Wonderful Memory

I have celebrated my 32nd Birthday recently and this birthday would remain in my memory for a long time. Some nice pics that show what happens at ISB on a birthday:


Guess why I was screaming


That's another buddy who shares my birthday


My group mate who stood by me in tough times :)


Precursor to the next step


Now you know why cafeteria's pastries are always sold out

Hyperactivity

Yesterday we had Dean of Kellog School of Management, Mr. Dipak Jain, speaking to us. He was discussing on the Global Macro Trends. As a part of it he defined what is Hyper-Competition. Hyper-Competition according him is not about increasing competition but it is about competition from those beyond your industry boundaries.

How can one imagine that for an airline company competition is not another airline but it is the video conferencing technology. There is detailed logic behind this linking the consumer needs and how they chose alternatives without even telling you (service provider).

Similarly I have realized that there is something called Hyperactivity. Each of us look at what is happening in our life and think that there is lots of activity going on and get immersed into that. But while you are lost there so many other things are happening around that will impact you in a big way. You can either choose to stay aloof or try and recognize them and if possible understand/influence them.

Yesterday one of my well-wisher returned from abroad. It was his birthday and his wife wanted to give him a surprise. This person is a highly successful, mature, down-to-earth and pleasant person. His wife decided to get all the family, family friends and his friends whom she knew. I was surprised when I got an invite. When I went there I realized that the wife made elaborate arrangements. She organized a banner, she got some garlands, some flowers, and few bouquets. When he came out of the Airport and saw all this, he almost tried to run away from the scene to avoid the embarrassment. All the others at Airport were watching amusingly. Everyone sang the birthday song loudly and poured the garlands, flower petals and bouquets at him. He was definitely caught by surprise. But he was very happy to see all the people he would have wanted to meet. As she said all those who were there were his 1AM friends - when no one cares about you, these people care about you

When I look back at this, I can't stop appreciating the act of the wife. She made her husband the star of the day. For a long time to come he would remember this event.

In this hectic life where we want to maximize returns, minimize costs and optimize everything else, it is so difficult to take time out for some emotions and for making people around us feel good. Though I drove about 50kms I felt it was worth it and I would remember this event for a long time to come.

May God bless him and his family.

It's a cycle and it starts again

Last year around the same time, I started writing queries to the isb-pgp yahoo group to understand how am I places to get admission into ISB. As you all know it's that time of the year when people start getting geared up for their GMAT and then to the applications. Behind each aspirant you would find ambition, dreams, calculations and even frustrations before they decide to go to a B-school while having a successful career.

Life is all about learning, learning what has already been learnt by the human race, at temptingto use that learning to handle present situation and trying to see what is going to come and trying to see if we can add something to the comon body of knowledge.

The message from Prof. Stine reminded me again that the human race has been successful because it has been able to form societies and successfuly support the common objectives. It is important to keep in mind that whenever you succeed in soething, sharing the success and rewards with everyone is what keeps this human society going. It is important that we expand our circle from - me, my family, my extended family, my friends, my caste, my religion, my village, my town, my type to my society and then my co-inhabitants, my ecology ad then to my earth. As of now I can't think beyond my earth, though, may be there is something even beyond.

Another thing I was mulling over was, what's the difference between learning from an expert and an ordinary prof. At ISB we have the the profs who are experts in their field and this question came back to me. From what I have seen, it's the macro perspective that they can give, the clarity that they provide, the wide exposure they have and also the fact that they gave so much for the subject instead of just trying to earn a livelihood, matters a lot. I fell this is what is you miss in the corporate world. There are only very few who give their everything for the cause. May be the corporate cause is not that appealing or may be it is not clear to all those involved.

It is important for all of us to realize that we are living a life and that itself is something great and that whatever we do is not done in vaccuum and therefore affects everything as a whole.

At ISB, we have finished the first half of the first term. We are more or less in an isolation from Hyderabad and we are on a mission. Things are moving pretty fast and in the right direction too. I am getting a feeling that I'm getting into the groove and slowly started enjoying whatever is happening.

Learning a skill

Last four years I had been working in the Learning and Development area and had been discussing about the cycle of learning a new skill. After a long I have started learning a physical skill - swimming. The first thing I have learnt is about the importance of a coach, the right kind of coach. Second the importance of feedback, unless someone tells you what you are doing wrong, you would never know about that. Third is conscious practice, you seem to get the knack almost immediately, but to be able to do that is not easy, you end up doing the same mistake till you consciously start observing what you are doing. Even then at times when you become weak you resort to your natural ways. It's a great learning, particularly because I have decided to work upon one of weaknesses. I always knew that it is a weakness but I have never admitted it consciously to myself and therefore never really worked upon it. But based on the 360 degree feedback I have received I felt it is time for me take it up head on.

I want to use the insight that I have gained while learning swimming to this goal too and I'm sure it would shorten the cycle.

Yesterday we had a great party - we had biryani, music, dance and booze for those who drink. We had invited our Faculty and they did turn up. They were very sportive and had no reservations to shake a leg with us. It was really nice. I shall post some pics a little later, right now I have to catch up with my MGEC assignments.

Dr. Dunked

Fun continues at ISB and this time its my studygroup mate Dr. Viswa's Birthday. Dr. was a willing victim. We led a procession from SV1 to the rec centre. There was a proposal to dunk the mascot, monitor aka maneater, and me (highest CP in marketing. I tried to divert the focus onto others. When we reached the pool excitement was so high that people forgot the birthday boy and went after the monitor and the mascot.

Later they turned to the doctor and he got dunked gracefully. After that they indeed turned to the studygroup mates and me and the other two got dunked and what followed after that sheer madness and by the time the madness ended everyone except the one lady who scared of water got dunked. Then we did a rang-de-basanti type trust dunking. The cake was rightfully used to smear Dr's face completely and in the midst of this some people discovered another secmate is the twin brother of Dr who got separated at birth and did the cake smearing to him too. He must be wondering why that special treatment was given to him. As someone said brothers need not be born under the same roof, after all.

Some pics for you to share the fun:

Midnight dunking begins

Till now lots of dunking has already happened but the first midnight dunking for the class of 2008 happened yesterday. It was A's Birthday and a mail was sent by N to all the Hyderabadi gang. After circulating about 15 mails it was confirmed that we would meet at G's place, which is below A's birthday. About 15 of us reached there, rang the bell and took A in dunking procession. A was very graceful, though he was not comfortable he never resisted. After A it was the turn of his spouse Ch.

Along with the B'day boy three others got arbit dunked. Most hilarious was that of KC. AN is more or less the official photographer of sec E and Hyderabad gang. He has a nice camera. Some pics: