Platform and Relationships

Ethereal Connections are here to stay !

Every year during the first week of June, I usually prepare myself to establish new connections with the incoming MBA Batch at my school and also recall older relationships. This year my first interaction with the incoming batch is going to be driven by virtual platforms so thought of discussing relationships and platforms OR rather our relationships over platforms.

DTW

During the Week, I got one more Facebook Post Tag for joining in posting a picture of #$@*& and tagging seven more people to keep “our relationship” going ! Of course, I untagged myself and thus may have invited the misfortune which usually happens if you break the chain. Jokes apart but it brought to focus the importance of platforms for making and nurturing relationships ! And in some cases, breaking relationships ! Welcome to the new world of Zumping.

Julia Moser @juliamoserrrr

buzzfeednews.comGetting Dumped During A PandemicThe internet connection wasn’t great, so we kept freezing. “We’re breaking up,” I said — and we were!

Anyways, I went through school and college in pre-platform era and we only had access to in-person interactions for building relationships. Of course, the breadth was much lesser but I managed to develop relationships with great depth. My “educational” mentors are teachers like Dr S K Kulshrestha and Dr Sharda Nayak who never taught me in a class. It was just being in their proximity that I could learn some of life’s greatest lessons.

'कबिरा संगत साधु की, ज्यों गंधी का बास।

जो कुछ गंधी दे नहीं, तो भी बास सुवास' 

Proximity is still that I inherently cherish for developing a relationship though nurturing can be even from a distance. All our relationship stories were literally handcrafted across a desk or at sitting on floor at homes and are now being strengthened through various platforms.

Now we are overwhelmed with multiple platforms for various facets of our lives and relationships. Our relationship with platforms could be seen through two lenses - First, ability of platforms to strengthen the connection via other and/or off-line interactions especially use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Second, separation/aggregation of different facets/relationships of our lives .

We are seeing use of relationship platforms in creating offline interactions usually via cross-platform integration. In last newsletter, I talked about AirBnB and Bumble coming together for an online dating experience. We also have increased use of AI to fill in the increasing gap of human connections. Though it sounds strange and sad at the same time , AI may show more warmth than some of the counsellors might manage in such difficult and overwhelming circumstances. I came across Replika which is projected as “your personal companion for mental wellness” . In the words of their founder-

. . . . . idea to create a personal AI that would help you express and witness yourself by offering a helpful conversation. It’s a space where you can safely share your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, experiences, memories, dreams – your “private perceptual world.”

During the current Covid-19 crisis, we have seen an increased challenge on the mental health front. In fact, according to WHO and India’s MoHFW, people have been put under tremendous stress during lockdown and it can lead to multiple problems during & after the pandemic. We are seeing multiple instances of stigmatisation of Covid-19 patients and caregivers thus necessitating need for large scale tech interventions. In India, multiple interventions are being launched to tackle the problems arising out of keeping 1.3 billion people especially young people in lockdown for over 60 days and counting.

We have platforms for every kind of relationship and in fact everyday we see a new platform created to serve an even smaller minority of users. On the other hand, we also hear about attempts to create single mass platforms to take care of all relationships. Facebook has tried to create friendships, work relationships and now even dating. Of course, they have an added advantage of a large user base who may not care for privacy and information sharing with other Facebook properties and of course advertisers. The idea of either micro segmentation or entire relationship universe is yet to be settled. We have seen increased interests in gender specific, age specific, interest specific and at times profession related platforms being promised for in depth relationships. Barring few of them which are driven by subscription , almost all of them are dependent on commoditising their users through collection of data for sole purpose of selling it to advertisers. Of course, the scarce mobile real estate would push off some of these platforms into oblivion.

Tech platforms may have commoditised the creators and influencers to some extent but there are green shoots in tech-enabled creative space. Passion Economy works on the strong bond between influencers/creators and their patrons. These relationship which are currently intermediated by generic algorithmic platforms like Facebook ,Instagram, Spotify or LinkedIn are now being fostered through content creator specific platforms like Patreon and even Substack where this newsletter is published. After all, who would want to subject their relationship to the whims of an algorithm !

OTW

Over the Weekend, I also concluded the official mentoring for the Summer Internship Program for 23 students based out of National Capital Region (NCR-Delhi). Like every year, it was intense three months of an enriching learning experience and was made more challenging by Covid-19 and lockdown. I look forward to a long lasting and mutually beneficial relationship with many empowered managers who are #ReadyForBeyondCovid19World. Watch out this space for more in future.
On Friday, we lost legendary lyricist Yogesh Gaur and was surprised to see absolutely no special mention in the national media. Anyways, people of my generation would fondly recall many of his timeless songs. Let me leave you with one of his immortal songs from the movie Anand sung by Mukesh and composed by Salil Chowdhary

For me ,the following two lines from this song summarise whatever I can think about relationships !

कहीं तो ये दिल कभी मिल नहीं पाते
कहीं पे निकल आये जन्मों के नाते

I Love You !

Shailendra

PS- If you have come this far in the newsletter, here is an additional link for us to connect face to face (Once a Month) via of course virtual platform.