10000+

That's the number of hits on this blog till now since Nov 2006. In that my own visits would be around 300-400. But the fact that I could communicate my thoughts and ideas with so many passive and some active readers(those who leave comments)itself is amusing.

I never thought something (a blog) like this would ever come into existence but wished that something like this is available. Though the current level of IT enablement is nowhere near the ideal state (I think it can never be), many interesting trends can be observed. The current set of developments are being driven by non-technical businessmen contrasted to the earlier periods when technical geeks ruled the development space.

We are pretty busy with our preparations for the finals and Term 5 assignments and pre-reads are keeping us busy. I am trying hard to keep abreast with everything but I am definitely falling behind in some areas if not all. I hope I will be able to do the catching up by the end of this term.

Some of us who started liking the campus have realized the fact that we have finished the first half and the path before is downhill and we will go much faster than the previous part. Co 2009 admissions process must be on and all the applicants must be eagerly waiting for the interview calls and isb-pgp group mails.

I wish all the applicants best of luck. Just remember, be yourself, give your best shot and hope for the best.

Great News

It's a great news for me and I hope all the readers would share the joy with me. Our team - Rao Korupolu, Anand Narasimhan, Ankush Wadhera, Jaspreet Sidhu and me have made it to the top ten in Innovation Challenge 2007.



Check out the below link:
Who made it to Innovation Challenge 2007 Finals
We are ISB_E_01.

Apart from us another team made it to the final. We would be traveling to US in November to take part in the Final.

Though I would've liked to post in detail about the whole thing, I am really hard pressed for time. I am currently working in 6 different groups on different projects and my calendar is already over pouring.

Whoever is reading this post, wish our team good luck.

Busyness ever after

Now that the core terms are over and the electives have started, most of us at ISB were expecting that life to be like "they lived happily ever after" but soon we realized that life at ISB is busyness (or busi-ness) ever after.

One thing has now been established for me now. Expectations, everyone has high expectations from everyone and there is no exception.

I am now juggling with 5 different groups and that itself is a big assignment everyweek. Among the current set of professors, Prof. Charles Dhanraj is the most enthusiastic and he experiments a lot with the methodology. He plays music in the class while people are discussing case questions. He is a highly involved person with the subject

There are lots of things happening now and there is little time for anything else, including posting blogs. Before closing, let me wish Eveyone a Very Happy VijayaDasami. Cheers

Blog Action Day

If there is one thing that can change the world for better, it is education and awareness. The major difference that I see between today and five years back is that the ability to communicate and express yourself is far more easy while having a greater reach.

I had been involved in many cost reduction projects while I was working at Bakelite Hylam. During that time I evaluated lots of options to reduce cost by saving energy, particularly electrical energy. Considering the fact there are distribution losses, a unit saved is more than a unit produced.

It is surprising to see that even today we have incandescent lamps still available in the market and people are still buying. In view usage of incandescent lamps for lighting purposes must banned immediately and should be allowed to be used only for special purposes only. CFL or normal TL usage must be encouraged and government must provide incentives for the producers to reduce price and disincentives for consumers who don't use them.



I remember that in 1997 we saved around Rs. 5000 (approx $100) every month just by replacing all the incandescent lamps that were used as light in front of puja locations across the plant. My salary at that point was the same as the amount we saved and I felt so thrilled. This was one project that had an ROI of one month and the results were right in front of us. After that I even contemplated with coming out with a retail offer for electricity consumers to replace incandescent lamps with TL's with monthly payment as a part of electricity bill depending on the savings achieved.

There are many things that we are taking for granted today such as water, air, natural resources but we are paying indirect price for it and the future generations will pay a much larger price for what we are doing ignorantly. It is time for us to examine how we can reduce or eliminate the negative impacts being created by us and I am sure the individual effort will get build up in to significant result.

Just do your part and don't measure macro results, just keep focusing on your efforts on the specific results.

Not much has changed

The last post was titled "Changing times" and I never imagined that I will be writing the next post titled "Not much has changed."

The above expression came from after watching the movie "To Kill a Mocking Bird." The struggle that was portrayed in that movie and the struggle that is currently going on under the broad theme of inclusive growth broadly remains the same - Choice, Respect, Justice and Fairness.

Yesterday I was coming from JNTU and I was behind a auto trolley. It was carrying cartons of bottled water. For a moment I wondered how would it appear for someone watching from the sky and wonder about the things human beings keep doing. We keep inventing new technologies, new menthods to make our life easier. While it appears that we have been successful to store, save and transfer most, if not all, of the technical knowledge, it seems we are failing every time in successfully transferring the wisdom that is gained. People have written loads of books in an attempt to transfer the wisdom since ages. Lot of people also seem to be reading these books and attempting to gain wisdom but the success rate is very very small.

The two contradicting posts emanate from the above issue. We, human beings, have been pretty successful in transfering technical knowledge but have been only minutely successful in transfering wisdom.

Even today, the chance of becoming a sensible mature individual depends a lot on the individual despite all the institutions developed by the society. It is much better than having nothing but a lot needs to be done.

Changing Times

Below is a graph indicating average tenure in different countries from Economist:
Go to Economist for full details

Though figures for India are not given, it would be somewhere in the middle. In the 80's, trend was one-job-for-life, in 90's it changed to two or three changes in career and now it seems to be not-more-than-one-job-a-year.

Though I'm not an advocate of frequent changes, I feel that the current situation is very good for people in the job market. It's not even from the compensation stand point but it is more from the point of having choices. Earlier people had very few choices and had to hang on with the same job whether they like it or not. But now one can try different things and find out what exactly he would like to do.

Many times people advice that you should find your passion and work in that area to be happy. But in reality it is so difficult to find where one's passion is. Everything other than what you are doing will appear great except for few. You compromise either for money, convenience, fear or even lack of awareness. You feel stuck and your enthusiasm takes a beating. It is therefore very important to have lots of options at the beginning so that you can experiment a bit and then choose where you want to make a difference.

But while you experiment don't forget to give your best at every job and think of change only when you have done really well or really bad. Don't think of changing when you are doing average, it means you haven't applied yourself fully or you didn't get into a situation that needed your best. It is best to review when you are doing very well or very bad and take a call

Another aspect that is unfulfilling in almost all the jobs is the dimension of social service. It definitely gives a lot of satisfaction to help others who are in need but many times it needs lot of focused effort, which many find next to impossible. This point has been noted by many corporations already and they are incorporating this dimension as a part of corporation's activities. This is one area I would like to follow and contribute in future.

Term break is half-over and right now it is kind of silence before the storm. Till now it has been the grades and competitions but from now on it will be electives and placements.

Changing times are ahead.

Time for a break

It had been a roller coaster ride since the day I landed at ISB. Thank god it had not been anything like what I imagined it to be. I had been stretched in all possible directions.

I never thought I would stay awake beyond 12 midnight but 2AM became the norm now. But for the support system of ISB, it would've been impossible to survive the rigor.

As the core terms end and the electives start there is yet another cycle of unsettling and settling. New section mates, new group mates, and new profs. Placement fever is about to begin and I think things are going to speed up from now on.

There is an attempt to launch an official ISB blog and something may happen on that front shortly. Of all the four terms, this term end exams were the most strenuous in terms of preparation but when it came to the exam hall, two of the exams got finished in less than an hour.

As per my original plan I should've been flying to China today. But thanks to the miscommunication from CEIBS, I'm happily sitting in Hyderabad. I don't what I would've been feeling if I was actually going but in hindsight I am more happy to be at ISB. I would be able to take more courses and focus on my goals.

Two/three days back suddenly I felt that I should write short stories. I also quickly came up with a storyline too. It is about a love story at a call center. A young graduate joins the call centre and his team leader happens to be a girl. Though she is elder to him, he gets attracted to her. He likes her confidence, the way she handles tough situations and tough people. She also moves freely with him but by the time the guy develops confidence to tell her, she gets engaged to someone else.

He goes ahead and expresses his love to her but she brushes him off saying that it was just friendship and she can't imaging marrying and living with him. She gets married a month later and leaves the job to join her husband in another city. The guy goes and meets her and for a brief moment she gets a feeling that may be she was little to quick to deny the young guy but then brushes it aside and bis adieu to the guy.

Guy goes back to his job, feels a little sad for few days and then a young girl joins his team and he starts feeling that may be he has not really lost his love. He can divert it somewhere else and the story starts again. Inspiration for this story comes from a one liner that my old friend, Partha Saradhi, told me long back. It goes like this - When young, even a donkey looks beautiful and lovable. Though the story doesn't completely relate to what he said, I feel it does.

Hope you liked the story (in the most driest possible expression). I would appreciate encouragement from the readers.

Laziness in me is waking and before it takes over let me click the publish button. Good bye for now

Crazy Day - Sec E's last day

Yesterday was section E's last day and it was a crazy day. First it was our group's turn to do the GSBC presentation. Our topic was on child labor and we had enough mix ups since friday. Everyone in the group became lazy but for few of us it was important and we pushed it till the end. We managed to get hold of a nice video clip from ILO's site and played it. The video was apt in the sense that it projected the problem but also gave a hint of positive results, which is slightly away from the doomed feeling I got from all other statistics and presentations.

Next it was Prof. Ramana Sonti's class. I really feel that we should've had another two sessions with him. He is highly passionate about the subject and I really enjoyed the INVA course. He suddenly realized that all those in the class were wearing the same T-shirt. I was given the opportunity to ask the last question for the term and for the core terms though I am not the question master.

Once the class was over it was a mad rush for photographs. We must have clicked more than 200 snaps yesterday and we took pictures at all possible locations in the main building. The photo session went on for more than 2 hours. Though we just half way through, the emotions yesterday were like that of the last day. We all know that it would be difficult to catch up with all the section mates together again except may be in the parties.

Once the class was over it was a mad rush for photographs. We must have clicked more than 200 snaps yesterday and we took pictures at all possible locations in the main building. The photo session went on for more than 2 hours. Though we just half way through, the emotions yesterday were like that of the last day. We all know that it would be difficult to catch up with all the section mates together again except may be in the parties.

In hindsight, it is amazing to see how the first half has zipped past of us.