As I hoped last week, I did get in some book-writing time this week. The chapter I'm writing? Humour in storytelling!

That's right - I'm writing about fun (yet safe) ways to use humour in workplace communication.

Can't wait to share all of it, along with the other chapters, by sometime late next year. (I know - it's such a long way away!).

Meanwhile, here's a great quote I'm keeping in mind even as I write the chapter:

"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. They both die in the process." - E.B. White

And now, on to the newsletter.

Welcome to the eighty-seventh edition of '3-2-1 by Story Rules'.

A newsletter recommending good examples of storytelling across:

3 tweets
2 articles, and
1 long-form content piece

Let's dive in.

𝕏 3 Tweets of the week

Don't be stuck with puns or slapstick - go up the hierarchy!

(And no, I'm not using this visual in my chapter!)

(Hat/tip: Rahul Tawde)

Interesting way to get specific coaching tips from GenAI. (Though this one was mainly focused on voice modulation and not on the content itself).

I'm sure that soon there will be apps to help you do this based on content by leading storytelling/communication teachers.

On that note, I should build a custom GPT to give advice based on all my content, right? Not a priority for now, but let me know if you come across someone (or some service) that can help me do that!

Very cool to see the movement by country. You realise the outsized influence of Italy on western scholarship!

📄 2 Articles of the week

a. 'Why I Brought My Toddler to Watch SpaceX’s Flying Skyscraper' by Tim Urban

Recently SpaceX pulled off an incredible feat. It launched a massive rocket and then managed to get it back by “catching it” with two giant metal arms.

Blogger and author Tim Urban saw this remarkable event - with his nineteen-month-old daughter. And wrote a stirring piece about it.

He first sets some context on why space exploration seems to have gone backwards as compared to the 1960s:

The cars, telephones, TVs, and computers of my childhood were worlds more advanced than anything my parents had as kids. But with space, the normal order of things was reversed: My parents grew up exhilarated by Apollo missions to places no man had gone before, while I was watching the space shuttle take astronauts a little hop above Earth’s surface to do some technical work on the International Space Station. I remember feeling a deep envy of people who were around in the 1960s. It didn’t make sense. The problem turned out to be this:

Tim continues about how the 1960s were an aberration in space exploration:

As it turns out, the 1960s were a fluke. It was the height of the Cold War and “desperate times call for desperate measures” justified all kinds of unusual behaviors—including spending five percent of the federal budget to one-up the Soviet Union in the space race. That brief spike in space expenditure put a man on the moon, captivating all of humanity and reminding us of what’s possible when we put our minds together.

Coming to the present day, he does a great job of reframing the standard practice of rockets being used only once (pre-SpaceX):

SpaceX was singularly focused on one of the space industry’s holy grails: rocket reusability. Imagine if every commercial airplane flight ended with the passengers parachuting to the ground and the plane crashing into the ocean. With every plane flying exactly once, a brand-new plane would be needed for every flight. Tickets would cost millions of dollars, limiting air travel to billionaires and governments. Until recently, that was how space travel worked. Every rocket flew once, making space available only to billionaires and governments.

And his description of the actual landing is deeply evocative and emotional.

I can say with confidence: Watching a skyscraper falling from the sky is one of the most surreal things I have ever seen. Noticing my daughter still fixated on the cloud, I redirected her attention to the falling rocket. Near the ground, with a new streak of fire shooting out of its engines, it slowly hovered its way over to the tower and into the gentle embrace of the robot arms. The crowd roared. My wife, who gives one percent as much of a shit as I do about space, was in tears.

Tim puts the achievement in perspective:

...the reason rocket launches make people emotional isn’t about that. It’s the feeling of swelling pride that comes from being in awe of your own species. It’s the feeling of hope that comes from being reminded of our insane potential when thousands of people work together toward a goal.

b. 'India must sharply boost its military strength' by Nitin Pai

Whether you agree or disagree with Nitin, you’ll find that he always has a distinct point of view, expressed with clarity.

He states that geopolitical realities are changing:

India’s current military preparedness was for a different world, a pre-Gaza, pre-Ukraine, pre-Xi Jinping world, with different fundamental assumptions about the types of conflict and the international context in which they might take place. While our armed forces have acquired new capabilities and moved forward in the modernisation process, we have yet to implement some of the most significant recommendations made in the Kargil Committee Report nearly a quarter century ago.

India should invest in significantly increasing our military's capabilities:

India’s military capability must keep pace with that of the People’s Republic of China which, for its part, seeks to keep pace with that of the United States. As the fights in Ukraine and the Middle East have shown, generational superiority matters. Those who carry a knife to a gunfight find that they are defeated even before entering the battlefield. Of course, a combination of asymmetric strategies, ingenuity and alliances can foil more advanced military adversaries, but if one has a choice, it is prudent to invest in hard military superiority

He then talks about 2 ways to build this - gradual and surge. His argument - given the geopolitical risks, India should tilt towards the surge approach:

That is why I think we should also consider a second approach — a surge in defence expenditure, starting with an immediate doubling of the defence budget and holding it at the 4% level for five years, before dialing it back down. Such frontloading would take maximum advantage of India’s partnership with the United States and its allies while creating additional resources for the domestic industry.

📺 1 long-form watch of the week

a. 'The Rise of a New Indian Elite' by Saurabh Mukherjea (YouTube - 1:06:30)

(Hat/tip: Manish Jain)

If you want to understand the big-picture story of India's economy - the growth stats, the key drivers, sectors that are growing, specific trends etc, you are unlikely to get better storytellers than Saurabh Mukherjea (CIO of Marcellus Investment Managers).

I'm in awe of his data storytelling abilities - his command on the numbers (both at a '30,000-foot' level and at a ground level), the way he weaves them into an overarching narrative and his ability to contextualise elements for the specific audience.

In this video, Saurabh is giving a presentation (with vivid data-heavy charts) on the Indian economy's trends to an audience in Japan.

Saurabh starts off with some big picture number of how the Indian stock market has outperformed many global markets, including China, in the last decade:

...another demonstration of how much money is in India has made - so for decade ago say 2012, you had invested $10,000 in India and suppose you also done the same in China your money would have doubled in India in dollar terms in China you'd still be broadly at $10,000

Saurabh identifies multiple trends that are shaping the country's growth. One surprising factor is the rise of women. See how he weaves multiple data points into an overarching narrative (this is a large-ish extract, with edits by me for continuity and flow):

10 years ago was the first time when there were more girls in Primary School than boys ... today at every level of the education system in India - primary school, middle school, high school, University - there are more girls than boys, more women than men. And the Pass rates for women are far higher than the Pass rates for men. So this is hard data from the government of India.

The second bit of data that we have is from the Central Bank ... that in urban and metropolitan areas, for the first time in Indian history, women's bank accounts have more money than men's bank accounts ... women also have more bank accounts than men so women have more accounts than men and they have more money in those accounts than men...

Women are getting the best jobs not just in white collar but even in factories. Entire factories in India now are driven by women. 100% women run factories are increasingly coming through in our big manufacturing hubs. One of the reasons I think this is happening is 65% of Indian GDP is services - financial services, media, Hospitality... um last we knew muscle plays no role in services and hence if you're better educated and those are usually women, they're getting the best jobs and services. Around 20% of our GDP is manufacturing but much of our manufacturing is light industrial manufacturing, for example pharmaceuticals, for example my iPhone made in India. This sort of job again, muscle plays no role. So the entire 90% of the iPhone staff in India, 90% of the outsourced contractor's staff for Apple is women.

And we can see this another way- companies that focus on selling to women, their sales are soaring... The simplest one is Nestle. Nestle sells infant formula milk in India $25 billion worth. It's one of the rare FMCG companies where volume growth is 10% unfailingly every year.

Fascinating, counter-intuitive and heartwarming stats. I hope these trends continue to grow and have positive second and third-order effects.

Saurabh calls 'peninsular India' the world's fastest-growing region:

Peninsular India - basically Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Telangana, Kerala - has quarter of the country's population, half the GDP and 60% of the growth. Peninsular India is growing at 8 to 9% per year - this is the world's fastest-growing region.

Another trend is the GCC boom - there's one being opened every day, and many in smaller cities:

...because of the skill shortages in Europe and America after covid there's been a mad rush by European and American companies to basically move all white-collar jobs to India...

...it's a veritable uh rush to get into India to set up these Global Capability Centers. 1600 are already in place (and) one is opening every day and they're no longer opening just in Mumbai and Bangalore and Delhi. They're going to second-tier third-tier cities because the infra, traffic issues and the cost of living issues are better there

And there is significant more headroom to grow:

... the service component of the western economy plus Japan is $15 trillion... assume only 10% of that gets outsourced to India that's $1.5 trillion. India's current IT and Outsourcing industry is $300 billion. I reckon this goes 5x in the next decade. And again the challenge will not be business coming into India. The challenge will be talent, land and the sheer pressure on metropolitan infrastructure.

It's quite amazing how Saurabh's team have these big numbers clearly laid out and connected in a coherent narrative.

Highly recommend that you watch the entire presentation on video (and the QnA that follows).

That's all from this week's edition.

Ravi

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Ravishankar Iyer

A Data Story on India's New Elites (3-2-1 by Story Rules #87)

𝕏 3 Tweets of the week

📄 2 Articles of the week

📺 1 long-form watch of the week

The Fascinating Story of Oil (3-2-1 by Story Rules #90)

India's Centre-State Fiscal Schisms (3-2-1 by Story Rules #89)

How to Build Lasting Memories with your Children (3-2-1 by Story Rules #88)