Venture Building — Week 1.
This week marks the first week of my Venture Building traineeship. Every day presents its new sets of knowledge, learning and sharing. It’s amazing, I must say, how an Entrepreneurship seminar traditionally conducted in person, can be conducted effectively online via live video hosting platforms (e.g. Zoom).
There were many lessons — from an introduction to global trends and a kickstart to harnessing analysis tools, to social introductions and ideas sharing in virtual breakout rooms. The first week has been packed with a plate-filled appetizer of Entrepreneurship.
Amongst all the lessons we attended, there was one which tantalized my taste, or should I say ‘mind’, buds memorably. The lesson was Inner Engineering.
The objectives of Inner Engineering are to help us be more attuned to our surroundings and environment, tap on to our subconsciousness and hone our art of detailed observation and possible scenario imagination.
One exercise includes drawing detailed imagery using verbalization. The purpose of this exercise is to walk through imaginary landscapes that reside in our subconscious.
Given a scenario, say: you are at the entrance of a restaurant either by yourself, with your friends, and/or family, about to have dinner. How might you describe in detail, with all five senses and your emotions, this dining experience? Do note that you will have to end this verbalization on a positive note.
Here’s my attempt at drawing this scenario:
(Imagine the following to be said aloud)
Standing in front of the restaurant, I can see that the atmosphere within it is cozy and intimate. The restaurant is situated beneath a block of low-rising apartments, on the first floor. It has a casually posh exterior of black glossy bricks and big windowpanes. The border of the entrance door is wooden but painted black.
There aren’t that many patrons, and it is not because it is unpopular, but there is a limit to the seating capacity. My family and I have just been placed on the waiting list and are next in line. The lady who served us wrote our names using a wooden pencil, in scribbles, on a paper which is clipped onto a clipboard. The slight rainfall has just come to a halt, leaving the weather that we are exposed to wet and cold. Reflections of the sky from gathered puddles of water left behind on the roadside dimmers from light blue to a dark midnight blue with orange hues (the streetlamps). With approximately 15 minutes of waiting and increasing hunger, our names are finally called.
I opened the door by turning the bronze knob and was greeted by a black-marbled countertop, a ginormous vase of flowers, bottles of wine displayed, a dessert counter, tastefully scribbled menu-of-the-week on a black chalkboard above the main, black-marbled countertop, and a staff leading us to our table.
Our table was a square high tabletop with a black wooden finish, and my family and I set on stools high enough we can stretch our legs. We ordered a fennel sausage pizza, petite super bowl salad, garlic bread, spaghetti Bolognese and a curried pumpkin soup to share. The food came in takeaway boxes as this restaurant is a takeaway outlet with a few dine-in capacities. There were no pieces of food left as they were all devoured by my hungry family members.
We had our food, an amazing conversation, and said bye to a friend we have made as a result of our frequent visits. It was a great dinner indeed!
The purpose of this exercise is to bring forth your subconscious observations and hear the details you may have not actively sought consciously. When doing this exercise, one could definitely expand the image drawn much further, and the storytelling could extend to however long needed.
In application to business and entrepreneurship, tapping on to our subconscious allows us to better step into the shoes of our customers and empathize with their needs and wants. It may allow us to observe things from their perspectives and make the necessary changes and improvements to our products or services.
Using my written attempt above as an example, it can be deduced that the method of a customer waitlist remains traditional — pen and paper, as opposed to more contemporary stores in town areas where customers simply key in their details on a tablet and wait to be contacted via mobile phone. This information causes us to question if such a method is intentional in retaining the cozy, intimate, human-to-human interaction customer experience, or if the restaurant has not thought of streamlining this process using technology. Whichever that may be, it could be a business opportunity, or a deeper insight into the customer psyche.
To better understand the environment and people around you, I would encourage you to start practicing tapping into your subconscious. Draw out images and verbalize this once-lived or imagined scenarios, or a hybrid of both, that are in your head. Or you may do this exercise with a couple of friends using identical scenario briefs. Observe how different each individual’s perspective are, what they focus on, and the images they draw using their minds. It could be really interesting!
Till the next Venture Building reflection, cheers.
