#89 - Notes on Legacy, Places and Ads
Education Coffee is a Newsletter on People, Ideas and Culture.
In each edition of this newsletter, I will share five inspiring web resources that I have curated after hours of research to ensure that you have the best education coffee in your inbox. In upcoming editions, I will focus on sharing insights, notes and realizations that I gather from people, ideas, books, films and podcasts.
1. Learning from People
Ratan Naval Tata was an Indian industrialist and philanthropist. He served as the chairman of Tata Group and Tata Sons from 1991 to 2012 and he held the position of interim chairman from October 2016 to February 2017. The Tata Group is an Indian group of companies headquartered in Mumbai. Established in 1868, it is India's largest conglomerate, with products and services in over 150 countries, and operations in 100 countries. There are total 29 publicly listed Tata Group companies with a combined market capitalisation of ₹33.7 trillion (US$403 billion) as of 20 August 2024. Tata Trusts is the philanthropic arm of the Tata Group, which also happens to own about 66% of Tata Sons, the private holding company which owns stakes in all Tata group companies. Tata Trusts seeks to empower, enable and transform communities across India, while improving the quality of life of the tribal, underserved, underprivileged, backward and minority sections, and laying special emphasis on women and children. This is powerful business model of using profits for social good adopted by the Tata Group. Ratan Tata owned less than 1% of the company. He passed away in 2024 but he left behind an important legacy for other young Indian entrepreneurs. Here is a short video from Vir Sanghavi at The Print where he shares his legacy on India as a country.
2. Learning from Ideas and Questions
Places can inspire creativity. Here is a documentary series that shows you how Camden inspired some of Britain’s biggest pop stars including Coldplay, Amy Winehouse, Dua Lipa, Arctic Monkeys, Madness and more. Camden Town often shortened to Camden, is an area in the London Borough of Camden, around 2.5 miles (4.1 km) north-northwest of Charing Cross. Here are some reasons Camden was such a great environment for these artists according to me.
Camden had a lot of bars that gave these artists their first breaks as live performers.
The audience was always encouraging and open to diverse types of musicians.
There was a lot of instant feedback from other upcoming artists working on their music in the same neighbourhood.
There was the legacy of having great bands
3. Learning from Books, Websites and Blogs
I created a list of my favourite Substack articles that you can find at this link. This list has 50+ articles now. I will share my favourite articles from Substack in upcoming editions of this newsletter. Here is one such post from the list by Shashank Mehta, who writes a newsletter about being a mid life entrepreneur.
My favourite part of this article was this passage about expectations of efficiency in our workplace and the importance of developing pockets of inefficiency with our loved ones.
The more I reflect, the more the evidence points in one direction. My inability to be present with the ones I love is a direct outcome of me trying to become a better entrepreneur and CEO. It’s a direct outcome of me trying to be efficient. In the world of people trying to achieve big things, the world of high-performers, a world I have spent my entire adult life becoming a part of - we’ve cultivated an unending fetish for efficiency. I certainly have…
But relationships, especially one with a nine-month old, need inefficiency. Infact, wasting time, I’d argue, is how we signal love. We shoot the breeze, chit-chat, hang, and do absolutely nothing with the ones we love. It’s our way of saying - I love you so much, I’ll happily ‘waste’ time, the most valuable thing I have, on you.
4. Learning from Films, Videos and Shows
Moonshot is an advertising agency by Tanmay Bhatt and Devaiah Bopanna. This agency makes really good advertisements with bucket loads of humour that make you laugh while building a connection with the brand. I love their ads and here are two examples of the same from their recent campaign for Swiggy and Shark Tank.
5. Learning from Podcasts and Music
Amit Varma interviews Neelesh Mishra about his journey as an Audio Storyteller and Journalist in this three hour podcast. It is a long one, but it is a podcast filled with lots of life lessons and insights. You can find Neelesh’s work at https://neeleshmisra.com/. Click this link for the show notes.
Thank you for reading this edition of #EducationCoffee. I look forward to writing weekly editions of this newsletter this year. I hope to continue to share resources that will add value to your life. You can also review the archive of Education Coffee for free at this link (87 past newsletters).
Please do send me your thoughts and resources on any edition of this newsletter through email at abhishekashokshetty@gmail.com, Linkedin or Twitter. If you would like to read pieces in the future please do consider subscribing to this newsletter by clicking the button below. I love taking these discussions forward on those platforms and look forward to hearing your feedback.
Abhishek Shetty