Of Cold Coffees and departure lounges

S left for Delhi today on the morning flight. The last two days pretty much merge into one sequence of watching her pack, trips to the IT dept, admin office etc, her farewell party alongwith H and M. followed by midnight icecream at Ohri’s with her core term group. That was fun with the former A7 group at their leg-pulling best. Got back to campus around 4am and spent the next couple of hours talking about everything and nothing. The idea, to begin with, was to get S to relax about the upcoming trip, but, as usual, think I only succeeded in getting her more worked up about it…no surprises there. Finally, it got to 6.30am and dropped her at the airport with K. Funny how i can’t think of any wisea$$ comments for this post... Best of luck…Will miss having you around…

lifesucks.com

Term 7 bidding…first phase done…the good news…I got all the courses I bid for…the bad…one of ‘em is a fin course! Dunno what I was smoking when I decided to bid for it but what the heck…will try and stick with it. Couldn’t possibly do further damage to my morale J As of now, my courses are Advertising, Branding, IT and Business Strategy and Business Valuation using Financial Statements. Most people are doing 3 courses to accommodate placement prep. Its not like all the big companies are beating paths to my door, but knowing me, am sure I’ll get only as much done with 3 courses than 4. might as well keep the option of taking 3 courses in the final term.

Met N yesterday after nearly a month, has lost weight like crazy, and not surprisingly, a lot of her affection for me J doesn’t matter as long as she gets back to full health. Can’t think of much else that cud’ve affected me the way this has done in the last 3 months. Well…they do say what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger…I do wanna meet the ‘they’ that said it though.

Have 2 writeups due tomorrow; for STMF and CFPD. What with S leaving in a couple of days, it’ll be a miracle if we can do a decent job of the submission…thought I’d drop in a line about how I ‘worry’ about assignments and other academic stuff…who’m I kidding!

Twilight Zone

Its 6.10pm and the sky is now a diffused amber because of the pall of clouds that’s been overhead all day. Just woke up from a nap…not the fake kind I’m used to, where you close your eyes with the innocent intent of blinking and end up passing out for a few seconds. This was a substantial 2 hour binge that I had not intended to indulge in. According to the norm, I should now be in a state of panic, considering that drifting off into slumber anywhere outside class on this campus is a strict no-no!  The wind’s rustling through the trees and with the chirp of crickets (am guessing you’ve read that one before), the overall effect is quite therapeutic. Feel quite tranquil, and no, this time it’s not drug-induced J Of course, now there’s the small matter of the BPMT assignment that needs to be done…so..back to the grind…

Poseidon - Day 1

Poseidon’s happening! Dec 16^th and 17^th (that’s what the link towards the left of the page is about). 150 partcipants from 25 B-schools from across India to compete in events ranging from B-Plan presentations to Quizzes on which of Virgin International’s products is the only one to NOT carry the Virgin brand name? – yes, it’s the obvious answer – Mates condoms.

Having dispensed with that ‘useful’ piece of information; The day started off with innaugration in Khemka Audi…at 9am! Needless to say the visiting students far outnumbered the ‘home team’. Participated in ‘Odyssey’ with Shipra and Shilpa (S & S would’ve sounded too much like M&M). think we answered 5 out of the 30 questions J it was business as usual as Ramkey and team claimed first prize and Praveen’s team got 2^nd.

Sat in on a couple of presentations at Olympiea – Tech Innovation Plans, Kryptos – Ad interpretation (Kedar and Snake won that easy). Then it was to the evening and Elysium – the fashion show. (http://www.isb.edu/poseidon/info/elysium.asp ) Having told numerous wannabe participants over the last week that it was other Anoop conducting the fashion show, I was ‘suckered’ into it myself. Guess I reckoned walking wudn’t be too much of a stretch. After about 6-7 hrs of practice over 2 days…I don’t quite think so. in the end it wasn’t much of a ‘contest’ since only one of the other teams – ICFAI, turned up. it was an experience however, to strut on stage with flashing arc lights, pulsing music and artifical fog. Decision time and the judges decided to stick with the ‘politically’ correct decision and awarded us the prize. Yup, we won 25 grand - 24 participants…do the math J. Last event of the day was Octavia – the music competition and this was a blast. 4 teams participated; ICFAI, Infosys, Badruka College of Commerce and ISBs own. All the teams were pretty darn good with Diatribe (ICFAI) performing numbers by RHCP and Cranberries. Infosys (C# - trust them to name their band after a programming language) sang Hindi numbers and well too. The ISB team was phenomenal in the varied kinds of music we had…Anshul on the electric guitar to Raam on the Mrudangam. And then there was ‘After Death’ from Badruka. Riding up with them in the elevator i’d noticed the long-haired rebel grunge look on all 5 band members. You wouldn’t think they’d have reason to be so angry at life J songs about being ‘6 feet under’. Enough said that they won it followed by C-sharp in 2^nd. Time now to feel guilty about not having opened my books for the last 24 hours…

RATED R!

Aaaaaarrrrrrgggghhh! That’s the only word that comes to mind after having spent the last 6 hrs attempting to complete the RATE exercise for Marketing Metrics. Reams of what look like meaningless historical data! Where are the patterns?! Simple regression equations that say that if advertising is x, promotion is y and distribution is z, then you stand to make Ax + By + Cz in profits. Damn #$%#@# simulation. Undoubtedly, the prof will point out something that will then seem the most obvious thing in the world. But I’m done!

On a slightly ‘merrier’ note…The Dirty Rotten Scoundrels: Kartik, Shilpa and I...["I, the donkey" brigade...please note :)] did get a consolation prize for finishing in the top 8 in Labyrinth!

Details available on the Poseidon blog: http://poseidon2005.blogsome.com/

Solstice...Bhangra Kites...Labyrinth et al

Solstice…the annual ‘homecoming’ of the alumni was this weekend. From 5 attendees in the very first Solstice to over 170 this time indicates that our numbers are increasing and fast! The weekend started off with an Arabic theme party on Friday complete with hukkas and Bedouin tents…no belly dancers though J For the first time, there were more alumni than students at the party. What with all the delighted (and sometimes slightly drunk) reunions happening all around, was in half a mind to go around hugging random ppl saying just for the heck of it.

Saturday and some ‘gyan’ sessions by alums on placements. Heard this funny story about how this alum had prepared all year for consulting and IB roles while his quaddie, for marketing. The day before their interviews with HLL and HSBC, they sat down and gave each other a crash course in their respective areas of interest and you guessed it…they each got the other’s dream job! Later in the day was the ‘carnival’ with stalls of games, food and a juggler too! There were dance performances by children from ‘Akshay Akruti’ – a school for the hearing impaired and a music concert by ‘Sunethra’ – school for visually impaired. Was a fun evening. Ran home in the middle of the evening to see Sachin score his 35^th ton…can’t think of nething else that makes me smile so easily than to watch this man bat. The next day’s TOI headline said it all “Batman Forever”

Of course, then there was the party with ‘live’ performance by UK based Bhangra Knights. The name did not fill me with anticipation and the real thing was the sorriest live show have ever seen. Lip-synching their way through their one original song and rendering some other popular hindi numbers in a manner that would’ve made the singers in b’bays trains sound good! Absolute tripe to say the least. Things looked up after they were done assaulting people ear-drums. Never thought I’d welcome hindi remixes, but that’s how bad the ‘Bhangra Kites’ were!

The surprise and disappointment of the weekend was to learn that S and I had come in 4^th in Eureqa but the consolation was our team ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels’ (guess who came up with that name J had made it to the finals in Labyrinth. 2 hours of intense googling and wiki’ing (that shud be a term too) where S and K cracked clues and I, my knuckles, we got 5 out of the 6. don’t think we’ll win coz of the extra time it took us to answer the bonus q but was great fun nevertheless.

The game we won! 

http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/29/stories/2005112909582200.htm

(Search for ISB)

Sim City 2005

Imagine a loud, deep male voice with a ridiculously heavy-Scandinavian (Austrian to be precise) accent saying “You’ve been marked for allocation”…sounds familiar doesn’t it.

Guess that’s pretty much how most marketing majors are feeling like right now (think Linda Hamilton in Terminator I) with the surfeit of simulation games that are part of the different courses. Marketing Metrics is the killer with 3 such games to its credit. Started innocently enough with a solo exercise called ‘Pricing Simulation’. The objective, decide the price for your product in a market with 2 other competitors who were supposedly folks in the same class. We weren’t told who was in what industry (to avoid chances of collusion I guess) and with 5 mins per decision, it was hectic stuff. As a result of each pricing decision, your market share and profitability fluctuated. At the end of the session, ppl were asked to summarize what happened and most everyone complained about that a$$hole in their industry that kept lowering prices giving them no option but to get into a price-war. Having listened to 4-5 such rants, the prof finally came clean and said that were not in fact competing against each other but only against the program. Whats more, the competitors in the program only mirrored what you did. So, I quote “if there was an idiot in the industry lowering prices, that was YOU!” J at the end of it, the prof said how we tend to get consumed by wanting to ‘beat’ the competition and forgetting about making profits. Insightful.

There are 2 other games in progress; called Allocator and RATE. Allocator is a team project; I, Ramkey and Anant formed one and are managing ‘Draft’ brand of beer against 4 others. Similar to Markstrat except that there are no production decisions to be made and no ‘Ideal’ points on the perceptual map. The first decision is due by tomorrow noon, so more later on how we do. Considering I have class from 8.30 to 5 tomorrow, better quit blogging and get back to work J

Some random pics...

taken in the last 2 days...

The Energizer Bunny!

Coz their slogan is ‘Never Say Die!’ and we lived up to that today. Our final league game of the Xius Tournament and we were playing the only undefeated team in our group - Continuum. They’d made their presence felt with the gargantuan score of 274 (yes! In 20 overs!) in one of their previous games. We were upbeat from our victory last week and were certain we’d make a match of it…and how!!!

Won the toss and elected to bat on a much drier surface compared to last week but which still had a green tinge. Kamalesh and I opened and got off briskly enough. I took first strike and after a couple of wafts at widish deliveries, got one in the middle. Liked it for 2 reasons; 1: it was a searing square drive that thudded into the embankments that formed the boundary and 2: I did not last long enough at the crease, and since this is an exercise in self-promotion, have to highlight every little thing J We went along at a decent pace of 10 an over for 4 odd overs that included a driven 6 over cover, held the pose in the follow-through then quickly realized I was show-boating and started fiddling with my helmet strap. I was first man out – 21(15 balls) to their first-change, left-arm bowler to a sickeningly easy-to-hit fulltoss that I only managed to find deep-midwicket with. We then lost regular wickets and our run-rate nose-dived till we had only 100 in 14 overs. Neeraj, Phani and Pratik came to the party and some enterprising hitting got us to 163 in 20.

Defending 163 against what was easily the best batting line-up in the tournament, was not very probable, but we nearly pulled it off. I and Abhijit started with me bowling the ‘customary’ wides. Was pretty frustrating for the team, and though I knew we couldn’t afford the runs, had this feeling at the back of my mind that we just had to break through early. Went around the wicket to their left-handed opener and finally managed to pitch one on a decent line in the 4^th over that cut back and rattled his stumps. But the runs were coming thick and fast and they raced to 77 in 7 when RK produced an unbelievable over where he took 3 wickets! The first 2 were thick edges to Pratik at point and the third was an edge through to Deepak behind the stumps. We clawed for every inch of the way and after getting them 8 wickets down, our store of runs just proved to be too measly and they scraped through. RK, was fittingly, the man of the match and the generous round of applause from the opposition said volumes about his performance.

Tough loss, but it was a fantastic feeling being part of that fight-back. Considering the average scores in the tournament, the fat lady had cleared her throat when we had only managed 163, but she only managed to sing after we had given Continuum a few cardiac arrests. The usual post-match-loss low is a l’il ‘lower’ today coz this is most likely the last game we played for ISB, since its unlikely that we’ll find the time with placement season on the horizon.

But, no regrets, its just about the best feeling in the world to take the field alongside 10 cricketers (note not just good batsmen or bowlers) and I’ve certainly had a great time representing ISB with Nikhil, Pratik, RK, Kamalesh, Aditya, Deepak, Abhijit, Neeraj, Ruchir (might easily missed a few coz the team was never the same for 2 games). Only if we’d won more J

Xius:http://www.fullhyderabad.com/scripts/profiles.php3?section=Events&ID=10214&name=The+Xius+Times+Corporate+Olympiad+-+Cricket+Tournament)

Hardness, Maintenance and Reliability...

Guess what those words in the title of the post mean?! No, not the qualities of a Bridgestone tire but apparently, they’re the “crucial elements of a quality erection…” J

ED (Erectile Dysfunction) was the name on everyone’s lips today, not because the ISB curriculum took the ultimate toll, but coz Viagra was the case for discussion in the Marketing Metrics Class today. Class started off with indepth analysis of a Viagra commercial; from why the background score was Queen’s “We are the champions” to the “phallic shaped” picket fence to what the limp garden hose in an old woman’s hand meant J The prof, who’s on his first visit here, was very entertaining and has a great sense of humour as was evident by his choice of case. There’s also a bunch of simulation exercises as part of the course called MBTN (Marketing by numbers), Allocator, RATE (Resource Allocation Teaching Exercise) and Pricing Simulation. Different, but very interesting.

BPMT (Business Performance Management) was my other ‘official’ course and it was a bit of a disappointment as far as first impressions go. Struggled to keep awake through class and saw that most of the class was having the same problem. Maybe it just felt that way after the high of MKME, but things better pick up in subsequent classes. Sampled MGEN (Managing in a Global Environment) and found its about macro-issues with managing firms and the discussion was about comparative advantages and subsidies. Interesting stuff, but think I’ll stick with Strategy in Multi-National Firms, that way I have 2 classes everyday instead of 1 and 3.

Tomorrow’s free with the subjects to be added and dropped a final time for Term 6. Now to kick back and some loud Nickelback…”I’m so high…I can hear heaven…”

Term 6...and sampling

Day ONE of term 6 and like any elective term, the first 2 days are spent ‘sampling’ i.e. sitting in on various classes to decide what subjects to sign up for. Kinda like getting a free taste of the weird looking flavours at a Baskin Robbins outlet before finally settling on good ol’ chocolate-chip. It’s an important exercise for the unfortunate ‘have-nots’ who could not get their desired subjects in the first phase of bidding and thus have to decide between the ‘butter pecan’ and ‘bubblegum’ flavours J actually I’m not being fair to the subjects in question, they’re never that bad, just not what some folk think they ‘ought’ to be doing. I dare not be one to judge though, only makes sense that a few high-strung individuals are needed on campus to cancel out the effect of laid-back folk like me J

Sampled ‘Strategy in Multi-National Firms’ (STMF) since I couldn’t get Pricing, and it wasn’t bad at all. Had a lively discussion about the benefits/drawbacks of an Indian BPO firm getting into a JV with an established US firm. The fact that there’s a writeup due before every class will ensure that all pre-reading is done, but can’t argue with the ‘No Final Exam’ policy. The other course; ‘Customer Focused Product Development’ (CFPD) was kinda slow with the prof taking us through the course details for most of the class. Think things will get interesting in the weeks to come though. No exams on that one too, things are lookin’ up already J

Tomorrow I get a look at ‘Marketing Metrics’ (MKME) and ‘Business Performance Management’ (BPMT) and might also sample ‘Managing in a Global Environment’ (MGEN) to then decide between that and STMF. For now its time for a substantial dinner and then to complete all pre-readings till week 2…yeah right!