80 people, all Students and family members…
One cruise boat, entirely ours for 2-and-half hours…
Food on board…
DJ on board…
Free booze on board…
Dance floor on board…
Excellent experience…! Everyone enjoyed the evening fully…
Admissions department arranged this party for the volunteers who helped in evaluating and interviewing applicants. Kudos to them.
These 3 things have caught my attention in the recent past!
Till Sometime before, there were loads and loads of frogs jumping around in ISB. The quads in ground floor became the house of frogs sometimes, as they came in through the open windows…annoying! Lucky me, got the first floor…The frog-hating person in me vanished after exposure to numerous frogs..I even did a mini-research by placing my foot repeatedly near the frogs..and I found that frogs always invariably jumped away from me…So, human beings don’t have to walk away from frogs, because frogs does that job for us! But all of a sudden there is a decrease in frog population..wonder what happened to those poor little creatures??
Second, the tremors..Next to ISB, there is a rocky region, where rock explosions are conducted daily. Sometimes you hear a loud noise, sometimes less…But you could always feel the shock! The doors and the glass-windows vibrate…For some reason, the effect is magnified in the class rooms…On the other day, there was such a powerful shock that even the professor was aghast…He said, “Whoo…that was powerful”. I hope ISB has implemented earthquake protection measures while constructing ISB 
…we have been feeling these mild shocks on a day-to-day basis…
Third one is quite interesting. I never saw a dog in ISB campus till a month ago. And then comes a dog..quite street-side! For some reason it seems to like SV2 I block! After few days, another dog joins the old one. This one much bigger…You could see them chasing each other all day…For past 3-days these two dogs have been sleeping in the verandah before my quad. They keep staring at the opposite quad, where ladies live…Every now and then, one of them will come out and say “Shoo…Shoo!” and then it goes away..moments later, the dogs come back and sit in the same place and start staring…:) Was funny! Today, they were not around…
I was coming back from library around 2:30 a.m. I saw a third one, a new one! Roaming around freely in the beautiful lawns of ISB…Hmm, did ISB ‘recruit’ those dogs one for each student village? or they are just trespassers, waiting to be thrown out…
BTW, I managed to complete all of my assignments except one, the big daddy, Vulnerability analysis for Rural marketing course…Have been reading loads and loads of articles on Agriculture, Fertilizers, Organic farming etc., Interesting…but am not going to stretch it for long…
Google has introduced “Google Analytics”, a sophisticated statistics tool for websites. This is what Google has to say about this…
“Google Analytics tells you everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site. You’ll be able to focus your marketing resources on campaigns and initiatives that deliver ROI, and improve your site to convert more visitors…”
I have registered today. I will be able to view first set of statistics in 12 hours time…
Go register yourself…Google Analytics
The interview invites for shortlisted Round 1 Applicants are currently being sent out. Chennai is the first city covered.
10:00 a.m. - Woke up.
10:45 a.m. - Watch cricket match.
11:15 a.m. - Work on Managing IT Mid-term questions. [Take home]
02:30 p.m. - Lunch
03:15 p.m. - Watch Cricket match.
04:30 p.m. - Continue work on Managing IT Mid-term paper.
05:45 p.m. - Badminton
07:00 p.m. - Continue Managing IT Mid-term paper.
07:45 p.m. - Complete the assignment.
08:00 p.m. - Business Law workshop.
10:15 p.m. - Dinner at Cafetaria.
10:45 p.m. - Back to room. Television. Chat with roomie who came back from a quick trip to mumbai.
11:30 p.m. - Take up Knowledge management Mid-term paper [Take home]. First-draft complete.
02:00 a.m. - Scan through the Managing IT End-term paper and analyze the questions. Identified the real-life examples to write.
02:30 a.m. - Blog for the day. Hit the bed.
Hmm…not a hectic day
“My mind tells me to give up, but my heart won’t let me.”
The greatest pain in life is to wish for something and not to achieve or attain it. Even worse, you will have to live with it for the rest of your life. But there is certain warm feeling associated with ‘wishes’ in life. It can’t be expressed by words. But they certainly do motivate us, bring some purpose to our life and some entertainment to our otherwise tired souls and mind…The wishes, dreams bring in ‘life’ to our lives..I am trying to keep my dreams alive…Many of them are are still in incubation…One day or other they will be realized.
BTW, I have started enjoying the ‘exams’ setting. I am not sure if I will be ever taking examinations in my life again. So, I have decided to enjoy the experience of preparing for exams, slogging, taking exams as much as possible. With this mindset, studying for exams becomes a bliss…isn’t it…Whoever said “Change your mind you will change your life”…
Which year was Human Development Index conceptualized? What is the rank of Srilanka in Well-Being Index? How can Indian IT companies appropriate value? What did XXX said when he visited the campus during the panel at the nth minute and nth second?
These are not the kind of questions and examinations I like. But some well-known professors are reverting to test our memory skills…What to do? Only option is to get on with the flow…
Only exam which makes sense is Investment Analysis and I heard rumours that the paper is royally tough!!! Let me see what happens…
Actually finished the exam(2.5 hours) in 40 minutes, just checked back my answers and decided to leave..Atleast I can make use of the the remaining 1.5 hours by sleeping so that I can slog in the night!!!
Today’s MO class on “Innovation at Work” was rocking. Tina Dacin, the great professor from Queen’s conducted a small exercise in the class. She asked each study group to come up with a creative ways of improving the Neck-Tie. So all groups went crazy and came with all weird ideas. Some of the ideas can be found below:
1. Electronic Tie with inbuilt Bluetooth capability. This will facilitate Tie-to-Tie Communication!
2. Bio-Sensor Tie which will monitor the heart beat and automatically send signals to doctor wirelessly in case something goes wrong!
3. Making markings on the tie to facilitate adjustment of tie length
4. Bio-Tie and Easy-Tie with anti-stink features. Automatically fills aroma around you in case some girl comes near you!
5. MP3 capability in Tie with headphones and inbuilt microphone to help you in presentations!
6. Spare cloth in Tie to shine your shoes!
7. RFID-based tie. A sort of inbuilt smart-card. Identification facility will be inbuilt. So you just have to swipe your tie!
8. Cool-tie. Coolant around the neck of the Tie!
9. Lie-detector in the Tie!
10. Self-protection Tie for girls! Which will throw itchy powder if anyone troubles the girl!
11. New fabric in the Tie, which helps the Tie owner to adjust the length of the tie, after the tie has been knot!
12. Marketing-gimmick ties. Tie which can be twisted to any shape(according to the product eg. Coke bottle shape!)
13. Retractable tie, which can be shaped to bow-tie.
14. Holographic Imprint of tie on the shirts. No Tie. But Tie-manufacturer wouldn’t accept this solution naturally! so discarded.
15. Tie with hidden pocket to store your money…
and many more crazy ideas…It was a funny session. At the end of the session, she showed us a video on IDEO company and how it manages innovation in the company…Am really impressed with that company, rather that job!
Finally she showed us the following picture(without any words on it) and asked us to find what’s unique in the picture. Then she said the actual ‘funda’ behind this. Innovation at Schipol airport! Weird world….:)
We had a guest speaker for “Planning an Entrepreneurial Venture” course. Mr. Manish Sabherwal, CMD of Team Lease Services Pvt Ltd, India’s largest temporary staffing company. Manish started his professional career in 1990 with the Nagarjuna Group. Went to Wharton to do his MBA in 1994 and had a clear cut vision to make an entrepreneurial entry into the insurance sector in India. In 1996 India Life was born. From pension/ asset management it went into provident fund administration to payroll administration to offering full-scale HR outsourcing services. In between, it had raised VC funding from VIEW Group. Got into a JV with Hewitt (to form India LIfe-Hewitt) in 2000 and later, Hewitt bought out 100% equity. Manish is now in the process of stabilizing and growing Team Lease to be the largest private sector employer in the country!!!!!!
Some Excerpts from his speech…Read on…Will be interesting.
MBA is like Intellectual Winetasting.
When you optimize something, starting values are always sub-optimal.
Entrepreneurship is not like the light bulb glowing on, it’s like a gentle sunrise!
Quality and Quantity of ‘wandering’ in your initial stages of entrepreneurship, forms the essense of ideation process.
Post-mortems have certainity than prescription!
The biggest danger is not aiming high and missing, but aiming low and staying there!
If you win the rat race, you are still a rat! There is no differentiating factor. What do you have special? What is your unfair advantage? That is the essence of ideation.
The Key skill in Entrepreneurship is Synthesis. Not analysis. By Synthesising, you see ten different things and come up with one solution.
God is not on the side of the biggest army but on the side of big shots. But If she is on the other side, you should pause and think! - Play your game carefully but boldly.
Don’t sell the land, sell just the house - Raise only enough money that you need, don’t give away considerable stake in your venture.
Success is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration..I think that fits to Agricultural society. This is age of knowledge, innovation.
Read Diverse materials. Read biographies, history, politics, mythology, psychology, leadership, strategic alliance…Involve in Diverse activities. Want to learn how to control someone who is stronger and bigger than you? Learn horseriding. Want to learn the value of persistence? Learn how to play with flute. Travel. Learn how to see world differently.
Network with Diverse people and connection. Don’t hangout with people from ISB Hangout with Musicians, poets, government people…Completely diverse…
Indian mind has the problem with sunk cost. Our memories are more than dreams. Sunk is gone! Don’t worry about it more. We have conflicting attitude between the wealth and those who possess it.
Export quality - What the hell does that mean? Does white people deserve better than us?
Someone said, “Secret to success is being in the right place at the right time”. Since we don’t know the right time, we find the right place and hangout!!
Family Enterpreneurs are many in India. They expect their children to come and take over the mantle. That led to the Sexually transmitted CEOs!! I am not arguing against that..but these are some of the causes of self-destruction.
Family Entrepreneurs and MNCs are both ends of extreme. Strike a balance. Don’t go native. Don’t go firangi. You must pass this smell test of global company while still keeping your Indian cost structure. That’s the sweet spot that you guys should target. So the best bet is the hybrid. You should be bisexual, you double your chances of finding your date!
You can start two kind of companies. “Baby” vs “Dwarf”. Both of them are small but the DNA of the baby is clean and scalable.
Napolean said, No Battle plan ever lives at the start of the battle. Yet People plan battles till the last detail. That’s a little bit of what I have learnt in Business plan.
Anything worthwhile in life takes time. Develop patience.
Don’t worry about competitors who pull rabbits out of the hat. You should know that supply of rabbits is limited!
Doesn’t matter you jump from the 50th floor or 100th floor, pain is still the same. 10 cr or 100 cr doesn’t make difference.
I have never met any unhapppy successful entrepreneurs. But I have met many unhappy successful Executives.
Anybody can by lucky or unlucky - But being unprepared is unforgiveable. Be ready for what you want to do.
Remember good judgement comes from experience. But experience comes from bad judgement.
There’s huge difference between what we teach and what you need to learn. Because we don’t know how to teach what you need to learn. What we teach is finance, strategy, marketing, accounting..But what you need to learn is how to be more patient, how to be more bold, how to be more courageous, how to be more kind, how to be more just…
Hardest part, as Aristotle said, is “Beginning of the work”. In the context of this course, it is committing to the Entrepreneurial cause. It is not deciding on one venture. It is committing to the Entrepreneurial mindset. You must nurture that mindset. You must keep it alive.
My confidence is in your hearts and your imaginations. May your soft heart working on hard minds make a thoughtful choices. Good luck and Godspeed!
(Standing ovation)…
From what I see the great speakers are who make our hearts light while enlightening the spirit and flooding the mind with thoughts. Insights blended with correct amount of humour, sarcasm, self-depracation and humility goes a long way….Captain Raghuraman, Sid Sinha, Ajit Rangnekar also fall under this category.
I not only multiplied my interest towards Entrepreneurship, but also magnified my interest to be a great presenter. But that’s not a day’s job or a year’s job…It will be a long-drawn process…
The Apprentice 3 is heading towards a grand finale. Two out of 3 remaining candidates are in my prediction list. Craig and Kendra..Not bad!
Some new lessons learnt in Apprentice..
Involve Customers for Sales success
Managing Emotions in Workplace
Bobbie Carlyle's 'Self-made man', a statue I greatly admire and a principle I strongly believe in. "...left to his own devices, man will use his God-given talents to be creative, productive, and prosperous. Using free will, he will better his own situation and that of those around him, thereby influencing in a positive way his own destiny..."
