Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
Source: McCann Talks 3
By: Jana Savić Rastovac, Creative Director, McCann Beograd
Last year I celebrated my 40th birthday. I am already living the future and I am grateful for everything. I am thinking about what’s yet to come, a world that is rapidly changing, boundaries that are being pushed or brought closer, I’m thinking about my place and the place of my children in this world. Most of the time I am optimistic, but sometimes I worry too. What I’m certain about is that the future of communication is the future of our world. How we exchange opinions, how we get a message across, will shape the society of the future. It is up to us to do everything we can to make that society worthy of people. I wanted to talk about this with Vladimir Ćosić, a co-worker with whom I have shared some exciting professional experiences in the past.
Jana Savić Rastovac: Why don’t we talk to each other in person as much as we used to? Not just you and me, but people in general?
Vladimir Ćosić: A banal answer to this profound question would be that we don’t have time. A face-to-face conversation means being physically present, which, regardless of the advances in science and technology, still requires time (yes, they lied to us, teleportation is still not possible).
Let me dig deeper into the subject and tell you about an incredible TED lecture I saw recently. Scientists have discovered that the brain consists of two completely separate hemispheres, which essentially have completely separate tasks, i.e. they perceive reality in completely different ways.
The right hemisphere is concerned exclusively with the present moment, the here and now, as Gestalt psychologists would put it. It thinks in images and finds out about the world using all our senses, making a collage of the present moment. It ‘feels’ its own energy and connects us with the collective energy of the people around us. Through the consciousness of the right hemisphere we are connected, whole and perfect the way we are.
The left hemisphere thinks about the past and the future in a linear and methodical fashion. It rummages through the data collected by the right hemisphere, associates it with everything we’ve learned in the past and projects, predicts all the options that the future might have in store for us. It’s a part of us which reminds us of our daily duties, which organises us, it’s the rational, responsible, intelligent part of our brain that defines us as individuals, distinguishes us from the rest of the world and makes us anxious.
Western culture, which we are part of, although we sometimes don’t feel we are, is absolutely rational, calculated and egotistical, and because of that it celebrates individuality. In such a world there is not enough time or energy to connect with the energies of the people around us, despite it being our fundamental need. Because of this need, social media has become a surrogate for the right hemisphere, keeping the illusion of having our energy connected with other people’s energies while we are depressed about the past or anxious about what’s yet to come.
So, it’s either that or the fact that we both have small children who occupy most of our time and energy. J
Jana Savić Rastovac: What, in your opinion, should we talk about in this modern day and age?
Vladimir Ćosić: There are countless subjects that are important to me personally that I think we should talk about. Climate change, the environment, human rights, animal rights, human psychology, the possibilities and dangers of new technologies, art, religion, ideas… What they all have in common is that they are not talked about in our country at all.
First off, I’d like us to talk about anxiety. Once a mental disorder, it’s now become a social phenomenon. In the USA, 35% of children aged from 13 to 17 suffer from anxiety, and this is official information. The percentage is higher in adults. Depression used to be the number one disorder, now it’s anxiety. Psychologists once dubbed American society ‘the Prozac nation’, and now they have coined a new phrase, ‘The United States of Anxiety’. If we examined the matter more thoroughly, we would find it easier to understand the popularity of fidget spinners, endless scrolling on mobile phones and the growing popularity of meditation in an attempt to calm our own thoughts down.
Jana Savić Rastovac: What can we do as advertisers to make the Earth a better place to live?
Vladimir Ćosić: This question of yours spurs a lively conversation between the brain’s two hemispheres. J
On the one hand, my entire life experience tells me that radical change is almost impossible, and that campaigns, although sometimes very powerful, have a limited impact.
However, my gut feeling tells me that my acquired nihilism is not entirely justified. I have no rational arguments or excuses for this. I only feel that as human beings we can do whatever we set our minds to.
Jana Savić Rastovac: How are we to communicate this truth to brands?
Vladimir Ćosić: By telling them that they should rely on my intuition? Hardly. I don’t think that this rationale would get past strategic planners or the agency’s client service, let alone the clients.
Joking aside, I think that if we convince ourselves that this is how things are, others will not have a problem with it.
Jana Savić Rastovac: What is an ideal client?
Vladimir Ćosić: An ideal client is a patron of artists who believes that an artist knows how to communicate on behalf the brand better than the client himself.
Jana Savić Rastovac: Do you watch television?
Vladimir Ćosić: Very rarely, and I’m quite picky.
I’m afraid that television has fallen very low on my list of priorities because I have new obligations in my life. Relatively recently I have taken it upon myself to form a new digital team and define the digital development of the agency which, combined with parenthood, has shifted my life priorities to such an extent that consuming media with fixed schedules that I have to work around is almost impossible, and even frustrating at times.
The good thing is that I find most of the (TV) content I’m interested in online.
Jana Savić Rastovac: Why are you sometimes offline when I need you?
Vladimir Ćosić: The only time I was offline was for a weekend when I did a ‘weekend without the Internet and mobile phone’ experiment. I’m sorry if it was then that you needed me.
Other than that one instance, I’m always online. It’s just that I often pretend I’m busy.
I think that I’m so involved in digital and social media at work that I find it less and less fun to do it in my spare time.
Jana Savić Rastovac: What do you think when you hear people say something along the lines of ‘X is dead, long live Y’? I don’t believe in it.
Vladimir Ćosić: Since you are referring to the traditional and new ways of communicating brands to people (and bearing in mind that what I say has to fit into the framework of a magazine that primarily deals with advertising and communications), my answer will neither be particularly poetic nor philosophical.
Of course, I don’t believe that any traditional medium has died with the expansion of digital technology, because various media respond to various human needs, which have not and will not die. What happens to human needs is that they get modified. Because of this, new media will emerge and old media will change and adapt, which is largely happening now.
In addition, although I’m a big tech geek – I love technology and new scientific gadgets – I think that inventions shouldn’t be celebrated just because they bring something new, but because they bring the possibility of improving things in new, more efficient ways.
To put it simply, it matters not whether my TV has a billion pixels, 3D or the Internet connection, but whether I’m watching something that’ll make me one-pixel happier or a better man.
Jana Savić Rastovac: How is digital technology going to make my life easier?
Vladimir Ćosić: Firstly, let’s define ‘digital’. A common definition is that digital technology is electronic tools, systems and devices that generate, keep and process data. It includes social media, Internet technology, online games and apps, multimedia, programmes that increase productivity, communication systems, mobile devices and artificial intelligence.
Bearing all this in mind, the potential and possibilities of digital technologies are literally limitless.
I don’t know if we’ll live to see it, but lawyers will soon become redundant, because online systems will be providing legal advice with 90% accuracy in a matter of seconds (the accuracy of present-day lawyers is only 70%); cars will become autonomous, we won’t need driving licences or to waste time driving, parking, etc., the number of traffic accidents will drop considerably; electric energy will become incredibly cheap, and water and the environment clean; the medical industry will change dramatically because machines will be able to diagnose illnesses, some even before they occur; we’ll be printing out our shoes and clothes on 3D printers in our homes; we’ll have apps that will tell us if someone is telling the truth; average life expectancy will exceed a hundred years in the relatively near future, and everybody will have access to the best education.
All this if we manage not to ruin our planet and can make it a better place to live; if the artificial intelligence we develop doesn’t turn against us; if we don’t decide to use sophisticated armaments and nuclear weapons in global combat; if we don’t overpopulate the planet.
Digital technology is making the biggest possible technological step in the history of the human race. Consequently, innovations are happening with mind-boggling speed, making them not only hard to control but also hard to follow.
It’s up to each and every one of us to decide whether and how to use this technology.
Of course, freedom of choice will still define us as the human race in the future.