My research notebook
Strategy Lab
The thinking behind the work, written in margins.
Things I keep thinking about
Consumer psychology
People rarely decide to care about something. Something small nudges them: a face they recognise, a question they can’t shake, a feeling they didn’t expect. I look for that nudge.
Audience awareness
What someone already knows decides where a story should begin. Start too far ahead and you lose newcomers. Start too far back and you bore the people who know. I map this on five stages: unaware, problem aware, solution aware, product aware and most aware.
Cultural insight
Culture is full of things everyone half-knows. The good stuff is usually in the gap between what people practise and what they understand.
Hooks and attention
A hook is an invitation, not the whole party. If the story doesn’t deliver what the opening promised, the viewer notices.
Media behaviour
People scroll with a mood, not a plan. I try to notice what makes someone stop, stay and send it to a friend. Those are three different things.
Content & creator strategy
The strategy is the reason behind every hook, visual and sound. If I can’t say why something is there, it probably shouldn’t be.
Learning credentialsI completed the McKinsey.org Forward Program and a UN DESA and UNITAR course on systems thinking and strategic foresight. They complement how I structure problems. The certificates are on the receipts page.
From a tiny observation to an idea
Observation
Something small catches my attention. A song, a ritual, a line someone says without thinking.
In my work
Noticing that Bengali songs carry people, places and memories, not just melodies.
Audience tension
I look for the gap between what people feel and what they know, or between what they know and what they’ve been told.
In my work
Celebrating Pujo and understanding the stories behind it aren’t the same thing.
Human insight
The tension turns into a truth about people that I can say in one sentence.
In my work
Nostalgia and discovery can go together in the same viewer.
Content proposition
A clear promise: what this story will give someone who stops for it.
In my work
Use the music as the way into the stories around it.
Execution
Narration, hook, visuals, sound and pacing, built to keep the promise.
In my work
Experimenting with narration, visual and sound hooks for each story.
Learning
I read the response, not just the numbers, and carry it into the next idea.
In my work
Using comments, DMs and views as signals to make better decisions next time.
I’ve taught these
The frameworks I lean on in my own thinking, I’ve also taught to creators in an online initiative. They say the best proof you know something is being able to teach it.
See the initiativeThe Call-Home Playlist
A self-initiated idea I sketched to show how my thinking could work for an everyday-ritual brand (a tea, a sweet, a travel service). No brand is attached to it and nobody asked for it.
The tension
Plenty of people live far from the place they grew up. The songs from there are still on their phone, and they rarely get a story.
The insight
A song is often the shortest route home. If the brand helps tell the story behind it, it belongs in the moment instead of interrupting it.
The idea
A short-form series: one song, one question, one story, one small ritual that goes with it. The brand sits inside the ritual.