Soft capital can be a strategic answer to the growth & success of many states in India as this case for Nagaland demonstrates.
They say size does matter. But not always. It is the capacity for vision and the ability to best optimize and transform resources that helps in punching way beyond one's weight category. No matter the size.
This is an account of the venture design adventure with Nagaland. Founding partner at NYUCT Design Labs, and Chief Consultant to TaFMA, Arpito Gope leads a suite of design thinking initiatives, programs and strategic interventions to help this remarkable state in the North East of India, unlock cultural and youth capital.
NYUCT Design Labs is a Venture Design & Innovation firm that helps organizations, businesses and brands design and build exponential ideas into ventures. From blueprint to last mile execution.
Nagaland is one of the smallest states in India. Forests cover the main part of the land, nearly all of Nagaland is mountainous. Hence while by nature's design Nagaland doesn't possess the typical competitive advantages of other states in terms of resources, rivers, access, industry it more than makes up for it with its unique blessings. In terms of its cultural capital and heritage it is one of the richest. Blessed with 17 major tribes, unique arts and crafts, mindful living with nature, beautiful landscapes, diverse flora and fauna, picturesque locations, it has an extremely high literacy rate amongst citizens.
2006, when the state sighted an opportunity and embarked on a vision.
The government of Nagaland and led by Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio (Mr. Rio is also the current serving Chief Minister) recognized that youth and talents are critical for any state's growth ambitions. Nagaland did it right by identifying youth and their potential as a key competitive advantage for the state. To keep them focused, the state worked on building interest and excitement around themes that the youth align with. And music comes first to mind.
The early years before the master plan. Music is what it started with.
Music is something that the state is synonymous with. Chanting and singing on fields and during community work is part and parcel of the quintessential life of Nagaland. Even Sunday church visits and choir singing have been instrumental in helping grow a ear for music as also exceptional vocalists who sing beautifully. Music is also a language that knows no boundaries and travels far and wide with today's digital channels.
Arpito Gope's work with the Govt. of Nagaland goes back to 2009 when he helped build and scale the Handshake Concert IP across markets, to help introduce artists from the North East to Mumbai. This was in partnership with Rolling Stone where Arpito was the Group Director and Rattle & Hum Music society. This series saw the artists sharing stage with Grammy winner Pandit Vishwamohan Bhatt and saw the initial forays of some of North East's most celebrated artists. Today the Handshake concert has travelled to Hanoi, Kuala Lumpur and other major cities.
Nagaland calling Mumbai, 2019 and the beginning of this design thinking adventure.
The mandate for the next assignment in 2019 was to help transform MTF and bring the ambitious vision of Nagaland and its youth capital to life. A 100 day plan was asked for by the Government, led by CM Nephiu Rio to take MTF to the next level and bring in professional expertise to help unlock what we call as soft capital. Arpito, now a founding member of NYUCT Design Labs since 2016, spearheaded this assignment as the Chief Consultant to TaFMA the new rebranded body.
This is when the master plan for unlocking soft capital for Nagaland was designed and brought to life from strategy to last mile execution. The following sections take you through some of the big ticket initiatives and themes of the strategy & design for the Govt. of Nagaland.
What does a strategy & design toolbox for creating soft capital for a Government look like?
#1 Positioning and right branding across youth capital themes
A brand is not a logo but a proposition that takes a distinct position and sustains it with a unique set of activities that have alignment and fit.
One of the first tasks was to rebrand MTF in a manner that it encapsulates the expanded ambition and strategy of tapping into all aligned themes around youth and cultural capital.
This meant that MTF needed to be reinvented with more gears and themes that would include performing arts, festivals, fashion and arts based entrepreneurship and talent development & management.
MTF transformed into TaFMA.
#2 Innovating Hornbill on Tour and exporting the brand to key source markets
The challenge
Hornbill which accounts for the lion's share of tourism and travel needed to reach more artistes and music fans and get them to visit and experience Nagaland. Till then the most attractive proposition was the Rs 5 lakh cash prize and which had been the mainstay for driving interest. But this needed more energy and something more exciting.
Designing and conceptualizing the Hornbill on Tour
Hornbill on Tour was conceptualized as a strategic initiative to not only take Hornbill as a brand out of Nagaland into key feeder cities but also programmed such that new artistes could be discovered for the festival at Kohima. This started as a three city talent hunt tour to find the top three bands, (with a jury from Rolling Stone magazine) to be eventually flow down to the Hornbill festival. Each city would host the top talent from the region at a Hard Rock Café so that the right audience could be reached and targeted for Hornbill Festival.
Hornbill on Tour went to three metros - Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai. It was a platform to get bands to compete and get a ticket to perform and take part in the Hornbill Rock Contest. The Chennai band that won from Bengaluru went on to secure third place in the finals at Hornbill festival at Kohima and won 2.5 lakhs.
Learnings
The right kind of communities, partnerships and like minded brands can help power and scale branded IPs. This can open up new opportunities for growing customers and markets.
#3 Aligning the infrastructure and programming to sustain it
The establishment of the Regional Centre of Excellence for Music and Performing Arts was not only about gearing up the infrastructure but establishing a seriousness to the purpose behind TaFMA and what it is setting out to do for Nagaland.
The TaFMA office building houses an auditorium and the chambers for the officers. Most of the spaces were just lying vacant and unused. The building was repainted and unused spaces were redesigned and re-purposed.
RCEMPA today is a landmark in Jotsoma village. It’s a centre for arts and music. Choir performances, musical nights, fests and many more activities take place at RCEMPA.
#4 Designing the business of music & arts and setting up professional cohorts
Venture Design as a practice brings an entrepreneurial edge to design and design thinking. It helps to reimagine opportunities for new commerce and to design the right upstream capabilities to make this happen.
Conceptualising Thinkfest (the Business of Music)
In 2019, the Thinkfest Business of Music was conceived to become the launch platform and ideation ground to incubate business thinking around arts and performing artistes of Nagaland.
A series of programs, masterclasses, workshops and professional interactions were designed to help the local artistes and talents get exposure to business capabilities and entrepreneurial opportunities around their skills - be it understanding copyrights, IP laws, licenses, distribution, marketing & personal branding, the criticality of communication etc.
Rehman Foundation and the world scale
An amazing mentorship & partnership program took seed with legend and maestro A.R. Rehman and his foundation. Sunshine Orchestra is a project by the AR Rahman Foundation aiming to put an Indian symphony orchestra on the world map. It provides free musical training for socially and economically deprived children with an aptitude in music through the KM Music Conservatory.
The team of Sunshine Orchestra Nagaland Chapter consist eight violin students.
#5 Building creative connections for the arts and artists
Spaces were creatively reimagined or conceptualized to help local artists and talents to foster creative connections. Trade consulates and embassies came forward to support mutually aligned areas of interest.
Musify, a dedicated music room for recordings, podcasts, talk shows was inaugurated at RCEMPA by the Latvian Ambassador Artis Bertulis.
The Gallery of Contemporary Art was similarly conceived to be a starting ground to encourage budding local artistes and painters in Nagaland.
#6 Designing market linkages and creating brand partnerships
Raising resources and funds is critical to make programs successful and self-sustaining. Creative new ways were explored to build bridges with industries and brands. These partnerships were centered around skill building, IPs, business skilling programs and impact grants.
One of the big initiatives was the partnership forged with Raymond Trust under which the lifestyle brand set up a garmenting factory in Nagaland. The central hub is located in Government Polytechnic, Kohima, and is equipped with advanced machinery that is used by garmenting industries. The project will be phased over five years and 1,080 trainees will be trained and provided employment opportunities in Silver Spark Apparel Limited, Bengaluru.
Casio, Spotify, Tunecore, Raymond Group, Tata Steel, the list runs long of reputed brand partners who aligned with the vision and mission of TaFMA.
Branding and product placements were also critical in seeding the word and buzz around Nagaland and its talent repertoire.
#7 Growing the brand, the talent outreach and digital enablement
Digital engagement, enablement and outreach was used extensively given that today mobile devices, broadband are no longer strangers to any place within India.
The spectrum of work included creating a functional web platform that helps put programming calendars, artiste lists and publishing news about the initiative. Substance comes to more effect here than style.
This was broadened to extend to using simple and effective social channels to drive excitement amongst talents and especially encouraging partners and local organizations to increasingly make their collective presence felt.
#8 Overcoming the pandemic with inventive new formats to sustain the momentum
Every brand or venture encounters uncertainties and out of syllabus problems. And the pandemic was as uncertain and as challenging as anything can ever be. The pandemic disrupted many plans. The government was struggling with more challenging and immediate needs during this period and hence music and arts took a back seat. However work at TaFMA soldiered on.
Solutions, plans and activities were adapted and reoriented to cope with a period where the world went into remote mode and grappled with shutdowns.
Here the digital pivot helped in a big way where digital, social and mobile engagements helped cope with the crisis.
2022 saw new milestones, international tieups and the momentum continues to build.
Increasingly TaFMA is forging international partnerships and associations to ensure that the talents & capital of its youth and brand Nagaland gets international exposure and forums.
In February this year, five artiste ambassadors for Shure (an American audio products corporation) were appointed from Nagaland that included singer and songwriters Alobo Naga and Abdon Mech, folk singers Tetseo Sisters, drummer David Sunar, and guitarist Imnainla Jamir. Through the Shure Influencer program, an initiative of Shure Corporation, the selected artistes were aided with suitable musical equipment. Shure's equipment are endorsed by nearly 250 of the world's best-known performers in the entertainment industry.
Shure has been a very consistent partner of TaFMA and has provided support for Naga artists - be it organizing master workshops on sound management, participating at the World Music Day celebration 2021 and also launching their Shureshop.in on the same day.
In 2022, Arpito, founding member of NYUCT Design Labs, engineered a MoU between Tata Steel Foundation & TaFMA for cultural exchange and joint programs. Naga artistes performed at TSF’s signature festival, Samvaad in Jamshedpur in 2022 and TSF sent across a band comprising of Swarathma and tribal musicians at Hornbill.
New program-formats and branded talent IPs like the Open House have created a grassroots reach of giving talents and artistes a forum to present their skills and share their voice. Open House aims to tap young talents at the foundation level of the state, across districts and bring talents into an early discovery and development cycle.
The success and resonance of these programs and IPs are evident in the following photograph where a duo of musicians use a saloon as a backdrop for their performance overcoming challenges of funds for their gig venues.
The case study of how design and design thinking helped a state like Nagaland unlock soft capital probably points to wonderful opportunities that exist across states, across governments. That soft capital can at times grow faster and more exponentially than hard capital. All it needs is a bold vision, ability to imagine and execute and more critically a design to it.
It is wonderful how this initiative and master plan put together in 2019, finds voice and articulation through its biggest stakeholder - its artistes. Dr Alune Tetseo of the famed Tetseo Sisters lauds the government and TaFMA for reposing faith on the Naga youth and ensuring that soft skill is made the state’s power.
About NYUCT Design Labs
NYUCT Design Labs is a Venture Design and Innovation collective that helps bring to life and transform exponential ideas into strategic outcomes, launch-ready ventures, products & services and impactful brands.
It helps forward thinking organisations, businesses, and founders make their journey from concept to market simpler, faster and better. As a design lab, it also helps businesses and organizations explore new futures with speculative design and concept development. This helps create practical, market relevant futures.
Engaging right across the entire value chain from blueprint to last mile execution, its journey has spanned diverse sectors - government, tourism, retail, travel and discovery, real estate, hospitality, venture funds, legal, healthcare, lifestyle. With a collective of makers and creators, its multidisciplinary practice blends design, agile strategy, venture development and nimble technology.