Love Letter N°29 with a Bohemian Rhapsody - Breaking the Rules
The Transatlantic Post | October 2020
Welcome to The Transatlantic Post an editorial on innovation & entrepreneurship. With occasional British satire. By Kajal
It was somewhat prescient that the last instalment of The Transatlantic Post was titled “The Road Never Travelled”. I’ve not written to you since December last year Love Letter N°28 where I offered up predictions until 2030. How futile predictions seem now. It has been the windiest and treacherous of roads. Sanity and insanity have co-existed between banana bread making, odd curfew times, tiktok memes and decodifying UK rules of 6 indoors, outdoors…somewhere in between.
I hope you are all surviving. I’d put my pen down unsure of the relevance of my writing to offer solace. As we face further lockdowns, the American election and Brexit around the corner, and I am a year older and somewhat wiser today, it was time to pick the silver pen back up and offer a few linings...
Innovation to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody ….
Some of you, especially Queen fans, may have recently watched the Netflix documentary Bohemian Rhapsody. In it, there is a scene in the movie where the Freddie Mercury is selling the idea of Bohemian Rhapsody as a single to the record company and it is met with fierce resistance. A 6 minute song featuring a cappella introduction, ballad, opera, hard rock and finally a reflective coda. Most songs at that time were 3 minutes long with a chorus. The song broke all the rules of its time. Freddie Mercury talked about it in an interview as an "experimentation in sound" and his boldness paid off. The song made topped the UK charts and its accompanying promotional video was named by the Guardian as “one of the 50 key events in rock music history, helping make videos a critical tool in music marketing”.
Forty years later, the song endures. In December 2018, ‘Bo Rhap’ – as coined by Queen fans – was officially the world’s most-streamed song from the 20th Century, with over 1.6 billion listens globally across all major streaming services and in July this year, its official music video hit 1 billion views.
Breaking the rules was the secret to its success…
In Freddie Mercury’s case he was accustomed to breaking all the rules and experimentation. But what happens when all the rules of life are broken for you?
As the pandemic hit this year, we experienced just that. Getting on a train for a morning commute, meeting colleagues for a happy hour, hugging your parents goodbye…the majority of us had never seen anything like it in our lifetime. We were due to launch LSE’s first Accelerator in March after more than 8 months of planning. We had a space set up for 15 early stage businesses and were ready to press go. Two days before go live - lockdown went into full gear and we had to pivot to a virtual accelerator. Like many, we were going “to do the digital thing eventually”. We learnt the art of Zoom, Slack, Notion and others to replicate an in person experience.
Almost overnight, we were all forced into a massive experiment which meant we achieved digital transformations in a matter of months not years and our early stage founders were in unique position to act nimbly and double down on digital offerings. A recent McKinsey report cited the rate of digital adoption and entirely new consumption patterns brought on by the pandemic. Most first-time customers (~86%) are satisfied with digital adoption across all industries from banking to apparel and (~75%) plan to continue using digital post COVID. In other words, it is here to stay..
Digital Acceleration and the Demise of NYCLON?
With increasing digital transformation was the era of remote working. By now, you must have seen a million articles posturing the rosy remote future, leafy suburbs and my personal favourite, the Drama Kings on the demise of cities like New York and London. I don’t doubt that remote working has a permanent fixture in our working lives now but lets not overstate our “love” for zoom and the fact that the camera adds 10 pounds. Or understate the resilience of our twin cities - The plague? The Great Fire of London? The Great Depression? 9/11?
Jerry Seinfeld wrote a stinging and passionate retribution in the New York times to a viral essay titled “New York is dead”, I’m with him on this…
“You think Rome is going away too? London? Tokyo? The East Village?They’re not. They change. They mutate. They re-form. Because greatness is rare. And the true greatness that is New York City is beyond rare”
And greatness - in the form of arts, cultures, buildings, networks, serenditipitous connections, your favourite cafes take hundreds of years to evolve. While we have a no normal state in our cities presently what we might find is a great re-balancing, healthier cities buoyed by the many new startups serving this transformation through the pandemic and ensuing economic downturn….
Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see…
No doubt you’ve seen the list of 10 iconic businesses created during recessions - they force us to re-imagine our businesses and cities and there can be a great upside.
The City of London recently released a 2025 vision to reinvent itself by looking to create innovation ecosystems and flexible ways of working. Recommendations included creation of start up hubs, better building design for remote working and increasing pedestrianised and bike routes. All will be improvements on the original.
Downturns also create hidden opportunities unrelated to the primary trigger. Many newly created startups often solve problems related to secondary and tertiary impacts of the shock. Mental health is one such example - 40% of American adults are dealing with some sort of mental health consideration, a jump from 25% a year ago.
StartUS researched 300+ startups offering mental health support at the time of social distancing. Welltrack for example offers mental health support to students, one of the most susceptible groups due to close campuses and uncertain futures. There are countless others and it probably merits its own love letter to you in the next edition.
In the meantime, I’ll offer a few tools for catharsis … Comedian Lilly Singh on If Zoom meetings were honest , one week ahead of the elections, Sarah Cooper’s sublime Trump lip synching goes Netflix in Everything’s Fine and finally of course, the movie that inspired this edition of the Post - Bohemian Rhapsody. We may not get back to any sort of normal soon but perhaps it was time to break the status quo and mix things up with ballad, rock and opera anyway. Seeing past the present discomfort, the long term results could be legendary.
“I won’t be a rock star. I will be a legend.” Freddie Mercury
Sincerely, yours,
t: @kajalnyclon | w: transatlanticpost.com
Selected Reading
LSE Accelerator Impact Report (Issue)
I spent the majority of the last 15 months working with the London School of Economics to design and launch the first accelerator program for LSE founders and alumni. None of us planned for a lockdown of course but I was amazed at the adaptability and resilience of our founders through our virtual experience. Read our impact report for a few highlights from our team and businesses.
London Recharged: Our Vision for London in 2025 (City of London)
London has resembled a ghost town in times when it is usually heaving with tourists. While ‘plans’ have to be viewed with extra caution, I was encouraged by the will to curate more innovative ecosystems with co-working spaces, to promote digital inclusion and to equip SME’s to transform and grow. Read more in this recently released vision for London report.
Jerry Seinfeld: So you think New York is Dead (New York Times)
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld argues passionately against a viral essay declaring the death of New York. Having lived in the city for 8 years, I know its capacity to re-create itself through its innate dynamism and he is on point when he says that its essence in energy, attitude and personality cannot be “remoted”. Here is the original essay for you to make up your own mind on New York’s future.
Get in touch
Email me directly kajal@kajallondon.com, I always welcome hearing from you
Read previous articles of the The Transatlantic Post
Photo Credit: Alex Bailey
About the Transatlantic Post
An editorial on innovation and entrepreneurship. With occasional British satire. Written and edited by Kajal Sanghrajka. For previous editions go to the Transatlantic Post website.
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