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