The Butterfly of Jakarta

Commuting to the office normally takes 30 minutes. Yesterday, I took a shortcut, but the road was terribly congested, and it ended up taking 82 minutes. I missed two meetings. Three meetings started late. I couldn't have lunch. The backlog of work kept me busy until late at night. Dinner with my family was canceled. I couldn't tell my daughter a bedtime story, so she ended up falling asleep alone. I fell asleep on the sofa with the TV still on. To make matters worse, I forgot to take out the trash. My wife is completely dissatisfied with this whole situation.

But seriously, what caused the traffic jam? It was a basket of eggs someone dropped from a truck.

Last week, the creative team came up with an amazing idea—the kind we hadn't seen in a while. Everyone was thrilled. This would beat the competition and win advertising awards for sure. Clients would jump at it. Everyone was confident it would make a great campaign.

Out of curiosity, I asked a team member: How did you come up with this idea? Did you use mapping techniques? Or brainstorming? Or did you just keep throwing ideas into 20 idea boxes until you hit the golden egg?

What was the answer? The art director got the idea after the copywriter accidentally dropped his brand-new iPhone into the toilet!

In October, Joko Widodo was inaugurated as President of Indonesia. He, Jokowi, was born into a poor family. The years leading up to his rise to power are a story of dramatic ups and downs in modern politics. What drew attention was that this story unfolded in Indonesia. The once-unknown Jokowi has now ascended to become the supreme leader of the world's fourth most populous nation. He now leads Southeast Asia's largest and the world's 16th-largest economy. Fortune magazine named him one of the world's 50 greatest leaders, and he's graced the cover of Time magazine and been featured in countless other media outlets. Why did he pursue politics? It all started when he was kicked out of his own home as a child.

Chaos theory tells us that the flapping of a butterfly's wings in Brazil can lead to a tornado in Chicago. I am watching closely to see what changes the flapping of a butterfly's wings in Jakarta might bring to the world.

(Supervised by: Dentsu Inc. Aegis Network Business Bureau)