What Next..??

It is an art.. To fnd something worthwhile in things you simply hate.. Not that I hate Design Studio, but am unable to connect the dots ;) !! Well what I liked about it is that it gave me an opportunity to think about my most favourite activity.. Reading.. Literature..
Literature is a form of art and expression. It reflects the contemporary society and yet remains alive for decades. Going back in history, we find writings on walls, caves, temples, carvings etc. In ancient times, men used to write on papyrus, tree barks, leaves, parchments and vellum, which then replaced papyrus. Then came paper, and then the computers. Who knows, the iPad may completely replace the need for paper!


Literature is of various types - epics, satires, mysteries, fiction, non-fiction, biography, auto-biographies, cook books, books on culture, architecture, and daily diaries and also our daily newspapers.
One trend which can be spotted is of keeping the essence of the novel same, and porting the story into a new environment or culture or time zone. This includes how different stories are adapted. Like Indian movies like Omkara, which is based on Othello.
Just as autobiographies form a part of literature, today we have blogs which is an adaptation of autobiographies, where people can share their thoughts and feeling, achievements online with millions of other users.
"What's on your mind? - in 140 characters" - is the shortest and the latest version of the chapters of an autobiography.
Today, if we look at the sci-fi literature which was written say 20-30 years back, we could never call it "fiction" today!! Most of what was fiction yesterday is reality today. Our children may not want to read Harry Potter because, probably just saying some word, say, “Lumos “ could switch on the lights, what's so amusing ??!!
Literature, today, is widely adapted into movies, plays, games and television serials. E-books and audio books is what technology has done to literature. It has broken the barriers of language and literature has now also reached to the blind man..!
Well, bringing in here the concept of muda or waste.. The thousands of copies lying in the book store.. waiting to find a buyer.. Aren't they a waste of resource.. Every year, millions of copies are returned to the publisher and are shredded simply because they din't get sold. Pure wastage of paper, printing effort, money spent in distribution and storage of books and also the retail space occupied by these copies.
Printing of books can be done in smaller lots and according to the demand of the customer! More so, printing can also be done 'just in time' or on-the-spot !! The book store can stock up sample pieces of books for customers to browse through. When an order is placed have the book printed in the store itself. The technology required for this does not seem very distant to me.. With the advent of e-books, in
stead of a hard copy, customers may request a direct transfer of the e-copy from the publisher, read it on his computer, Kindle or just may deciede to print a few pages. Isn't this better than carrying a 500 page book while on a local travel?
Well the possibilities are countless. And if my B(D) - School has opened my mind to even a few of them, I'm happy !!
P.S.: For all those who are thinking that I have lost my mind, well, Lean Thinking lives on my desk these days !