 Hi there. Good evening. Good morning. Good afternoon wherever you are joining us from. My name is Abhijit Bhaduri and I'm your host today. I work as a leadership and talent management consultant. I'm an author. I'm the author of the book Dreamers in Unicorns. And I'm actually trying out something really experimental today. As you know that I'm a sucker for anything experimental. I'm always trying to do something different. I'm actually experimenting with this format which is short notice, short format. It takes 15 to 20 minutes of your time and then we are done. So I'm going to try this out and I'm really going to wait for you to tell me whether you like this particular format or not. And without any further ado, I of course want to tell you that I'm going to bring in a mystery guest but before that I want to just play the signature tune which I love and I've been missing playing that for you. So here goes. Okay so very clearly my mystery guest is not interested in solving the mystery of who this person is. My mystery guest is going to talk to us about the mysteries of social audio. My mystery guest, what do I refer to you as mystery? What should I call you? I see your name you've put there as mystery. It certainly is not a last name is it? Well it could be. It totally could be. So you could refer to me as mystery. I have absolutely no idea what you're saying because I can't make out anything. Can you hear me now? Oh man mystery guest your voice is all blurred and all you know so if you're doing that on purpose you're worrying me because you know because I'm trying to figure out whether you've really joined or you haven't joined. Can you say hello to all of us? A very good evening to everybody. I think your voice is getting all blurred and yeah okay. Alright so I just want to start by saying that mystery guest can you just introduce yourself tell us what you do and what is it that you're going to talk to us about because I have heard a whole lot of things about social audio. I want to figure out how does you know what makes social audio the flavor of the season and what is why has it suddenly taken off? What drives that kind of interest in social audio? Talk to me about that. So we know audio right generally conversations and the auditory senses is something that is age old that's the way human beings connect with one another. So there's nothing new there right if you go back and look at the example where mothers right start talking to their children when they're in the womb right when the babies are in the womb can you hear me? I feel like am I clear now? Am I audible Abhijit? I'm having a little bit of a difficulty. Let's see let me check it out. It's not perfect. Okay perfect so now that we've gotten that out of the way we've got our audio sorted. So like I was saying right audio has been around for the longest time right. It's how human beings communicate with one another. What's interesting is that we've seen a trend more recently where technology is finally caught up right. So for the longest time text was king right. But if you notice like a lot of people in India will also notice this in particular it's specific to the Indian subcontinent. And China is where voice messages I know have noticed in the past six odd months people have started instead of you know just sending in long wordy text they've started sending in voice messages right. The whole advent of voice assistance right so you have Siri you have Alexa. So there's just podcasting podcasting has become huge even advertising right around you know which is related to the medium of sound has grown exponentially as you can see my voice just actually triggered my Alexa at home if you could hear that in the background. But so that just goes to show right voice is here audio is here and it's to stay. I think the significant shift that we're seeing now is the move towards social right it's not no longer just audio but it is social audio right it's not only about one on one conversations but it is about where you get to really find your own tribe speak to your community. So which is why you're seeing things you know the advent of you know apps like clubhouse or cappuccino right where. Or men's are and they're just you know there's we've been looking at Facebook LinkedIn Twitter they're all kind of catching on they're like this is where you know the future is. So that's kind of the short of it as to what are the trends we're seeing in the audio space right now and why is it you know. Such a big thing and why is it going to be the future. And kind of look at what these people are saying that great people are to be heard not to be seen. But I have another observation you are right that a lot of people you know are sending voice messages and on WhatsApp I've always enjoyed doing that because when you have. A whole lot of people respond to during the festival season especially it's just so much nicer if you. You know drop a voice note and if you wish somebody happy birthday instead of just typing happy birthday with the usual cake emoji. You leave a voice note that's so much nicer. Is it so much more personal right there is so yeah you know the whole idea of tenor and tone gets completely lost. Whereas with what so you don't you can be succinct with voice you don't have to be worthy and you can still communicate and I think that's beautiful about voice also how intimate it is right. You suddenly feel like you're much closer to the person like even if you're sitting in different parts of the world is a minute you communicate with voice it kind of breaks a lot of those values. I totally relate to that because I grew up with the radio you know and I did a lot of work with the radio. And I just think that there is no substitute for the kind of relationship that you can build you know whether it is legends like Amin Sayani Saab and many of the other newsreaders. You know when they would read the news I kind of got a feeling they were talking to me that is impossible which is intriguing because you know when you are seeing the person and you are hearing the person. Is that better if you could see the face of the person or does it remove the mystery and you know is that what it is. So not to say that you know having the visual to go with it isn't of course there are benefits to it but I think it's also some of it is trade off so especially you know in society today where there's so much that is vying for your attention. You know this audio can also be super calming right it allows you to do other things simultaneously which is why we saw you know why so many people started taking to podcast right when you're on your way to work. Why is you know why are people listening to the radio right because it allows you to do and I'm not suggesting everybody can multitask but you don't have to have all your senses engaged. But when you are when you have a visual in front of you there's a lot more right. So this kind of also has a calming effect right in that sense it kind of gives you that break which is why you have like you know zoom fatigue which came out of the pandemic right like everybody was suffering from zoom fatigue and I think that's what audio does. Not to say that they are comparable in that sense right they both have their pros and cons. But you have a point that you know when I think about what Adam Grant has to say he actually says that when people have zoom fatigue and you switch off the camera and you actually listen only to the boys. So according to Adam Grant people become more attentive to the nuances you can guess that I'm even though I'm saying yes I'm feeling fine. I actually am not I'm feeling a little sad or something you can pick up those nuances of emotions in the language in the tone and manner which is impossible to replicate. The question I would say is in text when we add emojis would you say that that's a way to bring in the emotion which is missing in text. I think that's what emojis were. I mean that's primarily the point of it right you want to convey like how else do I say that my heart is like I want to send you a hug or my heart is filled with warmth right because your voice will sound that way right or that I'm this was really funny. Right because you could laugh and everybody knows that it was really funny but text is not going to help with that right and which is why emojis are so effective. But nothing I think if the comparison was between actually listening to somebody laugh and an emoji or you know the I mean we I mean you can hear it right you know which one is more effective so yeah. Yeah and and I also think that when you're looking at can make something in you know one of my big complaints about many of these formats is if it's necessarily one or two hours three hours kind of a thing you know when you look at webinars a lot of company programs I think people constantly tell you that I wish it was shorter I think which is what is the format I'm trying to experiment with. I'm trying to see if in 15 minutes we can have a sensible conversation pick up a couple of things that leave a little bit of a flavor you know after taste. And I think audio has the ability to leave an after taste in your years you know am I mixing up my metaphors. No absolutely like it's almost like a conversation right is the seed of that next conversation or of your thought process like when people talk they leave you and that's the point of audio it leaves you leave something behind. Right for you to mull over right for you to go back and say oh you know that's what was said and and the other thing with music and the auditory you know is the fact that memory. It's memorable it stays with you right it's much harder for a text to stay with you but the sound of it right when somebody narrated a story to you stays and it's great for me. So yeah absolutely definitely leave plants seed for the next. This for sure you know is going to be very interesting the first time where it is not because of a technical fault but you know the guest is chosen to keep the camera off and turned it into a sort of audio format I mean what better way to experience it. Yeah I get that but I also think that you know I enjoyed doing some of the things that you know so they're you know Shalu Sodi is saying that nothing compares to the sound of laughter just like yours just now. Thank you Shalu. Yes I was sort of really thinking about the fact that this is the magic of sound you know we can really recreate it. And I also think that I've been playing around with this this app called Mensa which I'm going to sort of leave that in the comments below and you can also get it on the screen I'm going to put that out there. What you can do is I'm sort of playing around with it trying to really learn about different aspects. At 7 o'clock I'm going to be doing a talk for about 15-20 minutes around gig workers. Yeah we are going to sort of talk about that we've got a bunch of really interesting guests. And then at 7 30 you know I'm talking about a completely different topic which is under the series called Futurism where we are really saying what is the future of influencer marketing and I'm joined by Madhavan Narayan who on Twitter has these millions of followers who know him as adversity. So Madhavan and I we are going to be talking about the future of influencer marketing. And this is that weekly show that we do on this particular we have talked about all kinds of things the future of storytelling the future of work the future of nanotechnology all kinds of things that we've talked about. And this is there's a question that we have from Ashwin who says that I wonder if the form factor of video is two dimensional. What do you think is the form factor two dimensional. I'm not sure I completely fathom the question but so what do you say it appeals to two senses. I think it what it does is it appeals to one sense so heavily right. So you're so you rely so much on with video you rely so much on the visual that a lot of the nuances of the what is being communicated gets lost. So in that sense yes I would say it is a little flat because you're indexing too much on the visual. And so whereas with audio you it's it also gets you to use your imagination for example right now right. A lot of people could be wondering right who is this person we're speaking right. And it's so I think it you're kind of thinking harder you're putting in more energy in an effort not in the effortful way but in the sense of. The connecting the dots. I don't know if that answered Ashwin's question. Perhaps you know one of the parallels I would talk about is when I first met some of these legends like Melville de Mello, I was like completely amazed because somehow then actual image you know the image in my head and what they look like in real life were two completely different things. I had pictured them to be completely different and that's what happens that you have a the voice triggers an image and that's always the element of mystery. You know and so many times I've seen that and I also think that we've got some. Srishti says that I've been listening to radio since childhood and still enjoys doing that. Yeah I think that's the magic of radio that you know you can never get tired of it but we have come to the promised end of the time. We had a little past I'm going to leave you with one last question. What is the difference you know when somebody says it's a great social audio content. What makes something great social audio content. What is your view on that. I would say when it's great social audio content is where you've been able to nurture some relationship in in whatever time that might be right you've been able to connect with the other person so I think that's the social sense of community. Yes a sense of community and you have specific takeaways right so where it's you know it's there was value there was value add to you know you walked away from it and you said either I learned something or this is triggered with hot right or this it's yeah so I would say those are the two great two pieces I would you know use to qualify something as great social audio. And I also think that you know the other piece that leaves me makes me think that social audio has the ability to create friends. You know you become friends with the voice. There are people I have met on Mensa who have become my friends. I'm now connected with them on LinkedIn and connected with them on your Instagram and we connect on Twitter and DM each other like long lost friends and these are people friends I've made on the audio platform and that's the magic of it. I mean I just think that it creates a sense of trust and authenticity so that's something that I certainly believe. Absolutely I was going to go for trust as well completely. Yeah friends you know which is the basis of community and friendship. So we are at the end of our time and I just want to say thank you so much for joining it. I'm really keen to know from the listeners and viewers if you like this format you know when my guest keeps the camera off. Are you going to solve the mystery so she says she's texting me and saying no she is not going to solve the mystery. Okay so be it but I want to know whether the listeners will be keen to have the mystery solved and either case I will see you on Mensa in the first one 7 o'clock I'm talking about gig workers join in and 7 30 we are talking under the series called Futurism where we are talking about the future of influencer marketing till the next time. Thank you so much.