Hurried note

To the non-ISBians reading this blog,

Reason for the silence?
Exams. First end terms. On Monday and Tuesday. Also just completed various assignments and quizzes.
The class even squeezed in an extra lecture with visiting Prof. John Zhang. (Rock..EEEEE)
Where can you find us mostly?
Library. Goel. Room. Atrium.

oh..and please visit http://www.helpabhishek.com/

A friend of a classmate needs our help in his battle against cancer. We are all gonna do our bit. Do spread the word.

Yours,
In a bit of a daze,
Me.

While you are here...

You run a marathon as if it were a sprint,
Till you find your pace in each terrain.

You push your limits on another's scale,
Till you make it a race with your past.

You defend against chance opponents,
Till you realise this ain't your game.

You rest with just a deeper breath,
Till you glance beyond the finish line.

You dismiss the ache of dormant ability,
Till reason finally catches up with you.

You know all along what you want to do,
You're just too scared to say it aloud.

And that you've noticed life's hard knocks,
Only tells me you may be on the wrong path.

Director's Cut Version of my Manifesto

Its Election time and I am standing for Director - Operations & Infrastructure Council (OIC). So here are some highlights of my unpublished OIC manifesto: [For illustrative purposes only. Not to be copied. not even the comments]

* I will start an international consortium of a present day industry case study [Go figure out what this means]

* My experience so far, comprises my childhood in the school, a career at XYZ and an active interest in the every high-paying sector.”  - [Child prodigy]

* To empower each and every fellow student to discover and realize his or her full potential and to change the way we think of ourselves, the way we think of each other and the way others think of us – [Wow, a lot in it for you to think about!]

* To truly have a OIC of the people. – [To hell with by the people, for the people]

* To be honest, fearless, neutral, accountable, having great integrity of thought and action. To be affable, open and approachable to everyone. [Talent Personified]

* It is this diversity, leadership experience and ability to interact with people and using those interactions to drive towards the desired objectives (infrastructure building and shopping opportunities in our case) that makes me believe that I will be an effective and efficient OIC Director. – [This sentence is neither effective nor efficient!]

* Redressal forum for individual grievances – [Mommy will be in the house]

* Youngest Belt wearing Professional – [Youngest in the family, youngest in Mars]

* If it is significant for you, so it is for me. Openness is my priority, neutrality is my strength– [And rhetoric is my forte] 

NJ

The news is spreading like wild fire. The massive collective intellect of the strong and energetic batch smiled at NJ and he will now have the honor of representing ISB 2010. 

Channeling this raging ball of fire (the class) is not an easy task, but so is winning an election contested by 24 brilliant minds. I take the liberty to represent the crazy folks here at ISB-MMX and the Class of 2010 at large to congratulate him on the win and wish him every success in whatever he sets out to do as our GSB President. 

There's so much to be done. The entire batch is overflowing with ideas. We'll all be little Presidents on our own accord and drive the initiatives we're passionate about. And we will rely on NJ to steer this massive collective intellect in the right direction using his signature 'calm, composed and confident' approach.  

Go NJ go! 

Pause

Our life's too busy
With lots happening.
The pace promises
to never keep slackening.

Commitments to keep,
Loads to read.
And then aim to emulate
examples who lead.

Pop-quizzes and exams
with alarming regularity.
Meetings and sessions you attend
Hoping for some clarity.

Career, job options, dream jobs.
And then a nagging worry of the loan.
Jamming sessions, high on 'spirits'.
Followed by bright sunny mornings when you moan.

Words of wisdom passed along.
"Introspect", "Identify", "Do what you like".
A mad rush to do everything you can.
Anything - to get that "spike".

Forgotten the real reasons,
That essay written with conviction; that clause.
Struggling to keep up like Superman.
Ultimately losing out on the cause.

Pause.

Elections on the horizon ...

Elections? What elections? I know it sounds funny, especially to people who are not in ISB, to hear about elections just after the Election results came out and finally the country is looking at a stable government, but from an ISB perspective, the major election event on campus is just getting started. Elections for the post of GSB president are scheduled for the 21st of May. With an increased batch size this year, all sorts of rumors on the number of candidates contesting abound. From sections with no people to some sections with 5-6 people contesting (mine, I think :P), a clearer picture should surface by tomorrow once final numbers are out from the admin office. It is kind of expected with 560 ambitious people in the batch of course.
The next step will be the soapbox where all candidates will get a limited time to present their manifestos in front of the whole student body. A lot of people have been campaigning in advance already in the last week or two as well.
Will vote bank politics and personal loyalties work in elections where you have an electorate that consists of 560 highly intelligent people with a future in corporate India? Or will everyone be impartial in their choice? That is one thing I personally want to find out.

More to come as the whole election scenario unfolds. We dont have an exit poll, yet, but you never know what resourceful people in the batch will come up with next. :)

PS: The bloggers in the batch are already keeping a close eye on the happenings going on in campus and expect a couple of reports on the election scene as it progresses...

What the city says...

It took all the wishing of 560 people for time to cross 4:30 yesterday. Us quaddies got out of the campus after the test. Two weeks can seem like a very long time - ISB time.

It was a hot-wind-in-your-face ride in the auto up to Hyderabad Central even at 6 in the evening. Now, ISB is a beautiful place – but, I miss the city! The crowds, the traffic, the shops…everything. Yesterday was a quick dunk into my favorite part of cities – malls! I love the whole shopping experience – even if I end up not buying anything (which occurs very often).

Hyderabad seemed so beautiful last night on the way back. In the van with hummable hindi songs on the radio. Dark night. Pleasant wind messing my hair. A satisfied mind. We passed through mainly shopping areas. I don’t know if it was the euphoria of surviving the midterms, but it was all so beautiful.

Somehow I liked the sight of a beautiful brand logo standing atop a dark building against an equally dark sky. I can’t explain it much, as you can see. Go closer and things may not look as pretty. But, from that distance, everything looked good – the shop windows, the decor, the billboards, the sights and smells. Maybe it was the apparent effort put in that I liked seeing. These people are trying to sell!

There was this balloon seller outside a mall on the way back. I caught a glimpse of him as the van sped on and I twisted around in my seat for another look. He had about 50 heart shaped balloons of every color blown up and tied together. He just stood on the edge of road, letting the wind sell his wares. What a sight! I know I won’t forget that in a hurry.

Cities don’t care about you at all and that suits me just fine. They are made of these places and experiences – you mix and match and manufacture your own joy - whatever works for you.

Torture's over, let the fun begin....

You should have seen the Atrium yesterday evening. It looked straight out of a Ramsay movie! Deserted to the core. Not a single human being around. You should have walked around the campus. Empty again! Like someone was remarking yesterday - "Where do you go to see 576 nerds under one roof?" Answer - ISB during exams! And sure as hell that was the case. People cramming in their quads, delayed dinners that'd last not more than 9 minutes and 32 seconds. Don't ask me how I got that number. Someone told me that they had taken a SRS with sample mean = 9.76 minutes and looking at the t tables I kinda estimated the population mean! OK... If I continue, I'll probably get beaten up the next time I step out of the safe confines of my quad!

Not just the physical locations on campus. Outlook was uncharacteristically quiet as well. No random emails. No personal conversations relayed through chain mails to the whole student community. No club meeting requests, no minutes, and no 'I throw my hat into the GSB ring' campaign messages either! Facebook was full of mourning messages relating to something Statistically related to the Economic Accounts of Marketing! Know what I mean?

And while there was an unusual emptiness in the prettier, non geeky parts of campus, the LRC was full of groups piled together poring over a pile of books! And if the piles of books were not enough, we always had the treasure hunt surrounding the 'hidden' reference books! Going all around the floor looking for some person holding on to the blue cover wala Velleman book, grab the individual's attention, 'network BIG TIME' and trade with him/her for quality book time!

But now all that is done. For the time being at least! We have another 2 weeks for an encore. But why care about that now? The quiet is over, and it's time to hit the party circuit BIG TIME! Happy end of mid terms everyone - Let the fun begin!!!

No more.

A strange feeling -
Numb but not tired,
I think it is saturation.

I want to indulge,
Find compensation,
And regain lost senses.

All, but frozen.
Nothing more is possible,
Today.

MBA FAD(M)s

Many people say that MBA is a fad. I say come and attend our FADM classes. FADM stands for Financial Accounting by Decision Making.

The first half of the course was taken by Professor Mohan Venkatachalam from Duke University. Who knew Accounting could be so much fun. Only a maverick like he can make a mundane subject like accounts come alive in class. In a class composed of mostly engineers, he literally brought Taare Zameen Par. Today was his last class and he actually showed a clip from the above mentioned movie wherein the kid draws the winning picture in the competition. He explained the reasoning behind showing the clip that today being the last day, everything he taught will fall into the big picture and it will all make sense.
It all started on our very first day of classes. The first class contained such gems as "Many students say Accounting seems like Greek and Latin to them - one day Greek, next day Latin"! In our class, the Chartered Accountants (CA) were given an option to continue normally or chuck the class to work on a project which would be more challenging to their intellect/knowledge. To elaborate on the choice, he brought up Matrix, the movie. When Morpheus and Neo meet, Morpheus offers Neo two pills. The red pill will answer the question "what is the Matrix?" (by removing him from it) and the blue pill simply for life to carry on as before. As Neo reaches for the red pill Morpheus warns Neo "Remember, all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more." So he enacted the scene to the CAs that he'd offer this just once and if they accepted the red pill, that would be it and there's no turning back. To accentuate the point, he in fact brought 2 actual red and blue pills!

All ISB students were really emotional on seeing him leave and each section is planning to give him some gift as a token of our appreciation. He's such a sport that he agreed to be at the receiving end of ISB's most personal gesture - Dunking (where we throw the person to the swimming pool - generally reserved for Birthdays)!
Now that should be fun.

SHIT (SomeHow In Time) - 'Kodak' Moments

Day One: 8th May - "Just Postpone It"

We had decided to meet at 9pm on Thursday but Gaurav requested for postponement as he was committed to the Pan-IIT meet happening that evening. We examined the entire issue in context of marital pressures and decided to meet next morning at 10.30am. Next morning Prasanna had a family emergency and had to rush to Chennai. So we had to make do without our Logistics Director for a day. By 10am Aastha woke up on the wrong side of bed and was feeling sick. Result: Postpone to 11.30pm. Then Vishakha mailed and postponed it to 12pm to give Aastha the additional 30 minutes to get better. Then I emailed asking for postponement to 1.30pm in view of my lunch schedule. Then Gaurav waved the magic wand of Marital pressures again and shifted it to 2pm. Then Aastha mailed since she was supposed to be at the Eco tutorial at 3pm.... and so the series went on till Gaurav finally decided to pick up the phone and the Clock stopped at 8.30pm. Our Director - Refreshments welcomed us with Pasta. Dicussed for an hour and half and called it a day !

Day Two: 9th May - "Of Permutations and Combinations"

The Famous Five met again today to solve a new mystery - the Funtime conundrum. And boy, were we not in our elements. We had agreed for a 3pm meeting the day before but it all seems a ploy to keep me out of study group meetings lest the discussions spillover to my blog. So when I walked in at 3pm sharp I see that three of them had been camping there since 2pm.

Aastha, Director - Refreshments, had lured everybody to her quad with promise of free Tea and she lived up to her promise. I was greeted into her quad by 7 different pairs of shoes and 7 different handbags - one for each day of the week I presume. She mathematically proved to me that the permutations and combinations in which she could wear them in unique combinations would last the entire one year. The math must have confused her quite a bit as she was suggesting that we use both sides of the page on Microsoft Word. Probably Bill gates would address this need of Aastha in the next version of Windows.

Prasanna,  Director - Logistics, was bamboozled to see the number of postponements that had happened to our meeting in his absence. After all close to a dozen postponements in a matter of 4 hours is hard to digest even when you are on a overdose of Hajmola. He decided to play the devil's advocate and confuse the hell out of us without much effort. When he looked at Aastha's shoe collection he laughed at it as he had more number of shoes that too which belonged to different countries. His count of permutations and combinations would have lasted all the five of us this lifetime.

Gaurav, Director - Common Sense, put aside his 'marital' pressures and made it to the meeting by 2pm. He was a bit sad that this time he wouldnt be able physically bond with the assignment. But he was cheered up by the amount of value he added along with the number crunching. Its no secret by the way that IITians get an orgasm out of number crunching.  

Vishakha, Director - Communications, started putting it all on the word document. She bonded so much with Aastha's laptop that the laptop too fell in love with her. They say Love makes one crazy ! The Word application too went crazy after that. The formatting just wouldnt come right !

We were almost done - atleast thats what it seemed. Aastha did the clean up job later in the evening and mailed us the rough draft late in the night. We decided to meet up next morning to finalize stuff. 

Day Three 10th May: "The Case of the Moving Pies"

We meet at 9am. There was not much on content that we had to had so we expected to finish it all up by 10am, latest by 11am. But nature presents irony at every given opportunity. Microsoft word decided to test us today. We were doing basically three things: Formatting, Formatting & Formatting. 

@ 10am: We had a few tables in our analysis. Formatting them was painful. They would shift left - right almost replicating Madhuri Dixit's thumkas. The lines above and below had also joined the Salsa party. While Gaurav, Aastha & Vishakha were fine-tuning content, Prasanna and me spent one hour formatting the tables. Success?? No

@ 11am: This was the time when the mysterious Force hit us. First Prasanna: "Arrey yeh Pie chart kidhar ko gaya?". Next 15 minutes he spent searching for it in the Excel sheet ! Finally we had to constitute a special task force for the search and rescue operation to resolve the issue. Then Gaurav: "I think the Pie charts are moving". He kept trying to put these 'moving' Pie-charts on leash but they were wild horses who refused to be subdued. After a long struggle we managed to tie it down.  

@11.20 am: At this time the case decided to come alive and all the contents started dancing. The tables and the moving Pies decided to push it again. Finally we all had to don the Cowboy caps and whip the wild horses. Adrenalin rush had begin as the deadline came closer. This was when Shweta Divecha decided to up the ante and send across her group's submission to the entire section - Sleep deprivation, lost mind and marketing are a deadly combo. I wonder what would have happened if she had mailed it to the entire Co2010. Mailing lists can be cruel !

@11.45 am: Time for headers and footers.   Formatting Jhamela - Reloaded ! 

@ 11.50 am: We were done finally ! We decided to convert into PDF before uploading into Turnitin. This would ensure that our formatting didnt go awry. We converted it and saved it. Oh not so easy ! We forgot we had saved it ! Redo to save time rather than search and rescue.

@ 11.55 am: Submitted successfully ! We had Aastha bring her 'Kodak' camera out and Sushmita click a Kodak moment !

It was a full on Bollywood masala with everything in it - 

• Romance: Vishakha and the Laptop
• Suspense: Prasanna with the Lost Pie chart
• Thrill: Gaurav with the Moving Pie charts
• Action: Aastha with her PDF conversion
• Comedy: Me ! (Need not elaborate I guess)

At 12pm finally we parted ways only knowing that the next Bollywood Flick is round the corner. Stay tuned folks !

Visitors @ ISB and hectic schedules

The one great point of studying in a top college like ISB is the amount of industry interaction you can get. Its not even been a month since we have come here and already we have attended presentations/visits from so many people who are among the very best in their particular fields of business.

A round up of the various people who have already been to ISB since 10th April!

• Mr. Lloyds Blankfein, CEO and Chairman, Goldman Sachs:

Goldman Sachs has initiated an initiative called 10,000 women. ISB is the Indian partner for the initiative which includes top business schools all over the world, such as INSEAD, LBS, Columbia, Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, Yale among others.
10,000 women is targeted towards providing a management education to women entrepreneurs all over the world in order to encourage and educate them. Video here.
Post the presentation, we had an interactive Q&A session for students and media that focused equally on the initiative AND the financial crisis.

• Mr Mike Christenson, President & CEO, Computer Associates:

Mike Christenson visited ISB for a discussion on the current environment, and shared his experiences with current students. I couldn't attend this one because of schedule conflicts.

• Navtej Sarna, Indian ambassador to Israel:

Mr. Navtej gave an interesting talk on 'Media and its role in diplomacy'.

• Professor John Mullins, London Business School:

Professor Mullins gave an interesting talk on how VCs evaluate entrepreneurs and what it takes to be a good VC.

• Atul Singh, President & CEO, Coca Cola India:

Mr. Atul Singh gave an interesting talk yesterday on how global companies have adapted to growing countries like India with respect to marketing, growth and social responsibility.

• Go-to-Market Strategy for product companies, NASSCOM:

This workshop cum session was held today.


The point I am trying to make? Its a simple one. There is just so much to learn and take away from this place. Its been less than a month, and the above were NOT as part of any specific event etc. Its kind of part of normal routine here at ISB.

The funny part? I have personally attended only 2 of the above presentations. Why? Mainly because they ran concurrent to other stuff, classes, blogging meets, and other stuff that we have going on in addition to all this as well!!!!
Everyone has to manage their schedule. Theres just so much to do here, and thats in addition to studies, which IS after all a 2 yr MBA course condensed to 1 year as it is.

We have classes from Mon-Thu, with Fri-Sun for various workshops/assignments/quizzes etc. Heres what tomorrows (Friday) schedule looks like for me (Thank God for Outlook!):

I have removed the details, but you get the general idea. This is in addition to an assignment and a quiz as part of coursework that needs to be submitted by Sunday. Not to forget that these are ONLY events I am interested in. There are lots of meetings requests etc that I delete since I will NOT be attending. And before someone thinks I am taking up too much stuff, I am one of the people involved in least number of 'initiatives' etc here.
By the time I pass out, I will either be very good at time management and prioritizing stuff, or a completely burnt out shell after continuously running around here and there for the whole year. :D

The deal about doing your bit for society

We had the CEO of Coke India, Mr. Atul Singh, visiting us on campus today. Khemka was full as usual, with people billowing in from all entrances, accompanied by books and bags, and as for sections E,F,G and H, a tired expression accompanied them as well as they walked in. No, I am not going to summarize what he said, nor am I going to give my perspective on what he said. I guess someone or the other would 'minutize' it, and if not, I guess there were enough people in there to fill in those who did not manage to come in for the session. In a nutshell, he spoke of how Coke perceived the Indian market and how our predominantly rural market posed new advertising challenges as such for the beverage industry, in general, and the Coke brand of products in particular.

Towards the end however, he spoke of the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiatives undertaken by Coke. Therein he spoke of how they were into rain water harvesting, providing water to schools, restoration of the Sarai Bawari at Amer, not to mention the natural calamity relief and aid work . He mentioned Coke's vision and plan of replenishing every drop of groundwater they take by the end of this year. An extremely commendable move indeed by one of the world's largest brands, whose every move commands almost the maximum number of eyeball attention. I guess such moves can prompt plenty of other industry players to do their bit for society.

But in the midst of all this, I was struck by a sense of deja vu. Just a few days ago, in one of our accounting classes, there was discussion on how Starbucks was into huge CSR initiatives. I won't go into the specifics of the discussion we had back then, but today's mention of CSR by another beverage company, put me in mind of the previous event, wherein we had seen the Starbucks site displaying its CSR initiatives in South America. I just wonder whether CSR is the new bug that has bitten the world of large conglomerates? Or is it that given the present economic situation, the glaring need to look elsewhere for economic stimulus and growth, has resulted in atypical avenues being targeted? Either way, I guess something good can only come out of the whole exercise. What say?

GOLDEN MANTRA - SISO (SNAKE IN-SNEAK OUT)

How do you react to slimy little newborns wriggling into your rooms?

1. Get the entire quad sprayed with some apparently snake-repelling liquid, till the stench makes you abandon your rooms as well. (The second snake in our quad appeared moments after the spray, like those AXE Effect babes unable to resist!!)

2. Start keeping the most quixotic mix of antivenoms, and take two ml with equal concentrations of Goel food.

3. Call Housekeeping even if rubber bands look suspicious (Murali usually comes to SV1 quads well-armed with broomstick and pickers)

4. If noone picks up the phone as in (3.), call 911. (for guys who declined US schools but never fail to mention they were in "States" for some time!)

5. Cry foul !! (They should have been more explicit when they mentioned about the famous peacock-crossing…You weren’t exactly expecting this right?)

6. Love nature, love thy neighbors, so do nothing.

By the way, if you choose 6. you are free to move into a ready-to-occupy Quad, SV1-C5. Don't panic if the non-paying residents are found watching TV, cooking Maggi, using the bathroom , etc.

We decided to opt out of the reality show.

I woke up yesterday with news that my quaddie Nakul had a snake in his room. Very few incidences in my personal life history have had the effect of waking me up so early, and so well (Well I do physically attend the morning classes at 8.15, but that isn’t an act in “full consciousness”). By the way, the housekeeping staff mentioned that the three snakes were of type ANACONDA!!


I find snakes as funny creatures: they don’t mind encroaching upon your personal space: bedroom or bathroom. And the worse part is, they are not willing to pay for the accomodation.



When we signed the life insurance and medical insurance forms as a part of the admission process, little did we bother about these potential threats lurking around the corners, wriggling into our fortresses of solitude (read Quad) with consummate ease.
 
There are quite a few lessons one could learn living with them:

1. Learn to share (your couch, commode, and so on…)




2. Learn to sleep with the enemy. (Married folks need not take this preterm!!)

3. Learn the law of the jungle. (MR=MC?? Not sure if that applies here…)

4. Learn what Steve Jobs learnt the hard way from Bill Gates (a small crevice may be enough for the enemy to creep in!!)

5. Learn the ultimate truth, that we all must meet the same end sooner or later (I wish I could position this realization to help the incorrigible ISB chain mail freak mellow down. In their unflinching resolve to be club presidents, you display infinite capacity to produce and consume snakeshit, and could well spare lesser mortals …)

 
So next time you see a mommy snake changing diapers for baby snake, you could use the formal decision making frameworks for action, marginal analysis of snake in = sneak out, statistics of occurence, or keep accruing the numbers.


Our 2-cents: Run for dear life!!!

Assignment 1: Birth of the Study Group

A common myth: One of the ways in which Profs ensure you do your studies like a good boy or girl @ ISB is by putting you in a Study Group. Wrong Answer Buddy ! You'll find the real answers in places where you look for them the least !

My study group met up at the Library on Friday to complete our first Group assignment. First thing when we met we decided to distribute responsibilities:

1. Prasanna: He is the Director - Logistics who ensures everybody gets to know what time we are originally planning to meet so that we can have it postponed as per our convenience.

2. Aastha: She is Director - Refreshments. She has been priveleged with the rights to arrange for resfreshments every 15 minutes for us.

3. Gaurav: He is Director - Common sense. He is the one who is supposed to collate the inputs, strip them into minute details and give the official 'go-ahead' for finalizing the answers only if they made sense to him.

4. Vishakha: She is Director - Communications of the group. After getting the go-ahead from Gaurav she is suppose to, in extremely neat handwriting, write down the answers on the assignment paper.

5. Myself have decided to take on the toughest job: Director - Credits and Blames. Yes I will take all credit for jobs well done and pass on the blame for assignments botched up to whosoever is willing to take it (within or outside the group).

It was all perfect. We were like Enid Blyton's Famous five unravelling the mysteries of Managerial Economics together. This way we tackled all the problems with great ease.  

Since we all realized the importance of "Bonding" we decided to take 4 hours for a 2-Hour assignment. In the end the experiement seemed to be working. 

1. Vishakha bonded to the white sheets she was writing on. 

2. Aastha bonded with the Tea cups from which she was drinking. 

3. Gaurav bonded emotionally to the Assignment (Excuse he used: I'll drop it in "alone" after the final answer makes sense to me)

4. Prasanna bonded to the desktop picture on his laptop which strangely was rotated 90 degrees and in which you could see all the different stuff he got while processing loans for different countries at World Bank. His sports shoes looked Pakistani, Wrist watch Vietnamese, Pants Italian, Shirt Thai and Sun glasses Hawaiian. But he never got bribed. Try and question his integrity and you'll know how he got all those 'gifts'.

 

5. I bonded to the notion of having a fixed audience of 4 people who have no option but to bear the brunt of my (poor) jokes !

But all of them seemed to be treading the paths cautiously as has the been the case with 500+ other people on the campus whenever they are around me. I wonder why ! 

Photo-shoot

Apparently, not everybody at ISB was looking forward to the second week after getting a taste of the first. When I walked into the class on Monday morning, I could see several sleepy faces from my half-opened eyes. We were jolted awake when a quiz paper was shoved into our faces as soon as we stepped into the class. The test was over even before my mind woke up to the fact that I was taking a test.

Then came the real spice in life. A photo-shoot for CAS. Those of us who had to get ready for the photo-shoot scrambled around getting the last few creases out of our suits. People were dressed in their charming best and lined up at the make-shift studio. People were handed a board with their PGID. The first photo was for an identification, and you had to face the camera holding the board with a sheepish grin on your face. If Smack D was writing this blog, he would use something like this to amuse all of us. I am sure Smack D wouldn't mind.

I mean no offence to PGID 420. Please take it in your stride.

After getting done with the real photo-shoot, we went crazy shooting more photos. We had a lot of fun, but that's for another day.

For all those wondering why housekeeping guys were running around with sponges and buckets of watery liquid from the photo-room at about 5:30 PM yesterday, keep wondering. My friends who were with me when I walked into the photo-room know what it is all about, and they promised to keep it to themselves.

Jargon in ISB

First of all, a disclaimer:

While I never shy away from pulling someones leg, this is a generic post NOT intended to pull the leg of anyone in particular, just some stuff I have noticed in 'general' during classes in the last 2 weeks :D So if you take offense, its more a case of a guilty conscience than any particular effort from my side ;)

With so many smart people around, there are a lot of people who either assume that everyone is as smart as them, or, want to show how smart they are . Hence we have jargon filled sentences being fired at the profs during different classes, with people clamoring to show off their management knowledge / knowledge of that particular subject. Of course, I may be wrong and perhaps thats just how you talk after a couple of years as a manager/consultant, in which case I will apologize once I see it for myself, in a few years hopefully....

I dont even remember the jargon that gets used in class sometimes, its that heavy and difficult to follow. With contribution from some people in my section, in no particular order, heres a compilation of some jargon common among ISB students:

• It depends: This has been the favorite of everyone on campus, especially when you are asked a question by the professor and want to do a classic walk right on the fence to get CP points no matter which of the two options is correct.
• Paradigm Shift: Another favorite of people looking for fancy words. A paradigm shift can be applied to anything and by anyone, thus confusing the whole class sometimes, what to talk of the prof.
• Thought Leader: Ah yes,we are all expected to be thought leaders soon, but no one has a clear idea of what kind of thoughts a thought leader is supposed to have though.
• 20,000 feet overview: or was that 30,000 feet? Not that it matters much. A favorite of people during club presentations, when they haven't done something, but still want to show what they know, thus giving everyone a veryveryvery high level overview which is of no use to anyone.
• Reinvent the wheel: Another chestnut, can be applied anywhere and everywhere when someone wants to show how hes understood the concept and wants to state it in his own words hoping for some more CP.
• Dude: Universal term here. I use it as often as anyone. Can refer to anyone from a 24 yr old to a 45 year old, especially since more often than not, you dont know the name of the other person who you may just have met. The context and usage differ of course.
• Network: And of course, the grand daddy of them all, responsible for 'dude' above. The word many of us are sick and tired of, but which just wont go away. Something that we are all supposed to do as much as possible over the next one year.
  
• Gyan: Refers to all the top secret info imparted by alums before they left us to the mercy of the ISB campus for this year. Also may refer to information imparted by people during club sessions. Maybe good or bad, either way.
• Arbit: Universal term actually, referring to 'arbitrary', used a lot in context of ACP.
• ACP: The ghost of class participation which is destined to haunt some of our subjects this year.
  
• LRC: An incomprehensible term when mentioned to friends and family not in ISB. Refers to the college library or 'learning resource center' (Did I get that right?). The place which all the studious students hit till 2AM everyday.
• Quadee: Similar to roomie/room-mate. Refers to 4 people/quadies living in the shared apartments or 'quads', as they are referred.
• Comparative Advantage: Another hot term which is just spreading like wildfire in campus after recent economics lectures. Any economics term/question/reason that you dont understand may have this as the answer, at least that seems to be the current perception anyway :D

Thats pretty much what I have managed to gather. Feel free to add more terms in the comments below.

(NOTE: This is NOT the specific jargon some people use. Thats even more incomprehensible to me and too full of 3 and 4 letter abbreviations to remember)

Does it Really?

Well, with the grades of at least two exams out and more to follow... one things clear.

There's at least one place in B-school where the answer is never " It Depends"! :)

Where have all the Students gone....?

The past 2 weeks at ISB were full of life. You could find people milling about at any time of the day or night (as much as you can with 500 people on a huge campus). There was always something or the other lined up for us to do, from the orientation games/presentations to the pre-terms preparing us for the 2 hour classes ahead of us. Not to mention the multiple parties, hanging out with people we were meeting for the first time and trying to 'network' with. Life was busy busy busy till the 26th.
All of a sudden, the mood on campus changed, and on Sunday, there was hardly anyone to be seen on campus. I took a stroll and thought everyone was out for a party, till I reached the Atrium that is apparently the only place people find to meet up on campus, especially when they want to study/talk about studying. The atrium was completely full, crowded by masses of study groups, people walking about with books under their arms and zombie-like expressions on their faces. Occasionally you would hear stuff like "Explain this concept again, I need those CP points." :P Everyone seemed to be hard at work trying to get those pre-reads right. You could cut the tension with a knife.

Well, the week came and went. For the non-ISBians, ISB follows a 4day week (Mon-Thu), with the other three days for studying and completing weekend assignments :P And an interesting weeks its turned out to be. It wasnt as worse as some people were afraid it would be. There were new subjects, new concepts, and even a Quiz we all managed to complete.

The weekends here. Study groups are still getting together to complete various assignments, but the faces are less zombified than what they were last weekend. :) We even had a Week1 survival party Yday evening.
As for the coming weeks, not to mention the mid-terms (Already!!!!!!!!!!) the week after this, stay tuned. :)

Dunkings galore

What better way to kick start my stint at 'superstardom' (quoting Vinit who told me to celebrate my elevation from being a mere mortal to being a blogger on MMX!!!) than to write about the one event that gets people charged up close to midnight on some random day? Yup! Its all about grabbing an individual who, perhaps for the first time in life feels bad about the day marking the addition of a year in his life, and swinging him precariously over a pool and screaming ONE.... TWO.... THREE in perhaps the most evil way possible. Till splosh!!! or perhaps splotch!!! or some such thing. The poor fellow / fellie (forgive the rotten word usage), then needs to grin while the water goes gurgling through God knows where, and in some cases, needs to look through wet spectacles, all the while smiling sweetly, as the rest of the gang (dry... mind you), watches, claps, enthusiastically, like how the family/friends of the Bakra on MTV Bakra used to. And as if this were not enough, they make many more people feel hopelessly soaked about the fact that it is some person's birthday. Yup! The study group, the quad mates. And if these many people do not fill the pool sufficiently, the beeeeeeeeeeeeest friend is thrown in. And if that also does not suffice, then in a sudden burst of extreme over enthusiasm, the whole class jumps in. Some even get carried away by the concept of experiential marketing (don't dunk me for this), and describe at length the 'benefits' of getting dunked, and also explain the lost opportunity cost of not getting dunked (for this statement, I can imagine myself at the bottom of the pool!!!). Some go a step further. 'DUNK ME DUNK ME... I am up for grabs' (literally), is the mantra on some lips! And ever since marketing started, we have had another reason to dunk! Oh yeah! The CPs. Arbit or otherwise!

So much for the description. I for one, feel that the attitude of our people towards the whole 'yeah I caught a cold on my Birthday of 2009' is real cool. Even better is the massive turnout of the class / batchmates, quadies, whoever, who make the birthday special for all those away from the original friends and family with whom they used to herald in their birthdays till last year. And... as for the ACP kings and queens - cheers to you guys for the zinda dill attitude - in class and at the pool :) And the icing on the cake is when the class gets carried away and lands up into the pool, as a show of solidarity.. Oh hell, no solidarity, the weather is much too hot and musty!!!!

So, no cartoons here, no long winded gyaan here. Just my take on some things I find sweet and cute here at ISB. Happy reading guys, and please note, I AM NOT AVAILABLE TO BE DUNKED IN CASE YOU DON'T LIKE WHAT I WRITE. In case you don't like anything I write, dunk Vijeth and Vinit, and ok.. dunk anyone you want. They'd perhaps jump in anyway!

Week-3 Case Study

During the first week, the treasure hunt and the Bind Unwind programs took the wind out of our lungs, the moisture out of our tongues. We lost a few pounds and felt a lot younger. During the second week, we lined up to the Rec center to try out hand at figuring out the kinetics and dynamics of various predominantly spherical objects. Long walks, hot showers, cold beer... the list goes on and on. Life was so good that even Goel food tasted heavenly.

As announcement after annoucement started dropping on the blackboard, the tone of the whole campus changed. People started walking across campus with a sense of determination. Everybody looked like they have been on the dreaded spiral staircase atleast once in the past 24 hours. The professional clubs were a phenomenon, and there's a lot written about it already.

I never realized it was Monday until my alarm went on a frenzy at 7 in the morning. The tension was so high in the air that even the bunch of chinese students visiting ISB that day could smell it in the air.

The pre-terms really endowed me with some key skills that proved very helpful in classes. Here are some... mind you... these skills are hard to come by.

1. Yawning without opening my mouth
2. Sleeping with my eyes open (source: Vignesh aka Jignes)
3. Sitting in a chair continuously for two hours
4. Not uttering my favourite explitive when something doesn't make sense\
5. Understanding the irony of life when an old 5 rupee coin means the whole world to me
6. Holding a pen between my fingers without consciously thinking about it
7. Appreciating the inner bliss when I stand in queues

There are skills that the pre-terms didn't teach us, but we managed to acquire - Smack D hinted at some of them in his post.

1. Losing nametags, sunglasses, underwear etc.
2. Writing extremely long emails (because I can type)
3. Using Outlook rules and the oh-so-sweet sweet delete button (See 2 above)
4. Drinking coffee at 3 in the morning and then chanting 'MR = MC' about 108 times
5. Declaring that the buffet at Goel is heavy and expensive and substituting it with 3 plates of Chole Bature at the Cafe, 3 almond frappes at CCD, 3 triple sundaes at Baskin Robbins and 3 chilled beers with 3 packets of chips.
6. Setting an entry fee for our own party (Practical applications to price elasticity of demand)
7. Waiting for 20 minutes with our hand raised for a 20-second chance to speak
8. Understanding that obesity is caused by a 'paradigm shift'

Here's the summarized accounting for the 3 weeks (We regret the bad formatting - I'm learning HTML to make it look neater - WIP)

Week-1
Particulars Debit Credit
----------------------------- ---------- --------------
Goel Account Rs. 1700
Cash Account Rs. 1700
Hot sun 22 Liter
Body water 22 Liter

Week-2

Goel Account Rs.1700
Cash Account Rs.1700
Work-out account 3 kg
Body weight Account 3 kg
Pre-term account Rs.15000
Cash Account Rs.15000

Week 3

Cafe account Rs.2000
CCD Account Rs.1200
Baskin Robbins account Rs.1000
Wine Shop Account Rs.5000
Party Account Rs.500
Coffee Machine Account Rs.100
Sun-glass Acct (Written off) Rs.5000
Cash Account Rs. 14800
Body weight account 6 kg
Binami account 6 kg



Assignment (20 marks)
Prepare a retrospective analysis of the value proposition offered by Week-3 to ISB students at the start of the week, and how the perspective of students changed from Monday through Thursday. Prepare a balance sheet, Cash flow statement and Income statement for Week 1 to 3. Describe how different Week-3 could have been if students didn't lose their nametags. (No less than 5000 words).