Karaoke Kills?

Sinatra has done it again...no, not got the hearts and minds with his music but rather, got the hands to work overtime; apparently, people in the Philippines are  busy stabbing each other over the singing of "My Way." Alright, I'm falling into the usual sensationalizing of such news as it makes good copy but with the recent murders happening in the guise of Filipino passion for this song, this has taken on quite a legendary status.  Its strange to associate such violence and rage with karaoke, especially since I've been touting karaoke as an amazing tool for social engagement and edutainment from my research work in rural India.

http://planetread.com

The Same Language Subtitling project that I researched on was pioneered by Dr. Brij Kothari. The idea is simple really...people in rural areas watch alot of TV, particularly Bollywood songs and the argument goes that if only we put the lyrics at the bottom of the screen that highlighted as it got sang, people would be able to sustain their literacy skills while being entertained. 
So what to make of such rages of passion? Perhaps see this as a reminder that music is deeply emotive and that emotion trumps all - TEXT, subTEXT, conTEXT? That killing you softly with songs can happen! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Next Billion Users book wins the 2019 PROSE Award: Business Category

Image
Got fantastic news that my ' Next Billion Users ' book by Harvard Press has won the PROSE Award under the Business, Management, Finance category . The Association of American Publishers (AAP) unveiled their Subject Category Winners for the 2020 PROSE Awards honoring the best scholarly works published in 2019. These winners were selected by a panel of 19 judges from the 157 finalists previously identified from the more than 630 entries in this year’s PROSE Awards competition. What is particularly exciting is to see how digital anthropology on a population that has long been ignored by the market and the state is finally of interest to a broader audience and more importantly, the business and tech sector who is now taking notice of this next billion demographic as legitimate consumers. While there is concern of hyper commodification of the next billion market, my book actually challenges that blanket and passive approach. Instead, it reframes this engagement and build...
Read more

Keynote at the ITStrategy Hamburg Summit

Image
Had a fascinating experience at the IT Strategy Days Summit that was held on the 12-14 February at the Grand Elysse in Hamburg. Some of the most influential IT and business CEOs, CIOs, and other experts and policy makers from Germany came together to tackle key formidable challenges in their business. You had CEOs/CIOs from Lufthansa, SAP, BMW, Adobe, Siemens and more out there discussing these issues. The buzz terms for the summit was "agility, resilience and innovation" framed as drivers of digital business.  This year there was much targeted interest in Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, and the digital and global logistics of operations that could help design the most optimal platforms through which innovations can quickly reach the entire organization and ultimately customers. There were 3 main strands of focus: 1)  Digital Frameworks - Which architectures make IT resilient and agile 2)  Innovation on fire - How companies successfully reinvent them...
Read more

Kick off for 2020 with the India book tour

Image
What a way to begin 2020 - full of spice and color and drama! Basically it felt like a year of celebration was starting. I embarked on my book tour in Pune for the India Science Fest which drew a crowd of about 15,000 people! And what a demographic - from kids with their parents to engineering and philosophy students to elderly folks curious about these topics, they managed to truly create a spirit of democratizing science for the public. This was the brainchild and product of Varun Aggarwal of Aspiring Minds  . I spoke about designing for the next billion and also was on a panel on the future of science with AI. I headed to Bangalore right after to speak at the IIIT-Bangalore Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy lecture series   and gave a Keynote at the IIM-B for the Software Product Management Summit on re-centering the human in design. Was a fascinating conversation as we delved into how product management as a field is changing dramatically and...
Read more