my accommodation. Turned out he is a history and art student, one who’s spent ten years building historical maps and short documentary-style videos for YouTube and local communities. I learned more from him than I expected and then from his mom, an English and music teacher at a primary school.

Today, they invited me to a music class run by the school’s faculty, for kids who spend two hours a week learning Javanese music called Gamelan.

When you walk into the music lab and the instruments look like nothing special at first, a row of dusty brass metal. But the moment you start exploring each one, it clicks. Seven different instruments, all built around the same pattern of music notes, while producing unique noise.

I was a random guest, no training, no formal lesson in the history or the how-to. And they still handed me a seat and a set of notes to allowing me to get familiar with two similar instruments.

At first, it felt like too much. But nothing stays that way once you sit with it long enough. You have to watch both instruments at once, memorize a run of sixteen notes in one go, then control the instrument with one hand while you strike it with the other.

It was hit and miss most of the time. But I loved the rhythm instrument was building. After the session, the kids came up to meet me, warm and welcoming, some of them stopping by earlier just to watch and cheer while I was getting comfortable.

I enjoy talking to random locals and I love it almost all the time. Thinking through too much about everything while you are there to sink in, doesn’t make sense to me. I try to vibe along the people who fits into my funnel of curiosity and I love it. A little pre-research and open mind gets you far more than you are owed as a visitor.

That’s the whole trick. Make yourself available to actually know a place. You can only do that if you let yourself get soaked in local experience.

So say more yeses, as you will get to experience things you never imagined.

“How far you can run away thinking; you look dumb, and you are not enough?”

That question still finds me, even now, in every hour I spend away from doing something. It was hard to face back then. It’s not much easier today.

I trace it back, sometimes, to childhood. The same feeling, showing up in a new shirt each time. Should I be doing this. If I don’t, what does that make me? I still catch myself mid-thought, asking it.

It started young. I was bad at writing. Bad at memorizing. I wanted to be better than everyone around me, badly.

One thing pulled me in anyway. Speaking a foreign language. English, specifically.

I didn’t know where to start. I just knew I wanted to be different, in at least one way, one day. I wanted to make it mine, even by looking dumb. or being called an anomaly. At the same time, i was scared too, of failing loud enough for everyone to notice.

Back then, I was doing something nobody in my circle bothered with, and I felt small for it. Small, but stubborn enough to keep reading whatever might sharpen my speaking and pronunciation. I took whatever good I could find and tried not to let the criticism cut too deep inside me. I started trying different accents, along with one or two classmates.

Everyone else called me the dumbest kid in the room.

Why? I wasn’t chasing girls. Weren’t cracking jokes at anyone’s expense. Wasn’t flattering teachers to stay in their good books. I was the one standing up to ask for a lesson revision. I was always first in line for the whole class’s punishment.

I made it through primary school, anyway, carrying that nimble love for writing obvious English with me. Then I met a humble high school teacher who helped me practice, in my ways.

I ended up being the highest-scoring student in the whole town. Breaking a fifty-year record, studying the entire curriculum in English while I did it. Nobody believed it, not even my parents.

After years of humiliation, and a struggle I still feel in my chest sometimes, the time I spent on this love for language finally caught up with me. My standing in the neighborhood flipped, almost overnight.

The pattern started and kept me through it. I finished my master’s in advanced tech, on scholarship. Started working international gigs. Kept practicing my speaking so often that, somewhere along the way, on a trip through Asian countries, strangers began stopping me on ‘you have such a good accent, how did you learn?’

You don’t look European nor like other Asians. But you speak like you carry a British accent. One of the finest compliments I ever taken. Hearing it, over and over, made one thing clear, none of it was possible without getting comfortable in looking foolish, and a little unhinged, along the way.

The realization is a simple one, even now. Be unlike the room you are in. Pave your own path and make it yours. You can regulate your own mind but can’t do a thing to help else’s.

It’s their decision and not in your hands at all.

Every person who was the cheerleaders of my dumbness couldn’t made past high school.

When I sit with myself now, and think about what a person is actually worth, I keep landing in the same place. Living small when you were built for more, is like taking pennies when you were owed millions.

Be an extra ordinary by doing ordinary things more often than people do.

The AI ​​renaissance is sweeping through the entire marketing strategy. The power of AI has reshaped marketers’ traditional approaches, leading us to future of marketing in the age of AI.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is at the core of cutting-edge marketing strategies that are leading organizations into the next stage of customer engagement, personalized content creation, and data-informed decision-making.

In this write-up, we’ll be covering everything including challenges, benefits, use cases, real examples, and everything you need to know about marketing in the age of AI.

Source: Mckinsey

Current Trends of AI in Marketing

The growing adoption of AI in marketing is the next turning point. In reality, it has already had a breakthrough impact – at least the statistics support it. 

51% of marketers are using AI, according to a survey of over 1000 marketers conducted by Salesforce this year (2023). Another 22% are also planning to add AI to their marketing arsenal.

Marketers have extensively used AI to achieve a wide range of objectives. Below you’ll find the marketing professional’s responses to that survey.

• About 76% of marketers use AI-generated content for copywriting and other basic content.
• Almost 63% of marketers find AI helpful in analyzing market data.
• Even 62% of marketers are generating marketing visual creatives with AI.
• Also, 71% percent of marketing professionals say they’re receiving creative thinking support.

But, what factors are influencing marketing experts to take the help of AI?

If we look at the Salesforce study report, 71% of marketers believe that AI eliminates their busy work and helps to get more time for strategic decisions. Applying AI in marketing work can save approximately 5 hours per week.

Well, marketers are already relying heavily on AI – but, what do audiences or customers think?

Good news! Consumers have also shown positive judgment in this era of AI-based marketing. A recent survey by Capgemini Research Institute found that about 62% of customers have no issue with the utilization of AI in marketing. 

And, they shouldn’t have since one of the core goals underlying AI is to create a customer-centric marketing strategy.

So, looking at this ongoing trend, we can definitely assure you that marketing is facing a major turning point in this age of AI.

I will conclude with a question, how are we supposed to utilize AI in your marketing campaign?