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Dropping to this corner after ages it seems..

Some creative culminations from a batch mate (SG) that I thought I would put up here:

"

There's an imaginary management institute by the name of FIMWI (Fictitious Institute of Management in Western India). Some of it's popular faculty members have some specific traits which they display while teaching. Please use this quiz below to see if you are able to identify these "famous five" who are describing themselves.

1) I know that people buy a brand of shirt because the advertisement shows a female hand sliding down a masculine chest adorned by this brand of shirt. But they will never tell this reason, when questioned. I still want you to go out and find from people what makes them buy different products. While discussing a case in the class, whenever someone makes any statement, I have this habit of questioning it with a "therefore ?". When they come out with subsequent statements, I keep repeating "therefore"... "therefore".... After three or four "therefores", I suddenly rise from the instructor's table and say "why do you keep making things complicated yaar.. think basic. Are you an engineer ?"

2) Most of my conversations follow this typical sequence -

"This is bullshit.. pure unadulterated bullshit"

"I studied in IIM Calcutta"

"You have learnt nothing"

"I studied in IIM Calcutta"

"You guys are fools" (and be grateful about the fact that I told you this)

"I studied in IIM Calcutta"

"You make my blood boil"

"I studied in IIM Calcutta"

Do not go by my voice. I am a very aggressive person (like a doberman whose tail has been cut). Please be very scared of me.

3) Remember I told you "Nash was not well when he was working on his theory. But when he got Noble Prize for his work, he became allright". Didn't recognize me? Oh c'mmon, I also told you that I wanted morning sessions for my classes but this manager of PGPX first ignored my mails then messed up the schedule. Still not there? OK, I was the one who told you that "if I did not perform market will kick me or not", while making a backward kick gesture. "Kilear now" ?

4) When someone asked by Reliance do I mean RIL or RCOMM, I told them "No I took this data from Vault. Else it will become just..."
One of my famous quotes is "people do not leave organizations, people leave managers, so it is... upto the managers... to....."

Upto the managers to... what ? Are you telling me that I didn't make any sense. I don't know. I don't like to complete my sentences. I am from the HR area, not from Communications.

5) I worked for many years in industry before joining FIMWI as faculty. Whenever I ask a question in class, I follow it with a "quickly !".
For some reason (some people say it's the evening tea in dining hall), I want to meet students personally. My body has six degrees of freedom and I walk in all directions when talking to the class. I may tend to run into the instructor's desk when I am walking backward and talking to the class simultaneously. Sometimes, I may also walk sideways while talking and hit instructor's chair. Thankfully the ceiling of CR11 is quite high.

Please rush in your answers but do not expect a prize as we have a PND (Prize Not to be Dispatched) policy at FIMWI.

Disclaimer: This is purely a work of fiction. Similarities to any person are purely coincidental. This note has entertainment value only."

Oblivion at Its Height

After just having submitted a report at 2:30 am in the morning, I needed an outlet to vent, and thus am scribbling down a few points of discontent.

It has been roughly 1.5 months since the inception of term I and the brutality that we've had to undergo as a class has been second to none. For example, in the mentioned period, we've had:

2 Final Exams
1 Midterm Exam
6 Surprise Quizzes (with 1 hour advance notice)
10 Report Submissions

The endurance is being stretched beyond limits, and so is the patience. I have digested the extent of sleep deprivation to the point where going to bed at 3am, while waking up at 7:30am is now the norm.

Culmination of this madness leads to a fitting title 'Oblivion', as a result of not having set foot outside of the campus premises more than once in the last 1.5 months. Oblivion from the world outside, oblivion from society.

Raining Knowledge at IIM

It is only April and the heat seems to show no respite. Relief, however, is on the way in the form of a down pour of a different kind, down pour of induced intellect.

It is strange to be a student again, long after the mind has shut off or lost thousands of learning cells. Nine years in the corporate world seems to have done no justice to my analytical ability. The cold dose of reality was bestowed upon us the other day when after we as a class did not live up to professor's expectation while cracking a case study. This after burning the mid-night oil in preparation for the case.

Doing a course like this inundates an overwhelming feeling, and makes me wish that there was a guide on "How to Survive IIMA-PGPX". I might take up the initiative to write one myself and create ACCV, once I get through the program. What is ACCV, one might ask. Well, it is one of the new found jargons in my vocabulary, which stands for Assessing and Creating Customer Value. While we're at it, here is a list of rest of the jargons pouring down upon me in term 1.

Managerial Economics (Firms and Markets)
Organizational Behavior
Management Communication
Financial Reporting and Accounting
Assessing and Creating Customer Value
Strategic Human Resource Management

Absorbing this profound amount of knowledge in the time given is like asking someone to drink from a fire hose. Therefore, another critical skill I seem to have sub-consciously developed is the 'art of skimming' which, believe it or not, is an efficient variable of time management. Having said that, before I start to mis-manage my time, I better log off.

IIM Ahmedabad - First few days

I, along with family, landed up at Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad on a blistering hot afternoon, yesterday. Upon arrival, we were quickly checked into our MSH (married student housing) flat. After some initial disappointments related to the state of the unit, things are slowly getting to normalcy. We have been given a unit on the top floor, which surely is to get baked during the summer months.

I finished up my registration for the program earlier yesterday, and got my local banking needs taken care of as well. After getting some shopping for the household needfuls out of the way, I went and signed up for mobile phone service with Vodafone. Someone in our group orchestrated a group deal for the entire batch at quite an attractive rate, bringing smiles to all our faces.

I have met most of the partners in crime for the next one year. Having met so many people at once, I don't have proper recollection of their names but not too worried on that front since I practically will be living with them for the next one year. The collective mood is that of excitement, mixed with some minor anxiety related to the course rigor, and finally what sort of jobs we are to land thereafter. The placement statistics (quite unrevealing) have just been released for the batch preceding us and can be seen here. Naturally, a lot of discussions have revolved around reading in between the lines of this published info. Some additional statistics such as the min/max/median of the salary range, full list of recruiters, no. of indian placements vs. international placements have been omitted for reasons I am unaware of. Some information on this front will be obtained from the institute in the coming days.

The intense academic grind and the sleep deprivation that one is to face here is depicted in this video. Needless to say, there are sure to be memorable moments.

The message that the video portrayed was immediately confirmed when I was handed over an overwhelming collection of books (see photo) and other course materials that supposedly cover only the first term, two and a half months in length.

Xie Xie Shenzhen

I wrapped up my trip to Shenzhen, China on March 7, 2008. The city of Shenzhen, located just across the harbor from Hong Kong, represents a culmination of Hong Kong and of the not yet prosperous China. After boarding a ferry from the Hong Kong airport, I arrived in Shenzhen on a cool humid night. The immigration officials checked my passport for about 2-3 minutes, finally allowing me to enter.

Beginning the next morning, I embarked on a city tour to grasp what it had to offer. Part of the city claims to be new China, only to be taken aback by reminiscence of communism (lack of political reform). While exploring Shenzhen, a striking image that repeatedly presents itself is of officers in uniform, be it at the super market, traffic crossing, park, theaters, restaurants. Such an image could give a tourist such as myself a sense of security, while on the other hand, the paradoxical Pandora that surfaces is, are the uniformed officials really there to build a sense of security or do they reflect the image of a communist state that needs to monitor activities of its own people at all times?

It is worth noting that once a small fishing village, the transformation that Shenzhen has gone through is nothing less than remarkable. The infrastructure display in highways, buildings, bridges, the socio-economic factors, the professionalism, are all part of Shenzhen's success story. The point becomes even more important when one is reminded that all of this development was visioned by a government that is non-transparent, and the one that discourages innovation and creativity in its people. As has been the case under the government, the Chinese are still very much the type that like to 'follow orders', than to opt for creative solutions. Most of the multinational enterprises that have set up shops in Shenzhen have come to be realize this deficiency first-hand, while dealing with their newly hired cheap Chinese workforce.

The bureaucratic gridlock that plagues the government can be felt on the streets of Shenzhen. There are five people assigned to do a job that could easily be managed by one. There is someone at the front door to swipe your residence card on the machine, whereas the swiping could easily be accomplished by yourself. Given this, a question that begs for an answer is, does China have only manpower (its most abundant commodity) to offer as its contribution towards globalization, and towards attracting MNC enterprises?

Unless there is some transparency in the government, and unless the beaurocratic ways are tamed, I cannot imagine China on the same wavelength as Japan or as the US. It is unrealistic to expect China to continue to grow at 9% annual up tick on its GDP while in communism. However, credit does need to be given to the Chinese for crafting ideas such as special economic zones and tax free zones. This foresight, one of its kind, is now being adapted by other countries as well to attract MNCs. The country's accession on to the World Trade Organization (WTO) a few years ago, surprised a lot nay sayers, and while there is pessimism on China's continued progress, the country might have something up its sleeve to continue on, leaving all the pessimists behind.

Speed = Fulfill Someone else's Greed?

9:30am on a Friday morning, I am driving to work and looking forward to the weekend. The road approaches a downhill curve while I pass on a slow rider in front of me. As I make a pass, I see what appears to be a traffic cop. Alas, it can't be..not again god, please.... Too late my friend, my fate has been sealed. The cop pulls me over and asks for license and registration.

With a sorry face, I plead to the cop to not give me a ticket, but rather just let me go off with a warning. No respite. He forgets to listen and lectures me on how drivers like myself contribute to the high fatality rate on the roads. Come again? In other words, you're telling me that my driving style is fatal? And what makes you believe that ticketing me will reduce the number of fatalities on the road? Do you have any data to prove the correlation of # of tickets issued --> reduction in road fatalities? Why don't you put on some honesty and tell me that I've just contributed to your salary and that the reason you're handing me a citation is not to reduce the number of fatalities but rather to meet your budgetary requirements. Better yet, why don't you tell me that you wish for me to repeat this offense again in the future such that your budgetary requirements continue to be met.

The cops that are dispatched to patrol against speeders are most likely the low performers of the department and therefore don't get assigned to more complicated cases. To this, I ask myself, what is the point of trying to reason an argument with someone that is on the bottom of the meritocratic chain in the police department? Doing so would be analogous to asking a second grader to explain the sociological challenges in society today.

Bear or Bull?

The volatility of the US financial markets in the last few weeks has left me spinning.

After a pounding, the Dow has made a sizable comeback in the last two days. But, is this comeback a representation of long term prosperity or is it merely a momentary head above water gasp of air before plunging back into deep waters again? The thought that millions of life long savings could vanish into thin air, thanks to some unethical practices a few industries (read mortgage) have opted for seems unfair. Whatever happened to the notion of "protecting the consumer"? The phrase appears to be more analogous to theory than practice.

The credit crisis fears in the US have affected not just the US financial markets, but have strongly shaken markets around the world, as a result of US mortgages getting wrapped into bonds and securities and selling into world wide markets. Sometimes I do contemplate as to the seriousness of the mortgage crisis. After all, the US mortgage market represents only 5% of the US GDP, so as long as the factors representing other 95% of the GDP are in check, things should be OK, or so one would think.

In the mean time, the US Gov't is finalizing an economic stimulus package intended to motivate people to start spending again. In my opinion however, the package preaches exactly the opposite of the basic economic fundamental, which is to save. If so much of the economy is dependent on people spending lavishly, something has gone wrong in creating the economic parameters. In addition, the subject of whether the package stimulates the economy depends a lot on other variables such as, is the money spent on American made goods or goods imported into the US from other countries. This smells more like politicians trying to bolster their resumes than anything else.

Coming back to the stock market, and whether the market is bear or bull, well, no one probably knows. The market movement is an output of what millions of people (including speculators, retirees, savers etc) decide to do on a given day. If all of these people were to make the exact same move with their funds, then the market would be very predictable. Because of the complexity of millions of people behind millions of stock transactions, the market is anything but predictable. So, the best move would be to not fall into the hype that media lashes out on the flick of a TV remote control button, but rather to keep the money invested as long as the money is not needed to shore up immediate financial needs.