(Representative image)English is in a state of flux, and this is the age of verbs turning into nouns. Today, connect is used as a noun, and connection is outdated. There is not just a connect, but disconnect too. Some will say problematic in place of problem. In this age, even “problematic of Kerala” is not poor English.
No, this is not a lesson in English. Even English professors were dumbfounded by the way the word “disruption” was used at the silver jubilee summit of the India chapter of the International Advertising Association in Kochi. Since it was a conference of advertising companies, it had attracted young creative talents. Even the grey-haired people who come to converse with them were young at heart. Maybe that is why “disruption” was used in place of “change” - everywhere, from “disrupting brands” to Arnab Goswami’s “why I chose to disrupt TV news”, a kind of destructive change, epitomised by today’s business. Yes, business is changing.
Companies started by youngsters are now valued in crores of rupees. If you have a business idea, just pitch and win. They have just started with a few computers, and haven’t even completed their studies. Still, angel investors and venture capitalists queue up to help build start-ups. They don’t even mind going bust. And old business is clueless.
A professor clad in jeans, looking like a college student, termed it “neonaissance”. Paul McCarthy is an associate professor at University of New South Wales. He says it is a new form of renaissance, which he had christened neonaissance.
According to him, online business is like our solar system with a Sun, a lot of emptiness and then some planets and satellites. To explain it, he asks the audience about the supermarkets from where they buy vegetables. Many hands were raised for Reliance Fresh, More and Spencer’s, which means they all have many customers. However, this is not the case online: there are no planets near the Sun.
To explain this, he asked how many people in the audience use Google. All hands went up. There are search engines like Bing and DuckDuckGo, but they are nowhere near the Sun. Though there are many such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Apple, they are like asteroids. He left the audience with a striking coinage — “democratic monopoly”, one created by people.
Tailpiece
Globally, 300 crore people are online. In India alone, 10 crore people went online last year. In an age when 400 crore videos are uploaded every minute, old ways are not enough to attract attention
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