2023: 3 (Plus) Years of “Looking Outside In” – HIT REFRESH after 175 NOT OUT
This is the 175th post of Outside In! 175 NOT OUT!! And we are a little past the 3rd year milestone!!!
My Many Sincere Thanks to all my readers and followers (regular readers via social, who do not subscribe – you know who you are)! Your encouragement genuinely gives me the energy to continue with this endeavor…
Thanks to the pressure of churning out something original and something new that I have personally experienced (in some form or other) every week, I earnestly keep my eyes and ears – and my notepad – open for any ‘aha’ developments or insights that emerge in the consumer and business worlds. And, I like to believe that I have been doing a decent job – not only in terms of efficiently curating the good stuff, but also keeping up to date with my learnings… And become a wee bit better every week.
As you may be aware, technically speaking, 25th September is the anniversary of Outside In, but like we did in 2022 & 2023, it feels easier to track our journey by ‘Calendar Year’. So, with that simplification effort, 2023 was really a 3 (Plus) Year for us. We are now going into 2024… towards Age 4… with a huge overhang of GenAI-driven ‘Intelligent’ Content…
To be honest, self-doubts have emerged regularly recently and through the year-end holiday season about the utility of continuing with this effort in 2024. My efforts in ‘Synthesis-Curation-Compilation’ of Consumer & Business Insights is now relatively easy to access with the right depth of ‘Prompts’ on ChatGPT/GenAI Tools…
I have personally come across these Stories recently, from my personal & professional circles:
1) Social Media Strategy Pitch & Project Delivery: A consulting world colleague has actually pitched and delivered a full-fledged ‘consulting-price’ project for Social Media Strategy – using GenAI and UIUX Tools available out there…
2) E-Commerce Business Plan 2024: A CFO of a category-leading E-commerce Player has ‘curated’ out a workable Business Plan for 2024…
3) B-School Courseware: An academic world colleague recently carved out a ‘best of the lot’ subject courseware for a particular topic stream for a B-School Course…
4) GTM Validation: A VC world colleague cross-checks his portfolio company’s GTM Plans with those recommended by deeply-queried GenAI outputs…
5) ChatGPT Special – Customer Experience Topics: Outside In itself dabbled with this experiment in January 2023 here at: https://outsideinlens.substack.com/p/chatgpt-special-customer-experience
I am sure most of us have ourselves explored some of these ‘compilations’ in our line of work. And, probably know many more stories about such ‘Intelligent’ Outputs coming out Fast and Fancy…
Now these are exactly the kind of pieces that I energetically pursued to curate and compile every week. Does it have the same Impact and Utility now, I wonder? I was somehow reminded of a quote from my school English teacher – All that is interesting, need not necessarily be spoken. But All that is spoken, must necessarily be Interesting. I had to ask that hard question for sure – Is my stuff really Interesting enough – week after week?
Another tough data point that was staring at me was really about how many long posts (read: deep synthesis and think pieces) – have I managed in these 3 years? Year 1, it was Three. Year 2, it was Zero. Year 3, it was One…
I really had to visualize what my 2024 (and beyond) looks like… I had to figure out what is that I am going to ‘Collect, Synthesize and Curate’ going forward. Do I continue in the same vein, with a risk of diminishing Utility? Or, do I refresh my efforts in a new vein, with a possibility of cultivating newer (read: richer) Benefits? Possibly, even extend the scope of my coverage to newer disciplines around Start-ups, Education, Investments, Content, Design, Mentorship, Sports (!) and so on?
The answer is an Obvious YES, I like to think. HIT REFRESH (to borrow from Satya Nadella’s famous book cover). Trade Quantity for Quality… Ring Out the Old, Ring In the New…
What will Outside In ‘Refresh’ Look Like?
Weekly Publishing changes to ‘Periodic’ Publishing – with no set Frequency
Addition to current ‘Outside In’ Content Themes, to cover newer ‘Disciplines’ Illustrated above
More Long-forms rather than Short-forms
Fewer ‘Event/Read’ – WIH/WIR Series kind of Posts. More ‘WIS/WIL – What I Saw/What I Learnt’ kind of Posts
Less Collection, More Synthesis…
(Try) Be like Howard Marks ‘Memos’ than TL Executive Summaries…
That’s it. These are the big Developments – Transitioning from 2023 into 2024. Outside IN is 175 NOT OUT. We are just changing THE WAY WE PLAY. I like to believe that I am changing the course of Outside In, for the BETTER… Just like, Kapil Dev’s iconic 175 Not Out in the 1983 Cricket World Cup changed the course of India’s campaign… and the way it played the game BETTER…
Looking forward to your continued patronage and regular encouragement towards Outside In!!!
References & Sources:
1) Kapil Dev 175 Not Out: https://www.news18.com/cricketnext/on-this-day-in-1983-kapil-dev-slammed-historic-175-not-out-against-zimbabwe-in-83-world-cup-8094745.html