CP is blogging!

After years of making us wait, one of the very few people I respect, a good mentor and friend, Prof. Chowdari Prasad has decided to oblige the blogosphere. Interested in some real stuff? Not the polished, sale-able material that attracts but stuff that makes you think? You got to visit his blog. Welcome Prof, to the addiction.

Monday blues: Happy Holi

Today is holi in India and this is a good time to start a month. Spend some time with your family friends and have lot of fun, love and prosperity. Google's logo today is too cute, you should check (loading a small screenshot). Missing fun at Alliance. Have a great day.

For a change Monday is fun. Enjoy your holiday while in Kerala we are going to work :)

Let me be

It's a long way I've come,
And a long way it'll be,
But baby just for now,
Let me be me

We’ll skip from one star to another,
And hop in these galaxies,
But baby just for now,
Let me be me

And lying on those snow covered capes,
We’ll feel and touch and taste and hear,
what the silly wind brings for thee,
But baby just for now,
Let me be me

For we’ll run barefoot on wet sand,
to stop the sun drowning in the sea,
but baby, just for now,
Let me be me

There are some barriers to obliterate,
And limits to left to cede,
Some promises to fulfill,
Some dreams yet to be seen,

But baby, Just for now,
Let me be me, Ohh...
Let me be me...

--- Niyati Priyam (PGP Marketing, Class of '09)

Society before self

Madhura Chatrapathy was at Alliance today to address PGP students. I happened to meet her at Manipal Institute of Management, Manipal to participate in the International Conference on "Harnessing Entrepreneurial Potential of Women for Economic Growth" organized by Manipal Institute of Management, Manipal (Check that post here). Prof. Chowdari followed and ensured this was possible. She mesmerized the students and it was a rare honour to listen to her speak.

Here is a glimpse.


Will post about the whole event soon.

Kochi, first blood

Cochin/Kochi is a wonderful place in Kerala. Here I was for presenting a research paper on what is happening in Indian Banking Technology and why Internet Banking is not catching up. School of Management Studies, Kochi University organized a National Seminar on 'Creating and Delivering Value to Customers' on 27th and 28th. Atheeva technologies webcasted this event live. Guest speakers were Dr. Abraham Koshy, IIM A and Dr. Anandakuttan B Unnithan, IIM K along with other distinguished professors, delegates and paper presenters. The support staff comprised of students (who were taking initiative tirelessly with a smile handling over 400 guests!), Dr. Molly Koshy and Dr. Manoj Edward who were working till 11 PM in the night to make it a success. The discussions, discourses, question-answer sessions, guest house and climate were simply superb.

It takes a lot of people working for many man-hours working in tandem to make an event a success. Drops maketh the rain! Each one counts.

Holi @ Alliance

Like any other festival, Holi always rocks at Alliance. Blast is an understatement as you can see in the pics. All the festivals are welcomed with same enthu and preparation as we have the crowd from all religions, places and cultures.
May this festival of colors usher in happiness, unity and blessing in your life and family.
Happy Holi!

Indu magic!

How would it be if your noodles were served in an earthern pot decorated with traditional designs? How about a wooden laptop? OK what if the wood is Sandalwood? How about the music of the next fighting movie comes out of a Veena? Sounds interesting? Well the combination is intriguing as well. Indu seemed to know this very well. She mixed the well known bollywood song, 'Ae kya bolti tu' with classical dance steps. Her steps, facial expressions, mannerisms kept changing from male to female as per the lyrics of the song.

The success belongs to the one who understands what the consumer expects or associates with and then delivering it. By tweaking a few rules of traditionally accepted norms and expecting to be praised is a risky business. But if you can achieve the right combination of both the patterns there is a high chance that the product is lapped up. What Indu did was similar. She picked up a hit song(Everyone of her audience knew the lyrics and the beat), combined that with classical dace that was simple looking but each of her audience knew it took years of practice to master them and performance was magical. Good work Indu.

13.2 fm

What happens 15 people wish to be in a team and the new rule says only 13 can? And the team has people from both marketing and finance? And if this is a scenario from a B-school? Well here they use some branding stuff and name it 13.2 fm!

13.2 fm! It suits most of 11 Immutable laws of Internet branding.

Good work guys.

All I learnt...

After all these years of reading, learning and enthusiasm some thing has not changed. The more you know the more you know that you don't know! 

All one could do is keep adding to his kitty and hope to swim the ocean of knowledge. Same applies to marketing and research. At the end of the best researches professors and practitioners agree unanimously that what they have learnt is just the tip of the ice berg.

Xmz, Again.

“Why Study For Exams.... Are they not about what you know, not about how much you can cram into your head the night before?”

 - Unknown

The last set of exams begin today and will be there for the next 3 days. Wish me luck!

Happy days...

Happy days are almost over...

Most of you must be knowing that I am pursing my Post Graduate Program in Management (Marketing) from Alliance Business School. Today was our last class based instructional day. What remains are exams, dissertation and placement. Some of my friends are placed and some, like me, are waiting. But suddenly it dawns on you that you would be missing the classes, exams, assignments, faculty, campus, etc. Na... I didnt forget friends. I think the best thing any institution gives you is experience, ambience and friends for life. I have got plenty of them here. We all have. Two more months to go before we embark on the glorious and hard journey called life. 

Wish me and my friends good luck :)

The SPECIAL lunch

Today's lunch at the Canteen was superb. The people who served had a wide smile on their face. Most of the people expressed their satisfaction. You might have faced such situation too. Once in a while the food at the place you eat is extremely good. It is not because it turned out to be good but because the cook and the management wanted it to be. Now this means that they took extra care and ensured all the ingredients were correct, used to measure and cooked with the intention to be better. And when such a thing happens the management is behind you to get the feedback that the food is good. This is called 'special' lunch. 

This can be generalized across all the services: Hospitals, artists, musicians, teachers, traffic cops, drivers, customer service agents, companies, salesmen, tele-callers, government, watchmen, and what not. Any service if it is good is because it was meant to be so. Some one took extra care to ensure that the experience was a pleasant one, exceeding or at least meeting your expectations.  In such a case they deserve the credit for the extra degree, extra effort. But my question here is why can't it be special every day? Why can't the call centre executive put in extra effort to make my experience special? Why can't the faculty prepare extra to make my learning more wholesome? Why can't the students prepare for the class in advance and push the instructor to the limits? Why can't traffic cops be more pleasant? Why doesn't the government be more responsible? The list goes on and on. 

On the other hand why can't you hire people who are passionate about making some one's life special? Engineers who want to create products which exceed customer's expectations? Why don't you make this your strategy?

It is YOUR CHOICE to make someone feel special. If only you can put in some extra effort. Loyalty is not built in a day, or is it?

Pride Forever!

Alliance Pride Forever store is offering upto 30% off on its merchandise on New Year's Eve. This has been due to the public demand and the festival mood setting in.

Its official that Chanda Kochar is the next CEO of ICICI Bank, the youngest, first woman.

Xmz, Again

Its Exam time, again for PGP IIs. 6 subjects tested over 8 days in 3 hour exams.
Am working hard(as you can see). Wish me luck!

Pride forever

Is there a bigger sentiment than your Alma mater? Can you think of a market opportunity here? Pride forever did. Pride Forever™ is the “official academia licensing company” focused towards branding of educational institutes. They emerged to create a wide range of licensed academia merchandises via retail chains at schools, colleges and several other reputed institutes.

At Alliance Business School, Anekal, Bangalore a new store is shaping up. Several items like teddy bears, tees, coffee mugs, iPod covers, caps, pen stands, etc are already available and will be open for sale shortly. Pushkar and myself visited the store and were the first customers to see. A deluge of students followed and by what seems to be affordable price Pride offers a wide range of products that share our pride with all our school or college mates anywhere and everywhere. It is also time to reminisce and cherish each and every moment that the institutions have instilled and suffused with indelible and unforgettable memories.

The positioning and the target selection is awesome. If you want them to set up a store at your college let me know.

Think twice before you neglect

Never think some one as a loser, some one who need not be cared. Never turn away your customers, colleagues, clients.

Jamshedji Tata was turned away from the Grand Watsons and built his own hotel, the Taj Mahal, the one that has been targeted by the terrorists now.

Prof. Sudhir Angur decided to open his own business school when he couldn't find a good business school for a relative in Bangalore and the result is Alliance Business School.

There exists a popular story that a lady in "faded gingham" and a man in a "homespun threadbare suit" went to visit the president of Harvard about making a donation, were rebuffed, and then founded Stanford University.

A hurt customer is worth more than 100 new customers. Same applies to a hurt friend, client, neighbor. Its all about trust and how you treat your not-so-financially-viable customers. Its not about money or present utility always.

Think twice before you turn away some one next time. Who knows you may be working for them later.

Freshers 08, Already?

Not long ago on Aug 25th, 07 we had our freshers. I still remember the day when I was a runner up for Mr. Fresher 07 and today the same was replayed with different people. We had a nice party at Gold Coin near Electronic City. Few things I noted is the domination of the colors Red and Black (Why so?). Other prominent colors were white, blue, green, pink and orange! The music, groove, warmth and relief felt was amazing. You should see how 550 people fill in the lyrics when the DJ shuts out the music. Chaos in unison. Or you should feel the beat of the woofer spin your head, clog your ears while you keep singing at the top of your voice trying to keep up pace with your dancing team. For a moment nothing is on your mind. Exams, assignments, case-studies, faculty, hostel timings, results... nothing. Its pure fun and fun only. No one has food properly as they don't wanna miss the DJ.

The program showcased how talented the new batch is. After all they are following us! Dances, mimicry, karoake, fashion, attitude, skits, guts, beauty and what not. They had everything you need to be a part of 'masti ki paatshala'. Good luck guys and welcome to Alliance!

Unnecessary Luxury!

You might have guessed what I am talking about: Sleep, when you are a B-school student. You want to know how life is here? Well read on and find out what we do( and what we don't!)

• Most of the time is spent in classes, extra-classes, special-classes, surprise classes and what not - Small, big, boring, interesting, forced, sleeping, dull, loud, silent, patient, effortless, cumbersome, straining but useful in some way (hope so)


• Group discussions, assignments, reports, projects, PPTs, write-ups, presentations, debates, print outs, files, signatures, submissions, rejections, spell checks, errors, results!, resubmissions…


• Exams: lots and lots of them! Internals, externals, term-end, surprise tests, group tests, domain tests, functional tests and what not

1. You should see how people study - some start days before, some don't, some sleep and read, some read and sleep, some sleep-read, some bath-read(Yes it is possible), some brush-read, some read while brushing, some rattufy, some skip topics, chapters, subjects
2. Some write with as many as 10 color inks, sketches, pencils and decorate the paper as if it were a wedding card, some use the same pen for everything, some don't bring a pen at all, some write essays, some write poems, some write epics, some punch lines, some draw arts, some try to write!
3. Some sleep in the exam, some smile, some eat chocolates, some dream, some pick their teeth and some think of tomorrows exam, some keep looking at others, some look at the paper and smile, some weep, some pray!
   

• Parties: Birthday parties(You should see how we dance in the night to loud music, hit bumps, how all the 200+ people in the canteen join in the song), festivals(Any religion, culture, occasion), decorations, ethnic wear, rangoli and sweets, songs, anniversaries, break-ups (Yes), patch-ups, exam results, cricket wins, movies, freshers, farewells, surprise parties (When you have surprise classes, surprise exams, why not parties?), assignments... the list goes on, food, the music, DJ, rain dance, pictures, games, jokes, groove.. You need to be there to feel it
  


• Movies: Don't be surprised if someone knocks your door at 3 AM in the night armed with a USB drive asking for a movie or give you one. We actually are very liberal in nature: We don't mind the language, quality of the movie as long has it has nice music, some stupid story, eye candy and some nice message. If it is boring why else do we have the fast-forward button for? Some even write reviews and pass it on to others and help us save 3 hours of sleep by watching the movie, some watch as many as 4 movies in a day!
  


• Books: Different kinds of books - related, not related to MBA, magazines, newspapers, big books so big that they are used as stools, some so small that fit in the back pocket. Do we read them? Guess...


• Results:

1. Wow! GPA, CGPA, TGPA, what’s the highest, lowest, average, median, mean, last term, this term over all, subject-wise, stream wise, compare, think, adjust, calculate, X is 0.1 more than Y (weep tissue weep)…
2. Some cry, weep, smile, jump, roll, hug, shake hands, high-five, dance, run, become numb, rejoice, curse, recheck, note down, take pictures, surprised, pray, call parents, SMS, mail, walk…

I can go on adding to this list till tomorrow. I have deliberately left gaming (Counter Strike till 5 AM, chess, indoor Cricket (till the warden catches us), Volley ball, WWF, Kick Boxing, TT, TV, common room antics, tickling sessions, sudden group GDs, water cooler, cleaning, packing, booking tickets at PVR, air, train, bus travel, sudden getaways to Pearl Valley, Goa, Taj, Pondicherry, Kerala, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jog Falls, Hogenekkal, Wonderla, Waterworld, Bannergatta National Park, Temple visits in the night, bike rides, police lathis, good old Forum, Garuda, Central, Total, CCD, McDs, Dominoes, KFC, orphanages, blood donations, Independence Day, Republic Day, Teachers day, Holidays, Poch Bun, Disco Daba, RK Mess, Greenlands Bakery, F1 oops CC1, CC2, Central Campus, long walks in the campus, hot chai in the rain...


You hardly get time to sleep. So if you can sacrifice sleep and have fun, frolic and learning all the time, Welcome to Alliance Business School.

Yes sleep is indeed an unnecessary luxury. But do we care? Who is complaining?

Xmz:)

Wish me luck! Bring it on Man.

Pic

Blog me too

Very few things spread fast. Blogging is one of them. Some bloggers post once every fortnight, week or twice or thrice a week. Some addicts like me post almost once daily. Some of the blogs have direct content or articulated or opinions or observations.

Some of the lessons I have learnt are:

• You need to read a lot
  
• Its not easy
• It causes insomnia
• Is a stress buster
• It gives you a chance to vent out what you feel and publish your own articles
  

So what are you waiting for?