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Potty Power

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It is whispered in some halls, it is screamed out in others, the strange power and connection that the loo has with creative ideas. A friend of mine brought this interesting fact to my attention and I decided that it did warrant an article. It is said that the loo serves as a great place of inspiration for ‘clutter breaking’ and potentially award winning ideas. One wonders why this particular room of the abode has a penchant for such creativity.

I spent a few minutes trying to delve deeper into the secret that the lavatory has to offer when it comes to generating ideas. Could it be the peace and calm, the concentrated effort at the task at hand, on the catharsis that one feels? Some people even state that such is the power of inspiration that strikes that the inspired forget to finish their business at hand. So what is the result of this peculiar venue for inspiration – shitty ideas perhaps you ask?

This is definitely a new level of potty training that some of us not so creative types definitely shy away from. Still it must be acknowledged that true creativity can spring from a potty as well. I chanced upon a series of flash games that revolve around a potty – namely potty racers and potty parking which involve portable toilets. There have been numerous creative that have run in men’s common rooms in malls that have stood apart from the clutter. But unless you are tasked with working on a brand like Harpic, this is one sceptical creative who wonders what is the true lure of this so called grail of creativity.

Ready for robots?

Ad Land, Wacky Wild Web, ,

It’s interesting to see how robots are getting to be more popular day by day and how they are becoming entrenched in our lives. They are especially popular in the South East Asian countries which have seen a lot of developments. The first commercially viable robots that I remember were from the likes of Sony and Honda. You remember that dog from Sony and the robot that looked like an astronaut from Honda? Subsequently we saw intelligent robotic vacuum cleaners. Robots are used in manufacturing auto-mobiles in ways we can’t even imagine. Today Robots are now being designed as child’s toys, syncing with mobile phones and probably quite close to becoming virtual nannies. That’s not all; robots are being used to provide therapy for stroke patients, with their pre-programmed exercise routines. And would you believe it recently a robot married away a couple in Japan.

What could robotics offer the advertising sphere? Personally I think a robot that could switch hoardings is a robot that would have immense potential. The robot could install a new vinyl, remove the old one and then take a photograph of the final installation which is then uploaded online for quality control. Easier and what should ideally be the fore runner, I guess, a hoarding which can be preloaded with a month’s worth of vinyls that automatically cycles through the vinyls on a preset basis. And why not develop this robot in India? After all, a group of students from Chennai from Bharath University won the Spring Innovations Competition at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. That would be an interesting sight to see.