Ranomoto Gulsar

Well, thats the level to which people can get creative. Ranatunga Motors in Sri Lanka has launched a new bike. Its not their own design, but a Chinese bike manufacturer has helped them launch it in Lanka. The Chinese manufacturer's website can be accessed at www.chinamotorcycleparts.com - I guess, I neednt tell you what this bike resembles. Anyway, to help some of you, here is a picture.



So thats the latest news apart from the regular nonsense from Campus. The number of companies registered for placement has had a steep rise this year. Almost 30% I would say, which is really good for the incoming batch. We have seriously new firms, that havent placed their foot on other campuses and are offering senior roles for the people here. And this brings me to the debate that is happening in the isb-pgp groups where people questioned the importance of experience. I think we have a straight answer here. If you look at the companies!! They are badly in need of people in the middle and senior management roles. And these companies are not just the multinationals. These are 500 plus crore family owned groups and partnerships that are in dire need of experienced hands to make their business competitive. They know that they can demand such talent only from a niche school like the ISB and thats why they are here. Obviously, the external people will not know all whats happening on campus. But let me tell you, the companies that have come here are offering roles that are tailor made for people with experience. These are not the jobs that they can offer on their website and ask people to apply. In a way, I am happy that the companies are also recognizing the need for people with experience. This also puts some pressure on the school to get people who can fit such roles. Sooner, we'll find that minimum 4 years experience cap for applicants.

I look around and I find people hooked on to the jobs website. Then some of them are busy reading RSS Feeds from BitPipe, SlashDot, InvestorNews and what not. The knowledge building drive is in the cruise mode now. In a few days, it will get into top gear. Although, its not in my interest to get to know all of this because I just need that IT Job, I am trying to get some so called Gyaan (Knowledge). Now, this perspective building will also take a new turn as the budget is coming up. So interviewers would be keen to know your views about personal and corporate taxes, deficit, excise duties, imports of foodgrain, and a host of other things. For people who havent laid their hands on today's Economic Times - Nooyi's interview is awesome. It talks about her journey in PepsiCo. Lots of business knowledge about corporate restructuring, financial planning etc. Although she speaks at 30000 feet, it gives us a feel of how companies work when they do a rejig.

And for some humor....

With a pile of 300 résumés on his desk and a need to pick someone quickly, my boss told me to make calls on the bottom 50 and toss the rest.

"Throw away 250 résumés?" I asked, shocked.

"What if the best candidates are in there?"

"You have a point," he said. "But then again, I don't need people with bad luck here."

www.tolmolbol.com

Today's post is going to talk about this cool website that my friends have launched. Its called tolmolbol. You can click on that to see the website.

So, before we go into what the website is all about - lets talk about the people. My batchmates from BITS Pilani who had this entrepreneurial urge to do it really big embarked on this great journey of running a software services firm. They quit their jobs in Morgan Stanley and the biggest of names in the IT Sector and made a bold start. They did extremely well for themselves. In fact, I hadnt met them for more than 4 years and I had the opportunity to meet them yesterday. I was totally amazed. I was telling them that I wouldnt have done this. You can read more about the people on the ABOUT page of the website.

Anyway, the new venture called tolmolbol.com is based on the WEB 2.0 concept. This website is getting to be what every other information exchange wants to be in the next stage of their business. In the business of providing content to the visitors, it has become imperative that the Googles and the Yahoos in the various locations they are present, to focus on the needs of specific segments of people. In a study that we made on campus about Google and the future of the search industry, we found out from a lot of secondary data that the next step is to get more local. Something like the yellow pages. People now have graduated to a level where they are looking for just the right information. And this is not about some news item or some research report. Its more about information within a city for movies, restaurants, theatre, transport etc. TolMolBol is trying to exactly achieve that purpose.

I have registered under their Hyderabad users community. There are so many other cities under which one can register. Not just the metros and the next best ones. There are so many tier-2 and tier-3 cities on the site. The primary motive is to get net savvy people from all these cities to contribute and make information about their city available to other visitors. The concept of GLOCAL kicks in here. Even though this might sound a bit cliched and common to a lot of people in the West, it plays a key role in a country like India where there is a lack of quality information. And this site is trying to achieve that purpose by giving the members the choice to comment and make stuff about their city popular.

And yesterday, my friends who have also conceptualised the website walked me through certain aspects of the site that I hadnt spent time on. The restaurant search was one. So when you type "coffee" in the search tab and then "banjara hills" in the location tab, it shows you the list of all 24 Hr Coffee shops in that area. that was actually awesome. i mean for people like us in ISB who keep fishing for restaurants and other places ti spend the weekends, this is actually cool. Further more, you can SMS the details of that particular place or whatever new item that was to your mobile phone. So you neednt necessarily go back and visit the website to know the address of the place or whatever. You get the details on your phone and you can just zip off to that place.

And again, any community based portal work only because of the members within the community. so, we go back to Metcalfe's Law that states - if there are n people in the network, and the the value of the network for every individual is proportional to the number of other users, then the total value of the network is proportional to N-Square minus N. Well, this is MBA funda, but basically this states that the power of the network is what helps the network run. Very simply said, if I were the only person who bought a cell-phone, then what use do i get from it? I maximize my utility only when others buy it. Thats the bottomline.

In conclusion - please visit this website and contribute to your community.

Whose job is it anyway

Everyday we attend PPTs. And this goes on - as I said before. There is not end to it. Previously, people were very scared about the 25 jobs going down one by one for every mandatory PPT not attended, but now they are not bothered. Shorlists rejects are so common for a lot of people that they are happy with even 20. So the next step is to bunk some of the PPTs without a slight consideration of other consequences such as - what if the company doesnt come to campus next year? Why should I be bothered as long as I get a ob and get out from here. Its not my problem.

My aim is to get a job and go Onsite to US or Europe. I just cant believe that some people who belong to the 250 odd IT community on campus are so friggin finicky about going to the US and Europe. The only question they ask to the recruiters is - Are there oppurtunities in the US? How long will you take to send us there? And they come to every IT company's PPT and ask the same question. It was so funny today when one asked - will we be posted directly to the US? I was like - gimme a break. you are not a GC Holder to fly you to Georgia from Gachibowli!! The great american job dream has still not left the indian management grad's mind. And its so happened that news of such a dream has also reached the ears of the exchange students from the US. But for a bunch of people who are so bent upon catching the earliest flight, a good number of us want to stay in india.

and there are people like me. my criteria for a job is like - chennai. if not, then hyderabad. definitely not delhi and bombay. what about bangalore - i'd rather live in hosur. next criteria is IT Services firms, which is a lot in number and then focus on the Banking vertical which is also quite predominant. But, when all these conditions join together, it reduces the job postings on the career website by like 70%, which is very good. I dont need to spend an awful lot of time writing EoIs and resume.

coming back to the ppts - in the one during the weekend, i found someone asking questions and then indirectly trying to sell his business plan. if it was a one-t-one conversation, then i wouldnt have had any problem. but then, this was in front of a 70 strong audience.

then there are doctors and chartered accountants who have applied to jobs in the IT Practice of a company - they say that they have the IT experience of using a laptop and logging service complaints to the helpdesk. in that case, i'd say - I consume Crocin almost every month and I can understand the drug's effects pretty well. Can I apply to GlaxoSmithKline in their Drug Marketing Group. I also interact with Doctors on a regular basis (whenever I fall sick!!!), so I think I qualify for HealthCare Consulting as well. Hmm, all this is just a beginning. I think there is lots more to come by.

Lamp-holders and Bulb-fitters

Quite a lazy weekend this was. I didnt do much. Had a marketing assignment due tomorrow and I finished one part of that. The second part has come for review from my group. I have to do that during whats left of today. We had a few companies visiting us during the last two days and today. Although I dont really plan to apply to some of them as they are nowhere in the are of my interest, it was still good to know their LOB and understand some of their future growth strategies.

The Run for Fun event was organized today. This is a precursor or rather run-up to the military games that will be held in hyderabad during october this year. 10 people from campus had volunteered to do the 6km run today and as we came close to the event, this number reduced to 2. still, we decided to do the run and it was quite refreshing.

After all that nonsene that happened with Shilpa Shetty in the last two weeks, now I hear that she could probably end up winning the Big Brother. I just cant believe this. Can someone in the house please vote and evict her? This is so funny. Wrong fame ends up doing such things to people. The typical indian sympathy factor has jumped in. the last time chantelle houghton won the big brother competition, not only did she manage to contrive to separate Sam Preston from his longtime girlfriend, but this known-to-no-one sussex girl also won some modeling contracts worth a few hundred thousand pounds. no wonder, if shilpa wins, then she might be on her way to hit british tv screens and do something stupid rather. am sure that Davina McCall who presents the show will have enuff questions for her and i already see that shilpa has a weird english accent. god save such people.

coming back to ppt gossip. today i heard at the dinner table that in one of the ppts given by an fmcg giant, the presenter talked about postings anywhere in the country and then one enthusiastic guy wakes up - "will we get posted in south india too?". the recruiter was flabbergasted and he replied - "well, i think we said, we'll post you anywhere in india. so, yes, to answer your question, south india is a good probability." i think the last statement was just made not to sound very cynical.

after a round of discussions, lets call it debate, with a good number of people on campus, i decided to have this particular title for this post as a tribute to some of my dear friends on campus.

Roger Federer wins again. Reminds me of the days when Pete Sampras used to scare the living daylights out of the som many players. Roger us just like that. He is unstoppable. I had the opportunity to watch him practice at Wimbledon. It was awesome.

I dont understand the rationale behind a 100% rise in the minimum fare being charged to passengers using the auto in Tamil Nadu. The school of management at Anna University had done research and a report was produced, but a number of proposals that were part of the report have been ignored. We talk of moving towards better governance and people friendly rules. Even auto fare changes seem to have political motives.

Negotiation Impasse

So I guess I have to write something about my Negotiation Analysis course atleast today. We have this course in this term and its mostly the talk of the day when we are done with our role plays.

We did one on one negotiations for a while and we learnt some things. And then we had the group negotiations. I was part of the Union and we had a four member team. We were pretty aggressive and it was quite good. We also had a management team with whom we had to negotiate. I'd rather not comment anything on them. Then I'd be called a chauvinist and what not.

So in our first round, we had to negotiate on production terms, wages and some clauses that had benefited the workers. At the end of the negotiation, we were quite sure that we were going to give away some to the management. That was quite clear and we were going to accept that in some way or the other. But then we pushed hard for pay rises and incentives. It was fun trying to convince them. And you know how management sees all this. They were like - gimme a break. u r not getting a single penny more. So that was what it was a week back.

And the second round came today. Both teams clearly knew that this time the problem was with the wage. We had to make a deal with the wage scene and we knew that the management was going to reduce the wage anyway. Although we werent supposed to give out some of the case facts, we actually told them what we could least agree to. We did tell them that we were no way going to get down to that rate because that was 20% lesser than our current wage. Management quoted 40% less and we just got effin pissed. Then our negotiations started. Initially, we didnt budge from our original 10.69 and management told us that they cannot go more than $8. This carried on for a while and the union came down from 10.69 to 10.00 to 9.69 to 9.5 while the management came up from 8 to 8.67 to 9 to 9.25. We came to a stage where we had like 5 mins remaining. And then one person from the management realises that this activity was being graded and an impasse in the negotiation would affect the grades a bit. We still didnt budge. After some more talks, we came down till 9.4 and still they werent happy. They said 9.33 and kept quiet. These are the people who first said that they cannot offer more than $7.5.

The drama came to an end and we had an impasse. We couldnt agree on a wage. The management finally realised that even in the case of an impasse the wage rate stays at 10.69. And they didnt even read that clause. While we as a union had planned for every move in today's negotiation, the management read the material only today and they took 10 mins out of the 45 mins negotiation time. And then they were like "oh my god, we didnt know that". There was also a mistake on our part though. In our case, the impasse results in a wage reduction to $8.69. But our argument was that we we have already come down more than a dollar per hour per employee and still there was not result.

The Prof listened to us and told the management - Sincere lack of planning. And this goes back to the first class of negotiation. Planning activity in a negotiation occupies 80% of the negotiation and this time the management had done zilch of that. And it was more like brooding over spilt milk.

For a change today's negotiation was highly emotional. In some other groups, it almost led to a serious fight. People were upset and disturbed. It clearly showed to us what situations would one face when working with unions.

Oil and Gas

As I look back at the last few days, maybe weeks too - its not justice done for people here. the number of companies on campus everyday is crazy. and they come loaded with the facts and figures about the company and jobs. im looking at myself more like a machine that has been wandering around and trying to act human. amidst this, lets not forget those dreadful assignments for which we have never been spared by any professor or teaching assistant.

for atleast this reason, shouldnt we have a rolling placement process. why clutter all the 200 odd companies in between 30 days before placement and then bombard students with emails asking to attend and attend and attend. now, its almost like one ppt everyday for me.

anyway, we had this oil and gas major who had come to campus to visit us. they were here a few months back too. they made a very impressive presentation and it was extremely professional. and they were recruiting for positions for which they usually tripped to harvard and the likes. so you can imagine the quality of the presentation that would have been made. ok, so during the presentation they mentioned that they would want people with international exposure/experience because that would be good for the job profile they are offering.

question time - one guy asks "do we need international experience?". the presenter was stunned. he said - well, yes preferably (he was thinking whether anyone heard his presentation). and then anoher student goes - "i have lived all my life in north india and have worked for a few years in the southern region. for me that is international experience. does that count towards your requirement?" you can possibly guess who can ask such kind of questions. well we have some representatives who we call the LIONS OF ******. second attack on the presenter. he was absolutely grounded. he had no answer whatsoever. and third question - "what is the compensation?". by now, i would have lost my temper, but the guy on the other side was calm and composed, that he handled it pretty well. my view is - if a company is recruiting someone for a post that was usually filled by people from harvard, do you think that they are recruiting in india to create that cost arbitrage? i mean, why would a company ever want to do that. shouldnt we understand that they are here because they are happy with the talent we showcase?

whatever, this post is part of my regular ppt happenings update. i am quite sure that things like this will keep happening more this week and in the weeks to come. keep reading and have fun.

Celebrity Big Brother

I was wondering when would such things like the Celebrity Big Brother come to India. Well, this was when I was in the UK and I had no knowledge of what was happening in Indian television. And then one day when I was sitting on the couch in my Quad and browsing channels, I saw SET MAX showing an Indian version of the same. Even then, I am quite sure that not too many people knew about Big Brother.

Well, for me, Big Brother is one of the craziest shows in the UK. I have seen like three different series of the show over the two years I was there, with different kinds of people in it - right from the freaks, one time fame entities to people like George Galloway - the MP from Bethnal Green, Faria Alam - who was involved in Sven Goran Eriksson, that cross dresser basketball player from the US whoz name I forget, oh yes, his name is Dennis Rodman, then a couple of other losers who dont care about the world whatsoever.

I mean some of these people are a serious waste for the world. Faria Alam accepted on live TV that she peed on her boyfriends tea becos she thought he cheated her. Thats the level of people you find on that programme. And then we suddenly see that Shilpa Shetty is on the front page of every news paper and the breaking news of every channel. For what I wondered - then I saw BIG BROTHER. I was shocked !!!!

A Indian Actor for such a show. It was perhaps the worst decision she ever made in her life. And all she iz getting paid is somewhere around 300000 Pounds and shez gone through what has been told as racial discrimination in the papers in the last few days. For god's sake why???

I saw some videos of her and the housemates in youtube. I must say I definitely miss the narrator's voice. Its so unique. I'd recognize that anytime in my life. There was one in which she behaves like a typical curious Indian trying to help others by talking to them. I have seen the kind of people who come to participate in Big Brother and they feel so bothered about such kind of people that they get irritated and start reacting back in a bad way. They like it if they are left alone and not cared for so much. Shilpa Shetty for god's sake displays her indian over-caring attitude and then commands respect from them. She tries to make her presence felt, justifies herself - I mean, shez just making a fool of herself.

And then this nonsense about racism and what not. People just needed that speck of dust to make a mountain of it. Then there are some people who are absolutely JOBLESS, let me seriously put it that way, because they went there and protested, also got signatures from people. Then Kiran Desai comes on TV and gives some shit.

Atleast Indian celebrities should understand one thing - its a totally opposite and different world out there. The people in the West do not care a damn about their filmstars. For them, they are just normal people. Only Indian celebrities are considered as demi-gods and role models by the Indians. The sooner they come out of this cloud of attention, the better.

ISBPPTSWAP

Do you know what's the lates buzzword on campus. Its not Consulting or I-Banking or Business Development or Leadership. Its ISBPPTSWAP.

Its the in-thing these days. Perhaps the only word that every ISB Student would hate to talk about this month. Well, why hate - because of the 50+ emails that he/she would get with that word on the subject line. The rest would love to talk about this new word or rather concept because of the privilege it has given them to rightfully SPAM the whole student community.

So, whats this all about. I am sure you would have guessed this.

Its nothing great. I did tell you in my last post that the PPTs have started. Companies have started parading campus. Everyday we have almost 4 PPTs. People get allocated to attend PPTs. Your study group is supposed to attend 25 PPTs until the placement season. Why this exercise? Well, you know this batch from my last posts. Twenty of them turned up when the CEO of Godrej was here to talk to them, and then they crib that FMCG companies dont come to campus. The father of Pentium - Vinod Dham was here today and there were again 20-25 students. Rest were staff and the exchange students. Well, I do want to write about Vinod Dham's talk later, but thats the situation of the people here. They think they are god's gift to the industry and hence keep themsleves away from the so called lesser mortals also known as CEOs. Well, they'll come and attend if that helps them add a bullet point on their resume. Anyway, every community has to have some strange examples like this.

So, coming back to our agenda. People generally dont want to attend the PPTs they are assigned to. They want to listen to only those companies that promise big and are in the top 10 in their industry. Hence, the other companies who also do extremely well will have to struggle to get noticed. Thats the reason why they have a mandatory attendance policy for all the PPTs. The people who created a rule also created a policy to have a workaround. A person who does not want to attend a PPT can ask someone else to proxy for him. The guy who does a proxy does not benefit much because his count doesnt go down by 25. The only way out for him is tit for tat. Taking undue benefit of this rule, people send emails to the whole batch asking for people to swap. In fact, I have noticed that there are some people who havent attended a single PPT that has been assigned to them. Every other day, they send an email asking to swap.

It was thought of as a big menace in the beginning. Like the technology adoption cycle, it took a lot of people a lot of time to get to use this new method. Some people were really conscious of writing a SPAM email to the entire community. It just took few people to adopt and cross the chasm. From then on, its been a mass adoption. The rate has been increasing exponentially. Repercussions - Email Server got clogged with all these unwanted messages, imagine 40 people writing to 418 students and then thanking them back for replying to swap. It just went berserk.

ok, thats about it from me now. I am off to hot Madras for the next three days. I have an interesting post due - about the PPT from an oil major who came to campus today. Keep watching.

The PPTs have begun

Everyday there are atleast two firms talking to students. Right from retail giants, telecom service providers, and IT services firms - you name them and they are here. as they rightly put it in management terms, the size of the pie is getting biggger and better. and for obvious reasons the firms want the best share of the pie. so they are here with the best offers. with some level of confidence, i can say that with whats going right now, the average salary will increase from what was quoted in the press last year. the companies are excited about being here. they have chosen to be on campus to talk to us rather than visit a few IIMs. that sounded like a lot of motivation for most of us.

but still the funny characters never shy away from making their presence felt and yes, i can never stop writing about them. the only reason i go to the PPTs is to get these juicy yet stupid words from them onto this medium.

so, during the PPT from a retail company, one student asks - could you tell us what your roadmap for this country is? the guy who was answering questions was a director and he was absolutely stunned. here he was in front of 70 odd students answering questions about hiring and roles, and then one guys suddenly shoots this CEO level question out of the blue. he was smart. so he gave the best possible MBA reply to that. by the way, the recruiter had clearly mentioned that he was only looking for people with experience and then someone goes - do you have any roles for freshers, can freshers apply? blah blah blah.

if you ask me whats happening on the academic front - well no one is bothered about the courses. people hardly attend classes. most people are using their right to bunk two classes per course. now that the attendance policy has been relaxed - there will not be people with cameras filming our presence inside the classroom. the profs will decide how to go about with the attendance policy. i think thats a very good step that has been taken by the administration. i'd be more than happy if the next batch shows some more enthusiasm and removes the attendance policy completely.

Another Term

Had just one class today. MArketing Strategy and Economic Analysis. Sounds like a very interesting course. I hope it is. We just had the introduction today with some basic concept touching from previous courses. This course has no exams, but assignments due every week. Thats a big killer.

Anyway, I happened to youtube and video google a lot today and I found one of my favorite telugu songs. I dont usually listen to telugu songs. I strictly restrict myself to tamil, but this one is one helluva melody.



This month is also the PPT Month. Right from tomorrow, we start the PPTs. COmpanies have registered. On most days, we have two companies speaking to students during the evening. This doesnt get better. During the weekends, PPTs happen all day. Job postings come on the site quite regularly. There have been times when people have lost track of the jobs. This gets worse when we get closer to the placement week in mid-February. Its all in the game.

Tea or Coffee?

My term 6 exams were done today. After a gap of one week, we played a refreshing frisbee game today and I am not at all tired. Term 7 starts on Monday. One member from our friends circle has already left to Kenan Flagler on exchange. A number of other people have also left to other schools in US and Europe. And then we have about 15 students who have come on exchange. They'll be spending the coming term or two with us.

Anyway, when all this was happening, I was also looking at the isb-pgp yahoogroups. One message caught my attention where the guy had asked whether he could accept tea or coffee during the interview. This is perhaps the height of preparation for an interview. Not even one person who I have given tips to regarding interviews has asked me this question. Although I appreciate the creativity of this poor soul in asking such a question, at the same time I feel so miserable thinking to what extent would people go to prepare for an interview.

Now this is like building an algorithm and then adding all such possible conditions and keeping ready answers to just spit them out at the panel. I mean, for once, cant people be a bit spontaneous and simple? Do people think that by getting answers for all such questions, they are going to be the perfect candidate. What if you made a mistake? Is the whole world going to crumple down?

And then there are guys who want to prepare in the next three months. they want to know what books to read, like accounting, basic management and stuff like that. im like - come on guys!! take a break, meet your friends, family and spend some time travelling. and they are - can i read the 10 day MBA book? I was like what the hell is that?

one thing i can definitely tell all you book reading enthusiasts. after you come here, you'd probably regret that you spent all your time reading some goddamm accounting manual. becos you'll just be doing that and a lot more in all those 49 weeks. again this is the effect of trying to overprepare.

anyway, certain things will not change. although i dont know, but i am sure there were enuff people in my batch as well who would have asked the same questions when they got their admits last year. history repeats.

Sneak Peak into Consulting Jobs

And finally the day has come. Its this weekend and the mba students at the ISB would start off interviews for the most coveted consulting jobs. this weekend would help students gauge their preparation. the top companies arent here yet. they'll take a few more weeks to come. this weekend, we have certain niche consulting firms. i am beating around the bush becos i am not sure whether i am allowed to let the name out.

anyway, what you can see below is a typical build up for consulting jobs. this one is resume review, scrutiny whatever.

typically resumes for consulting jobs would go for an overhaul/makeover atleast 3 or 4 times before it reaches the interviewer. each time being viewed by a different consultant working for a different firm, newer perspectives from every person would help you sculpt your resume, chisel off the unwanted bits and give it that strategic flavor!!!!

Goodbye 2006

Yet another year has gotten over. Well, whats different about this year is that nowadays everything comes with a management perspective. So, as of today I can just think of takeways from the previous year. That's life being an MBA Student. Frankly I dont know whether I can list down specific takeways, but then I can always list down some of the important things that happened and maybe reflect on that to see if there are any lessons learned.

The beginning of 2006 was a time for enjoyment. I was in London and I was having a great time. Citigroup was a wonderful place to work with. I had good mentors and life was peaceful. B-School interviews started suddenly and then things started to change. I did my Oxford interview and the moment I finished I knew I had screwed up. Then came the telephonic interview for the ISB. Soon after that was my interview for LBS. So, the first quarter of 2006 was pretty much about interviews and my plans for an mba.

My company wanted me to go to Zurich and join another project. I was half minded. Well, when I look back now, I think I should have taken that project.

Then it was time to quit and party in London. By March I was back in sultry Chennai. By then my admission to the ISB had come through and I was all set to get to Gachibowli. I quit i-flex and came here.

First week into the academic grind and I knew that this was not the place for me. I had met a lot of new people and made good friends - we had a gang too. Being with a gang of great friends was the only thing that told me to keep going and somehow get out in 49 weeks. So my objective then changed to just make sure that I graduated.

Okay, thats pretty much what happened in my life last year. Forget the family and friends weddings - that happens every year. New additions to that list would be my friends becoming parents.

I neednt write about my life at the campus here. That gets reflected on the blog almost every other day.

Takeways: As I do always, take life as it is. I did once seriously think that I should get out of this place. But then, later I told myself that since I have come here, might as well get the damn thing finished and walk out. So a little bit of confidence crept in and helped me.

God is there - there have been depressing situations. I have questioned the purpose of doing an mba and my existence in general. My faith has kicked in (set aside the boring facts to the back of my mind) and has kept me cheerful.

Resume Forgery

Well, I didnt want to write this, but then I couldnt stop myself. More than a week back, I made a visit to the printer room in the Student Village to pick up my assignment and then I found a resume lying there. Our of curiosity, I picked it up and started reading it. To my surprise, there were some unwarranted claims.

These claims were part of this person's achievements during his time at the ISB. It was just shocking to me. I never expected this.

It was during Solstice that one of the Alumni gave a presentation on what all people would do and he also touched upon the resume aspect. He told that people would claim insane stuff and nobody can do anything about it. Its all dependant on personal integrity and honesty. he also gave an example where one person had worked with a finance firm on some Private Equit related excel sheets and then he wrote on his resume that he had started a Private Equity Centre of Excellence for the firm. Thats the extent to which people go. He ended that topic with a note - If you take your resume to your previous manager and show it, he should not have any problem. And he was sure that more than 90% of the batch cannot do it because they tend to make such claims.

Fine, sometimes resumes have to be written like that to impress recruiters. I am not worried about what you did in your previous job. I dont think I can validate whatever you claimed you did in your job. Its impossible. In fact, to be frank, I myself have used high frequency words to make my achievements sound great. So, in all probability I would fail that test too. But, then what about your claims while at ISB. Thats effin nonsense on so many resumes I have seen till now.

Lets take the Innovation Challenge that happened sometime back. I can take this example becos ISB had 42 teams participating and thats more than half the batch. Some people have quoted stuff like - winner among 440 schools worldwide, and then some more gas, while they had just qualified to being in the top 50 under a single category. Mind you, there were 5 categories and each category had 88 teams. only the top two teams from each category made it to the final. and in that 10, there were two ISB teams. So, ideally, only those people can claim to be finalists. Rest were all just people who qualified from the first round. And these are some things that happen right in front of you and stuff you can actually authenticate without asking anyone else.

Next is the Experiential Learning Programme which is like the summer project. a good number of people just applied to the project and got it without any interview. and then there were some who got their own projects. And these people claim stuff like - i got selected among 420 people for this project. thats totally ridiculous. nobody competed for your project. it was just your group that applied for the project and how can you say that you had a competition and you got selected through an elimination?

its so frustrating. i never knew that people would go to such an extent to get a fat paying job. they say that the recruiter can see through your resume and separate the truth and fart. i really dont think so.

but yes, you cannot blame the system or the recruiter for this one. what can they do. they are here for people and they believe that the resumes are genuine. its just us - the student community who is to be blamed. and i am writing all this after looking at less than 5 resumes. if i see another 50 then i'd probably pack my bags and get out of this place.

Solstice 2006

Last weekend was Solstice 2006 - reunion for our alumni. It was the long weekend and a good number of alums were here. Almost 200 I guess. The mood of Solstice was set in right from the beginning of the week with some of us preparing for informalz events. Then I did some shopping for the Christmas tree - I guess I have talked about it one of my previous posts. Students Life Council had already put up Christmas trees in all the student villages. We still had our tree to put up. Finally, we put up our tree in the dining hall, safe from the troublesome evening winds.

As people started trickling in, the students got busy catching every other alum who was free on campus to give resume tips. So, at any point of time, you always found a current student with an A4 sheet printed on one side - thats the resume guys, showing it to the alum, whoever it may be and asking for his opinion. That went on for the next two days I would say. It never stopped.

Friday evening and post dinner time - there was a small presentation by one of the alums on preparing for placements with the do's and dont's. although i dont remember a lot about the presentation, i am quite sure that it was an eye opener for a lot of people here. well, if you are a pragmatist, then it doesnt really bother you too much. but for a lot of wannabe consultants and i-bankers, the presentation really showed that they need to take everything ahead with a pinch of salt.

come saturday morning, we had the inaug. it went off quite well with senior members of the management addressing the founding batch. towards the end, i delivered the vote of thanks. as usual, my vote of thanks was as fast as i played the frisbee game. afternoon, we had the tug of war and the boat race. then we left everyone on their own to catch up with their friends and batchmates. this was a lot better than what had happened during the last time when they had melas and activities throughout the day. the alums liked the loosening up bit when they just had the time to laze around and get to talking with each other.

the evening party was perhaps the highlight. like it happens in every solstice. although we tried our hard to change the mindset of all the people who attend solstice - typically solstice is considered as an all booze party and people just get drunk and do nothing else. this time, we tried to change this attitude. but we werent a bit successful. during the evening party, it was free booze and alcohol was flowing all through. this party was perhaps the longest - it went on till 6.30AM.

nothing much happened on sunday. people were just bidding adieu and finding their ways back to the workplace grind.

so that was solstice for all the readers. there's still ISB Radio to talk about and perhaps many other things that just dont strike my mind right now.

PS: I got totally drunk during Solstice Party - free booze, so why not. They had this SHOTS Counter. It was something new. The Students had put a lot of work and prepared a variety of drinks. So I decided, why not try them and then i kept on trying!! That was awesome....

Strange New Year Wish

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the summer solstice holiday, practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great and necessarily greater than any other country and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wished.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms:

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/him or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Now you know

You saw that song on MTV, Channel V and every indian music channel almost everyday and you definitely liked the way it resonated in your mind. Listen to this one...

Bells, Ornaments and Tinsel Gardens

It's Christmas time. Another two days to go and we are celebrating Christmas on campus. Oh yes, we are a bit early this time. Of course, the students of ISB celebrate festivals according to their schedule. Well, we had to time a gala event along with the Alumni reunion that is happening over the weekend and then we decided - why not keep the reunion with the christmas theme.

so today was christmas shopping day. i have always like shopping. oh, i am a bit different. i like to shop, not unlike others who complain about going to shop. i have spent most weekends in london shopping for stuff that i want. and i have spent hours shopping for clothes. even though today's shopping experience was very christmassy, i still enjoyed it, but for the heavy traffic and the noise pollution caused by the horns.

christmas at london used to be fun. atleast 15 days before christmas day, canary wharf used to be full of decorations and the whole place used to glitter with the mood of christmas. there used to be groups of very pretty women playing western classical music. i used to spend about 30 mins listening to them on my way back to the train station. everything used to be red and green - right from the Coca Cola bottle in the Tesco's to the decorations at the citibank cafe. the best part was the christmas lunch that citi served at the cafe - turkey and venison. it dinn matter much to be coz i was a vegetarian. but it was fun - bursting small crackers, reading out jokes and having hot christmas pudding!!!

so we decided that we needed to buy bells, streamers, and other hangings for the tree. all of this took about 4 hours and during this time, i was introduced to the real hyderabad. we began from general bazaar in secunderabad and went on till all the bazaars in the muslim areas in old hyderabad. i came back tired. the taxi ride all the way back to campus was the most dangerous and bone-cracking experience i have had in the last few months.

its 3am now, and in between this, i had my dinner, joined my friends at the nearest pizza hut for a quick bite and masala lemon juice. then drove till the airport. on the way stopped at a barista thinking that it was open and then stood outside the parking lot to spend a few minutes talking about totally unproductive stuff like girlfriends.

the next day is a very long day. three continuous classes and perhaps other things to do as well - esp. for the alumni reunion thats coming up over the weekend.

A pick on the US of A

While critics decry the United States' current brand of military and economic imperialism as dangerously unprecedented, great powers have been throwing their weight around like schoolyard bullies since St. Augustine's time. This playful but pointed cartoon shows that while Uncle Sam has been an especially bad apple of late, he's following a pattern of bad behavior which goes back decades.

Why Finance jobs?

Goldman Sachs last week reported the most profitable year ever for a Wall Street investment banking institution, with total revenues of $33bn, around half that amount set aside for pay and benefits to staff. It emerged this week that the bank, which has enjoyed a record year, would be paying bonuses of unprecedented magnitude to its 4,500 employees in the capital. With £9bn to share around the world - an increase of 40 per cent from 2005, itself an exceptional year - the average employee here will receive £319,000. And that average includes everyone. High-fliers will receive between £3m and £10m; one or two are rumoured to be in line for £50m.

Market sources say Morgan's chief executive, John Mack, could collect as much as £20m in stock options for 2006. Goldman Sachs's chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, could be in line for compensation exceeding £25m, and analysts say other chief executives, such as James Cayne of Bear Stearns and E Stanley O'Neal of Merrill Lynch, could get £20-£25m or higher.

Creativity and business

the creative director of Leo Burnett, KV Sridhar, was here to talk to us about his views on advertising. it was a two hour talk, very poorly attended. during the talk mr.sridhar himself mentioned to us that during his last visit, the lecture theatre was full.

well, blame it on placements - will you? but even before the placement buzz knocked on the students, most lectures were poorly attended. so you cant blame today's poor attendance on this single aspect. maybe there's some other reason or just that most people are just too lazy to move those cheeks.

the whole thing is so skewed and mysterious. we've had great people who have contributed to changing the face of the indian economy and then just 20 people turn up to listen to them. so whats the deal? nobody knows.

one thing i have noticed is that people rush in herds to listen to consultants from the mckinsey's and bcg's of the world. does that give any clue?

coming back to creativity and advertising, we should know that advertising is all about exploiting the minds of the consumer. if you dig deeper, then you'll realise that most advertising themes are lifted directly from events that happened in a person's life. right from Persil that said "dirt was good" to coca cola kept inside the well, its all about incidents that happened in your childhood, teenage and the later stages in your life.

then there is also this concept of connecting it with the audience. jackie chan in a bajaj ad looked like a chowkidar, but lalithaji in the surf ad was just like our mom.

ads also have to be changed according the changing trends, that is, it should reflect the mindset of the current generation. for example, we cannot use the same 15 yr old liril ad in which the bikini clad girl was dancing in the waterfall. with that lets have a look at the new liril ad. i had never seen this ad before. but when i saw it yesterday, i was surprized and thrilled. the ad was quite interesting. its based on the live-in relationships that we currently see in films or amongst friends. something like the hum-tum or salaam namaste.

Interview Prep begins at the Quad

Well, we've heard of "Charity begins at home". The latest thing at ISB is Consulting interview prep. So, we have this new one-liner "Consulting interview prep begins at your quad". everywhere, someone or the other is preparing with a team of people for consulting interviews. there are so many groups that are interested in the run up for the interviews in february that all group rooms and lecture theatres are full every other day. and out of necessity and enthusiasm to reach the pinnacle, people have started meeting in the quad. they are trying the idea of working in an informal setting and still achieving extraordinary results.

there are almost 50 jobs that students here can make in the consulting arena. and yes, atleast 300 people are making that big fight for the coveted jobs.

on the other hand, the round 1 results are out. i have seen some 70 odd emails today on the isb-pgp yahoogroups about people congratulating each other. more than 90% of the profiles are: 700+ gmat, 4-5 yrs experience on average, worked with one of the big IT firms, went abroad for a while. bottomline: did the same damn shit that most people in the current batch did. that accounts for almost 50% of the batch.

well guys, this fact cannot be denied that the IT guys occupy half the seats in any batch. and that stems from the fact that the number of applicants from the IT industry is to the tune of 100 per top IT company. so even the admissions office cannnot do much. and thats the reason why almost 50% of the jobs that people get from this place is in IT.

future applicants - for example, its not easy for someone with an IT background to make a shift to finance. thats the fact. in fact, its extremely tough and be prepared for the challenge. from what i see, the current batch is trying to position itself as a consulting savvy batch.

the companies that pay filthy unimaginable salaries take a maximum of 2 people. most people end up with the milkround recruiters and what they pay is somewhere near the last year average salary. some say its even lesser.

and i have seen that its next to impossible to make a complete career shift in a less than one year programme. you can argue with me that some people have made the shift. well, thats like a countable few and in a batch of more than 400 people its one or two percent.

Eastgate Harare

The Eastgate centre at Harare in Zimbabwe is a shopping and office complex. The speciality of this place is its natural ventilation concept. there are no big glasses and hence no huge investment to run air conditioners all day. you might imagine how this has been possible in a place like harare which has a tropical climate and is lying on the equatorial belt.

well, the architect Mick Pearce did not think so. Harare being in the tropics, still has an altitude advantage. hence, he made use of passive cooling to maintain air conditioning. obviously all of this has been lifted from wikipedia and you can read up more on the centre from the website.

the fact of the matter is frames again. if Mick had approached the problem of building the centre like any other architect, then he would not have had this idea. but when there was a constraint with the running costs, this made him think wild and his frame changed and this idea came up.

we are still talking frames in the managerial decision class and i come across many examples often and i will keep sharing the same here.

Mercer was here today - another consulting firm. it seems they indicated in their ppt today that they do not follow the McKinsey way of UP or OUT. this relieved a lot of people who were attending the talk. as usual applications for this would also cross the 200 barrier. its been a month since this started and still people are not sure where they want to go and what they want to do. in fact, i know people who have applied to every role from fixed income, marketing, pharma sales, research, IT and management consulting in the last one month.

this is one side and now i imagine how US schools are so successful without having spoon-fed placements. coming to think of that, i wonder why we have a placement week in indian schools and why is it such a big thing only here. 90% of schools abroad and even the best ones do not have 100% placements on the last day of school and they are not even bothered. they are still doing well. and here we have this thing in our mind about placements as the eternal. everybody on campus is talking about companies and jobs - nothing else. the courses have been forgotten. its now about new strategies - interview preparation strategies and strategic resume building. i cant imagine i managed to use the dirty cliched word.

Whose Frame is it Anyway

Today we had an interesting class in the Managerial Decision Making course. We were still talking about frames. Yes, we did not get any far. Its been a marathon on frames for last three classes. But its been a lot of fun.

We came up with criteria for measuring success. Btw, it was during the class that I got to know about criteria. Criteria and criterion are greek words i believe and are some of the few words that are part of the english language. and then i started drifting a bit. we were talking about latin and then my mind travelled to vatican city, where the official language of the Church is Latin. And yes, the pope and his family of bishops and other people are the very few who are still in touch with the latin language. for everyone else, its still greek and latin.

So, we had to come up with criteria for measuring success of a poilitican. Some of the few that were discussed in class today, after the 10 minutes that was given to us to prepare for the same, were: family succession measured by whether my son or daughter entered politics, loyalty - number of parties switched, dollar value - swiss bank accounts and properties, power - people under your control and then things like that.

and then came the japanese airline pilot who had landed a few miles off the landing strip somewhere on the west coast in the US and ended up in shallow waters. well, the story goes that he had miscalculated the lenght of the landing strip by about 3.5 miles and then made a safe landing into the sea. there wasnt any problem absolutely whatsoever. nobody was hurt, not even scratched, not even wet. on further investigation, it was heard that the pilot claimed to his fame - "I have flown all the way from Tokyo to San Francisco and have just missed by 3.5 miles". so, here we get to compare the frame of the pilot and the owner of the airline.

Google was here on campus yesterday. It was a sleepy afternoon and their presentation also started late. I was quite bored after what I heard from them. It seemed like everyone would go thru the same interview process no matter what role you applied for. still people had so many questions and guess what - this time, the guys from google were highly appreciative of the questions that the students asked. dont know if they'd conveyed an ironic message though. but yes, most roles are not very clear, not even to the people who are offering the roles. but thats the fun i guess in such innovation based organizations. people usually dont know what they want from the others. they just know what kind of people to recruit. then all work happens on the entreprenuerial and creative pursuits of the individual. that must be fun, aint it?

High-Tea Today

Nothing much has changed in the last few days. I was out of campus in Madras attending a wedding in the family. Two days of non-stop activity in the hall meeting friends and relatives. At the end it was like a hangover. Only today feels like I have gotten over it and come back to the typical ISB lifestyle.

And I had 100 emails to look at. You thought I did. Never. I just gave a cursory glance and deleted them. Thats all.

The fifth year celebrations are coming to an end today evening. There's a song and dance concert today and i think its going to be amazing. More about that when I finish watching the program. To incentivize the students who usually never turn up for any porganized program on campus, there is high tea being served.

That reminds me of the 30 odd emails that I had received in the two days i wasnt here about asking ppl to attend the logistics conference. the biggest names in the indian industry were here and my great mba friends were busy yapping and doing other things. and then some come and tell me that they werent informed beforehand. so again, there is this huge expectation of being spoon-fed for anything and everything - right from placements to whatever you name it. cant anyone go and check the website on their own. you think you have to be told for each and everything!! it was so ridiculous to hear such comments. total display of immaturity.

so that was it there. i happened to read today that carlsberg is planning to enter the indian market. its been a long time since i had a good beer. all the indian beers are so bitter. i'd say - they totally suck. the belgian beers are excellent and i guess they dont want to come here. the danish one - carlsberg has shown some interest. hopefully, in a few years time, we will have this brand floating in the market. generally, the per capita consumption of beer in this part of the world is very poor. i wonder why!! people had turned western in so many other things, but the beer culture is still not there, which is a bit saddening. i hope there is a boom like whats happening with the IT industry.

Mr and Mrs Job (Panic)ker

Jobs, jobs and jobs - thats all what is there on everyone's mind now. The run up to the placements has started now. Well, it had begun much before for some people who had planned it properly. But now, the whole batch has suddenly picked tremendous pace and is going for the kill in a very big way.

The McKinsey's were here. They had very long case interview (they call it something like that) session for everyone. It was just the day before ILS, the flaghsip event of the students. I said **** it, I am going to work for the event. Almost 200 people had attended the case workshop that went on for about 5 hrs. Atleast thats what I heard.

So, whats the result. From what I heard from reliable sources, some people believe that there is a set procedure to attack a case interview and they wanted to know what it was in the right order. then they would just mug it up and crack all the cases. whooaah!! isnt that just thrilling. is that what it takes to be in McKinsey or BCG or whatever.

then there were a few who wanted to know the answers for - how many questions to ask (the exact number) the interviewee? should i start asking questions right from the beginning or should i put my views? should i sit beside the interviewee or sit opposite to him? how often should i have eye contact? how do i have eye contact and write down notes at the same time?

well, thats the state of whats happening here. people have gone crazy and now, they cant even think on their feet. something's crept into their minds about the consulting jobs that they have totally lost it. after all, only 40 people are going to be shortlisted for the interviews and all 40 of them will be the toppers of the batch, which they call the dean's listers. maybe there will be a few others, 2 or 3, and they'd be exceptions. 200 others are just going to get dinged.

my friend had mentioned in one the case sessions that our batch lacks maturity. that is actually true. people have gone to the level of calling up/emailing recruiters to consider their resumes for interviews. in one PPT, some who wanted to create the "impression", went up to the recruiter and repetitively told them about their need for the job. coming to whats insane - i heard that people have floated the resume of the respective spouses too!!!

thats the sad situation here. and i dont think this can be controlled at all. this will continue and it will explode during the placement week. and i am just waiting for that.

Dont apply and you'll still get an interview call

The 6th term has started with a bang. I have one class on the Monday series and three on the Tuesday series. The three classes are back to back - with just a 15 minute break between every class. So much to read for every class, its just a killer. And today was the trial - I mean the first day with three classes in a row. Right from the first class, I started falling asleep. I couldnt stay awake. I dont know whether its my fault or the Prof's. Aint it important for every Prof to keep his students interested? you may call it a flawed argument. i can accept that too. it also important for every student to stay awake and not depend on the prof to keep a tab over him. but you know, it cant be helped. im sure that once the assignments start flowing in, the class will be the single most preferred location to have a nap.

International job short lists are coming out almost every week. Surprisingly, there are people who get short lists for the wrong jobs (apply for one and get called for the other). To add more fuel to the fire, there are people who are getting short listed without even applying for any job advertised by the company. The ignorant few spend hours over the job postings trying to find out which one fits their experience and interest, then spend few more hours writing an Expression of Interest for that particular job they narrowed down to. Then they customize their resume so that it sounds a bit relevant.

After they do all they can do best to get that short-list, they get called for a role for which they did not have any interest. Here, its the interest of the company that they found the applicant suitable for a role. So, where is the respect for my choice? Am I not being treated like a fool.

The next big joke is about people who get short-listed when they didnt even think about applying for a company. The company has access to the resume handbook of all the students. Fair enough, I dont say that you are not allowed to look at the handbook. But why shortlist people who didnt even apply for the job?? As a matter of fact, its very clear that if a person did not apply for a job posting, it means that he did not like the job. Thats it. Whats the purpose of farting(read writing) an Expression of Interest and a resume, if all you wanted to do was use the handbook?

Well, thats the state of affairs these days and its like this with just one company every week on campus. I am just imagining what kind of a screw-up this whole process will be during the placement week in february, when more than 15 companies come every day.

Given all this, I still havent lost hope. I will get some job. After all, the ultimate goal is to make sure that students get some job. Its not important that they get the job they like. Aint it?

Strictly come sleeping

An awesome video of all the people who were sleeping in class. Compiled by Ruchi, Sriram and Jagjit in Section-C, this captures those wonderful moments in Class right from the beginning of this year. I quite happy that most of the pictures that I have taken of sleeping children are part of this video.

Now, you guys enjoy the video.




Many Thanks to my Nokia 6230i

10Km in 46.31minutes

I'd managed just about 5 hours of sleep. Got up at 4 in the morning and prepared myself for the big running event in the city - The Hyd 10K. With everything under control, we left campus at 5.45am.

There were so many people who registered, collected the T-shirts and didnt turn up at all. if any of you jackasses are reading this, then please note that you didnt even have the courtesy to write back to me to let me know that you wouldnt be coming.

anyway, we didnt have to bother much. so we reached the starting point well before time and after all the hungama for the run, it all began at 7.30am. the weather was just right for a good run and i started off. from the beginning i maintained good pace - somewhere around 10.5kph to 11kph. my ankle and knee had started giving trouble right from the first kilometer, but then that sheer enthusiasm to run with everyone and reach the finish line, although it was 9kms away, was still a great motivation.

as we ran on the road surrounding the lake, the smell of waste - natural and undigested, was just killing me. that was perhaps a driver to run faster, in order to get away from the worst parts of the road to find a section of the road that was comfortable enough to run. and did that happen? NEVER!!! more than 90% of the circuit boasted of the same conditions.

happily completed 5 kms in 25 mins. then came the toughest part - the next 5. i pushed myself between 5 and 6. then took a small water break for about 2 secs. i took another break towards the 8Km line. then it was time to look towards the finish line. i was doing better by one minute and a few seconds than the usual time. and then i saw the finish line. about half a Km was remaining. i knew it was going to be tough. people were finishing before me and there were about 10 people running in front of me.

with all the energy that was remaining, i just started sprinting, went past the 10 ppl and finished by 46mins and 31 secs.

three others from ISB had finished much earlier than I had - between 35 and 40 mins. they'd just sprinted right from the beginning. that was awesome. and the best part was, everyone who had come today finished the run in less than 1 hr and 15 minutes.

i am back - tired, terribly tired. classes starting tomorrow - another killer term. right now there is zero interest for whats in store tomorrow. god save me.

Dayz Flying By

Another day and the term break is over. Time is literally flying. I had only one take home exam to turn in for this term and that took my time, almost till the last minute. I had a deadline of 5pm and I sent out my answers to the Prof at 4.45pm. While I had more than 5 days to do the damn thing, I started it on the last day, struggled for a few hours and then rushed into completing it by the last few minutes. So thats whats been happening always and i guess it will for some more time. the questions were so damn confusing that even with all the non-living material that we were allowed to search, we cudnt arrive at a conclusive answer. that was the state of affairs for a mathematics based IT course.

after that we had our project review - another big joke. in less than a month, we have another review of our project. most of us havent been able to reach our targets in the last one month. the last term - the first elective term has been literally crazy. with fewer exams and more regular assignments, we've just become super crazy and confused people. We had to make resumes and EOIs for job postings, attend seminars, PPTs and what not. And then we have this presentation to our peers - i dont know whats the purpose for this, but its during the term break forcing people to stay back and attendance being one of the most important components for a no class course like this, it has just irritated a lot of people around me. i think, we need to go over this in a detailed manner - perhaps devote a post for this.

and tomorrow's the HYD 10K marathon, for which i have gone mad getting people to collect their T-Shirts from me. less than 6 hours to go for the run, I definitely need a good sleep today.

still need to write about the EVAM play that happened today. hopefull should find some time tomorrow.

Interview Saga

The first round of interviews for the next batch is almost over now. The last few left are people in Hyderabad and the International Applicants. So, in the yahoogroups called isb-pgp, which is a forum where prospective applicants interact with the current batch, the latest thread for discussion is about the interviews.

People post their experience of the interview they had and then the others take a little bit of liberty to make good or bad comments.

right now, some frustrated souls have decided to have their take on the Interview Process. If you are part of thw group, then you should definitely follow this thread called the "Interview Saga".

one view-set is like: ISB is right now just doing brand building, the alums have not created a niche for themselves, its only about getting good placements, after all its an Indian B-School.

--> Dude, the school is 5 yrs old and in the last five yrs, the growth path the school has had is a zillion times better than any other B-School in India, given the fact that most other good schools survive on government funds. The Alums from this School are perhaps the most experienced lot when put together with all students entering B-Schools in any given year. And the kind of companies that come to get experienced people here NEVER go to the other schools in India. If you said, its all about placements, well then, how many emails have been posted in the isb-pgp yahoogroups asking questions about courses and research being done - less than 10%. The maximum number of emails that have been floating is about WHAT ROLES WILL I GET AFTER ISB types? If the basic mentality of the students who are applying to the school is just worrying about placements, then blaming the school is no good. How many US schools have organized placements like it happens in India. You are mostly on your own. But here, you expect to be spoon-fed till your first baby is born and then you blame the system for everything. Very Funny!!!

Some say that the interview results are pre-fixed!!!

--> Well dude, I really dont know what to say. For a fact, the current batch always has a say in deciding the next batch. Almost 200 people from the current batch would review applications and help the admissions team to narrow down applications. And the process is extremely efficient that all this while we havent had any sort of problem in terms of bias or whatever in that aspect. And its perfectly justified that the current batch would choose the next batch because they know what is best for the school. In that way, there is a lot of commitment from the students too. If your interview wasnt exhaustive enough, then you cant just say anything about the interview. The interviewers have definitely got the answers for all the questions they had in their mind. Dont think that if a particular question, which you think is very important, is not asked, the whole system is not working. Maybe it wasnt of any importance to the people interviewing you. Its not ncessary for every panel to sit with you and go over 25 years of your life in detail. Thats not their job.

ISB on CNBC Aawaz

Sometime back, to be precise, during the first week of November, when we had the HealthCare Summit, ISB grabbed a lot of media attention. The biggest names in the Pharma Industry were here to participate. The Summit was one of its kinds in the whole nation. Perhaps, the HealthCare Club is also a unique club in the whole country. I dont think any other B-School has such a club in its portfolio.

Anyway, the media did its contribution to promote the ISB brand and it was quite effective.

And the surprise, is that, in that less than 10 minute video, you can spot me sitting in the Atrium and talking to a few people. I never knew this was happening. Thank god, they did not ask me to speak to them. The whole thing was in Hindi and I am quite sure that I would have screwed up big time. But, the rest of them who spoke did a fantastic job highlighting the unique aspects of the curriculum.

You can watch the video on the SecC Videos Column on the LEFT or CLICK HERE to see it on YouTube.

A term without exams

I didnt imagine that this would happen, but yes, this term I have no exams at all. And why am I writing about this now - thats because I dont have anything to write about. I havent done anything in the last three days. I have so damn lazy. I sleep for more than 8 hrs, eat well, chat with friends and browse the internet. That's all what I have been doing since Friday. I feel so irritated when I do all of this, when I have so much time and I got nothing to do. It feels extremely odd and its definitely not ISB like.

Life has suddenly become so slow that my mind is not working at all. I think thats what is the effect of the ISB life. A few months back, I was talking about this with a couple of friends on campus. Everything at ISB happens at the pace of a MAGLEV. There are days when you have classes all day with information overload, guest lectures and then group meetings, interview prep, club meetings - so many things happen that you just get about 6 hrs to sleep. that too in instalments. you'd probably sleep for 4 hrs in the night and then make up for the other 2 hrs the next night or sometime during the afternoon. or even worse, you might have to pile it up for the weekend. but it could just pile-on and on because the weekend might be filled with PPTs from companies or some summit or language classes or the PARTY!!!

you so get used to thinking and acting so fast that suddenly if things come to a halt or move at a slower pace, you dont know what to do and its just not normal at all. thats the toughest part. we so get used to a life which is like sitting on the seat of a formula one car that after the 49 weeks, it becomes very difficult to hit the brakes for a while.

and i can feel that right now in the middle of the course. I just dont know what to do. without the usual mid-terms and end-terms i feel somewhat distant from the regular and perhaps brain-dead!!!

not that i took courses that have no exams on purpose. i have been troubled all through the term to submit assignments every alternate day and thats kept up the momentum.

i suddenly see that the days are long. a few weeks back, 24 hrs wasnt just enuff for a single assignment and our group used to go bonkers trying to solve a case. now i can hear the clear tick of the seconds hand of the clock.

i think i have watched about 4 tamil movies in the last 2 days - started with the Kamal Hassan thriller Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu on Google Video, then went on to see Jillendru Oru Kathal on bits and pieces, saw that Mouna Ragam was being played in SUN TV. this is the first time i have had time to sit and see an afternoon movie at ISB without having to get up for any errand. then a bit of Nayagan by evening. its kind of been like a festival of movies. in between, also managed to attend a few dunking sessions - well if you got all the time in the world, why wudnt you do all this?

Lapped the lake in 50 mins

it was a great day today. i got up at 5 in the morning, with full enthu to run. we took the shuttle and reached the hussainsagar lake. then we started running. this was our practice session for the hyderabad 10K marathon that is going to happen next weekend. i decided that i should check the circuit before race day. its like doing those practice day sessions on the circuit in formula one. i ran the complete length of what they call the "necklace road" and reached the starting point in 50 mins. when i completed, i had the best feeling. during the run, at certain points i was a bit tired, but then i never reduced pace and managed to make a great finish.

after i came back, i skipped the novartis info session on placements, then slept a bit through the spanish class and then met my group for the next assignment.

this time we were working on "the role of academic institutions in promoting innovation in india". now, you are in for good substance. in my data mining efforts on this topic, i was surprised to find so many government initiatives like the Knowledge Commission, National Innovation Foundation and a lot of views presented by a number of people on innovation in india. it was quite interesting. despite these initiatives the quality of education has generally declined. the number of students going to US univs has increased tremendously. there has been a general disinterest in concentrating on innovation in the subcontinent.
i think this has got something to do with the indian dna. for quite a long time, say from industrial revolution, we havent seen much happening in india. all that happened was in the west and it just got transported to this side. our guys have been too operational and task oriented. i dont deny the fact that we did some kind of innovation. but the scale at which this has happened in the US is phenomenal. india has 80 incubation cells compared to 1000 in the US. ever since globalisation happened, india has been seen as a low cost centre for manufacturing and IT. but i think, a few things have started to change. most renowned engg institutes and business schools have technology and innovation cells being promoted by government, industries and research organisations. innovation is not in the back seat. we are getting there. but yes, it needs a lot of effort in this fast paced world.

still have two more critical assignments and a take home exam to complete. and thats going to take up most of the next three days. more perhaps tomorrow. i think i just forgot what i wanted to write next.....

No more classes this week

This week has been just too fast. And its Thursday tomorrow. We've started our interview preparation process and we try to meet everyday. Let me stress on that try word because we dont necessarily meet everyday. It somehow becomes twice a week with the multitude of assignments people have on different days and different times. And thats probably the best part of whatever happens in the elective terms. The courses are desgined in such a way that you definitely end up crunched for time at any given day.

Previously, it was just one group. You had to meet atleast once a week to sort out the assignments, do the allocations and then collate the results. In between, allocations were also made as to who would network with others to get the best answer possible. Doing that was by itself a challenging task. On top of that was group dynamics. Every group by rule has some strange characters.

Some are free riders. It seems, during the last year, most groups had one girl and the rest were guys. And this, according to feedback provided, gave an opportunity for the girls to be free riders. So this time, any group that has members of the fairer sex was gifted with two. Now if that was a devil in disguise - you never know. But then, free riders are everywhere. Sometimes the guys are like that too. This cannot be avoided.

The next ones are the people who just care about their grades and nothing else. I came across one like that sometime back. I was just astonished. Their reactions are -"I am not bothered about my group. What if a lesser competent member in my group did something and I got an A minus from getting an A?" They give such kind of arguments. Bottomline: they dont trust their group at all. all they are bothered about is what they get.

Now, even in the free riders, there are some smart free riders, who pair up with the working lot in the group. just to show that they are doing some work too. i definitely feel you need talent for that. its not easy to spot the person who knows all the answers and make him/her do all the work while you are busy taking care of other errands like attending a party!!!

then, there are people who start their work by first looking at what the other group has done. then they start pestering the other members of the group to think in the same direction. they just keep making phone calls to their friends in different groups and try to get all perspectives, keep confusing and irritating the rest of the group.

and the list goes on....

the only thing that I could probably get from this is the kind of people you should watch out for, there are certain signs and indications. dont worry, your inner voice will not tell you. but if you've been through this cycle of interacting with groups, then you'd probably get a fair idea of with whom you'd want to work with, though that intuition wouldnt be right always.

From this term, there are groups for every course. managing so many group meetings in one day is the challenge. attending classes is not a problem at all. then there is an interview prep group, there is a group that works for the conclave, summit, and then groups for frisbee, football, marathon - okay we dont have group meetings for these, whenever we meet, we play. everywhere on campus, there is a small group discussing something or the other. and this would go on till march next year.

so, after battling with so many groups during the last one month, we have finally come to a halt. my final presentation for one of the courses i have taken this term is due on friday. we have a group meeting tomorrow afternoon to prepare for the same. that marks the culmination of group meetings for this term. oh no, it doesnt. there is another meeting sometime during the next week.

would that be the final one? you never know. the rate at which everything is happening around you here is just mindblowing. suddenly there would be an email to you. you would have been inducted into a group automatically. they'd never ask your permission. you'll be instructed to land up for the meeting and if you didnt, you'd probably end up with the ones that are remaining in each class. and beware, if a situation like that happens, then you can confidently write off your grade for that course.

Coca Cola Christmas

A sneak preview of the new Christmas Ad that is going to reach millions of people across Europe during the next week.



whatever said and done, christmas in the west has always been associated with Coca Cola. the connection is definitely with the red color. coca cola as such does not claim to have created Santa Claus, but i am quite sure that a lot of people in the west do have that strong belief. i confirmed it too. last christmas, when i was in london, we had a christmas lunch at the office and our sourcing manager who is a jamaican by nativity brought up the topic of gift giving during christmas and then mentioned that Coca Cola had a historic connection with Santa Claus and they had originally created the concept of Santa. Ignorance IS always bliss.

This ad was directed by Kerry Conran who has directed the movie - "Sky Captain and the world of tomorrow". If you havent seen this movie, then you've missed another great movie in that ever expanding list of yours.

Brand Audits

Over the last two days, I have filled out more survey forms than ever before. Almost half of the batch is in a frenzy mood to create survey questionnaires. Every hour there is an email from someone or the other who wants the rest of the batch. So far, I have seen atleast three emails about airlines, then beer, food and I cant remember the rest.

Little Italy is an excellent place to have Italian Food in Hyderabad. Though some of the stuff is Indian Italian, the food is actually good. I remember the craze for Chinese food that people have here in this country. But, for a fact, if the Chinese were to come here and eat that so called chinese food, then they'd just cry out in pain for what the Indians have done to the Chinese recipes. i still havent found a place that actually serves authentic international cuisine. like i said, typical chinese food is sour and has mostly garlic seasoning, but our chefs are so fascinated with the indian seasonings that they just beat the living daylights out of the food enthusiasts.

coming back to little italy - this place has a very good ambience and the food that is served here is extremely tasty. and we know that "anything that tastes good is definitely not good for your health".

the weekend as such has been extremely tiring. the net impact conclave was a big hit. people just arrived in hundreds and the audi was overflowing. we had some strong comments from the panelists and the speakers. I am sure that the media has got it all covered and this week's papers are just going to make the kill. ISB as a brand in promoting social responsiblity has been instilled among a few big names in the industry. amidst the busy schedule that everyone goes through, getting A list speakers and managing the whole event was a great challenge that was well handled by the team here.

our business plan writing experience finally came to an end on saturday afternoon. we had conceptualised the umbilical cord blood bank. not that its not around in india. just that we were interested in writing a plan for that sort of a business. we managed a good business plan, but the panelists were not extremely satisfied with certain aspects of the plan. it always a learning process and yes, through all of this that happened over the last two months of so, we've definitely come to a stage where we know what entails a good business plan, even though the concept maybe too undifferentiated.

Hyd 10K

the hyderabad 10K is the next thing on my mind. its on november 26th. initially we had about 30 people who were interested in doing the run and represent the school. one fine afternoon, i bumped into Guru from the dean's office and he told me that the staff were also interested and suggested that they could make this whole event as a school thing. later, it got decided that the school was ready to sponsor 100 people for the marathon. that was just awesome.

we would get ISB branded t-shirts for the run and all of us would represent ISB at the Necklace Road in Hyderabad.

the run has been on my mind for quite a long time now. i developed this passion for running only after i went to the UK. my first run was the NIKE 10K. this run was so special that it took us through the historic route in london - through shad thames, tower bridge and southwark cathedral. it was just fantastic and i managed to finish in less than an hour. it was my first run and i did better than my citigroup gym instructor. then i did one more NIKE run the next year, also did the canary wharf jog for the british heart foundation and the manchester run for leukaemia research. since then, i made up my mind that i would try and do the 10K every year.

it seems, last year we had just 2 participants from ISB. this time we have close to 55 students. the admnistration has assured that they will get atleast 30 people to participate. if we can reach the target of 100, it would be great.

the dean is part of the executive committee for Hyd 10K. this event would probably the best representation that we could give as a school in the city, apart from the weekly pubbing activity that the students contribute to.

Just crossed the half line

Its hard to believe. Well, thats probably what you could expect out of a one year MBA program. The placement season has begun already. This is very specific to international jobs. the placement cell at the isb makes sure that international companies get to visit the ISB according to their recruitment calendar rather than tailoring it to the schools placement week.

since sunday, i have seen quite a number of people hanging around in a suit. with an intense look on their face, some probably dont even know what they are getting into, because they applied just for the heck of it.

this reminds me of another incident where we got an email from the administration that an unimaginable number of students have applied to an international role for which almost 90% did not have any fit whatsoever. they just decided to fly their resume to see what happens. and then we also get praised for being the best batch among all the students who have been in the school till date. i cant comment on this because i havent seen a lot of students from the previous years and have to rely on the people who have seen students through all these years. whatever said and done, i will have my reservations. i am quite convinced that there is some kind of dilution.

all things said and done, some more companies are coming this week and short lists are out. i havent applied to any - first reason - i find it hard to change my resume according to the job requirements of the different firms. sometimes its like saying - i have used a computer for 4 yrs, so i have 4 yrs IT experience. well its not that bad, but i'll be outraged if it gets to that level of insanity. and then there are some more people who are prepared to do the same job they did before their MBA, just because they are getting an overseas posting. thats the kind of compromise people are making in career choices. during our orientation, we were told that we could make only one of three shifts - location, job, and salary (if i remember right). and that's probably what is driving some of these people. for me - if i wanted an overseas job, i wudnt have come here at all. i was already outside, on the verge of getting transferred to another international location for a longer time. i could have just continued. now, the next thing on my mind is the job (still going on three parameters) and the expanse of responsiblities i can get in the role. so, i am just going to relax and enjoy till its february or whenever that is - the placement season.

another funny thing incident that happened is some people asking the placement cell as to "why they havent been shortlisted for the interviews". this could probably be the most ridiculous question. the already tarnished name of the batch that just decided to see if their CV will fly is now trying something new to make sure that the company would nevr come back again. a company that shortlists a particular person might have N reasons and why should they tell that to you. with that, we end this here.

Caffeine Addicts

Before, almost every student used to complain about the quality of food and the service levels at the dining hall. Now people are tired and bored. Emails have stopped flowing that direction. The whole problem has taken a new dimension now. Guess what?

Sarovar (people who serve us food) found out that some people in the batch were actually stealing coffee from the vending machines. You may ask - how can this be done?

"Well, its not very difficult" - would be the reply from some of our smartest MBA Students, who have paid more than 15 lacs to be in this place and dont want to pay a single penny more, even if its for their daily coffee. Just bang the coffee vending machine on both sides at some strategic points (why strategic - well, if you are doing an MBA, then you got to use the word "strategic" for every ten words you use in a sentence. and that is their explanation), shake it vehemently and then you'll instantaneously get a hot cup of coffee, without spending the usual 5 ruppees. [heard from a person who actually does that]

So, here we are in a place that commands integrity to such a large extent, with the so-called leaders of tomorrow, some of whom are MORONS, who do all this.

When the administration complained that they were fed up with this kind of behavior and that they were not prepared to repair the machines because it cost them a lot, I think they were totally justified.

Then comes another champion of the cause from the Students side, who starts talking about commercial enterprises, subsidizing food, and efficient markets. Well, he definitely didnt have the brains to understand that it was his friends from the batch who were breaking the machine and he was advocating for what had happened, under the impression that all that was a totally justified act. What a total dumb-ass he was.

And then, the one person who was among the most honest community in the batch struggled to keep quiet and responded. He did educate the other guy that breaking equipment and stealing is not the way to react in any situation. atleast in the civilized world, in which efficient markets operate, this doesnt happen.

Well, whatever said and done. My point is - why the hell do you have to steal stuff. Ok, steal it. thats also fine, but then, of all things, why go and break a vending machine. are you such a pauper? are you insane?

and yes, these are some of the people who scored exceptional gmat scores, cleared the initial screening round, and impressed the interviewer to find their way here.

and i am sure, this will continue with the future as well.

After a long hiatus

Whooaah!!! This was perhaps the weirdest IT exam I ever wrote. Imagine an information technology paper with differential equations, lagrangian multipliers, gamma, alpha and what not. I cant believe I sat through such a paper today. Moreover, the trauma of studying all that. Never did I know that IT could be so complicated, or did the people who researched on IT think that for once IT should also attain the status in the likes of biological or financial research. Well, even if they thought that way, why am I reading all that. I hope I get to use enough of what I have learnt in this course in my journey ahead.

After I finished the exman today, I rushed to attend the HealthCare Summit. On my way, I met the Dean. He was making his way there too. He did ask me about the exam and I told him that it went okay. Actually, the exam really went okay. Okay, if it was "open book, open notes, and laptop with internet allowed" exam, then it should be definitely somewhat okay.

The summit started off with a big bang. The best names in the pharma and healthcare industry were on campus. the hall was full. all local media people were around to cover. i wouldnt go into the details of who came and who spoke what because all of that is on the ISB website. Overall: Great Impact.

Over the last few days, so many things have happened that I couldnt keep track of everything properly. But today, I have the time and I have decided to blog as much as I can. So, lets guage how much your reading appetite is?

Tagged: 8 things about me

I have been tagged by Jawzy.

I have to write 8 things about myself and then Tag another 6 people. What the hell. Looks like this is the best timepass job anyone could ever do.

This 8 things about me is so generic. This is like asking "tell me about yourself" in the personal interview. Its such an open question. Where to start and where to end? What a mystery.

Anyway... Let's see how this works out.

1. I am a very religious person. I believe in the vedic scriptures and their importance to the Hindu religion and living as such.

2. I can never make someone a best friend in my life. There will always be a gap somewhere. And thats because of me. I tend to keep that small distance. And I am sure that this will continue, come what may.

3. I dont believe in platonic relationship between a boy and a girl. Somewhere, some friction would happen and that would draw the line between a boyfriend and a no-friend. Well, thats the truth - if you take it or not. Not my problem.

4. I am a health freak. I like to play sports that increase my heart rate and build resistance.

5. I am actually a very lazy person. I might sound very energetic and happy about many things, but I am not totally like that.

6. I like to cook. At one point, I considered joining one of those schools in switzerland for a degree in hotel management than doing an MBA. Now, I strongly feel, I should have done that.

7. I like to travel as well. But again, I am lazy. So I will travel only if there is a set agenda/plan. I cannot just take a train or my bike and waste time on a journey thinking that it will end up being good. I plan for the good right from the beginning and do it only when I am sure of reaching the end point.

8. I like to shop - only clothes. Usually I do that every month - I buy a shirt and a trouser. I am not brand loyal. So, I buy all the good ones starting from about £10 to £20. After that it becomes too expensive.

Uff, I finished the 8. It wasnt any easy. And bet you, I was damn lazy.

I'd like to tag Manu, Vivek, Venkat, Sumit, Chiranth, and Kishore.