Philip Kotler at Great Lakes!

This happened a couple of years back. Came across it in Youtube. I guess the next time I visit college, must ask the library copy of the whole talk

Memories! A Fortnight Later

Here I am in Mumbai, getting busy with work, getting used to travelling in crowded trains, hit and bully people into getting my inchspace while travelling. However, as I found some time during lunch into checking some pictures on my mobile, I was reminded of B school life at Great Lakes a fortnight back. I had made this as the final video on the evening of the convocation day.

Enjoy it!




Some of the other Videos made during the year were

Heading Westwards!

I was lying in my couch last evening thinking of what I was going to miss. Hmmm....to draw a list, I would be missing my cushy life in Chennai, the lovely empty feeling that I have had in the last one year of relaxing with friends, the midnight binges, 3 am conversations with friends at tea shops,My home theatre system, the wide space of my independent house in Madipakkam.

In a month from now, I would be transported to what they call "The city of Dreams"-Mumbai. I expect it to be fast paced high adrenalin life, from what I hear from Mumbaikars in my college. Its also a foray into a cosmopolitan culture, a culture rather unknown to a home bred Tam brahm like me untill I ventured into GL for my PGPM. As a tourist to any city, one is able to appreciate the finer points of the culture in a city. I guess, I am ready for that. I never saw any merits in Chennai as that was home, and the grass on the other side being greener, I am ready to set foot into a different culture fending for myself.

Right now the mind is trying to picture myself in Mumbai, after I bought the EICHER-Mumbai road map, but the open book of "Financial Statements Analysis and Valuation" is staring at me, as I dream about Mumbai and the life there. The only flip side to Mumbai is that even after an MBA, you live life like a lower middle class guy, with congested office spaces and houses, as the cost of living seems to be really high, but its worth the compromise, given the vibrant nature of the city and the raw energy the city exudes(I am told that). Chennai.. ...You've given me a peaceful life, unmindul of the competition and the big bad world out there, but its that time of my life where I need to explore, what it feels to live alone in the big bad world, in what they call India's nerve centre....and as a travel enthusiast, I can only hum the wonderful Kishore da number... "Musafir hoon Yaaron...." as I prepare to be a Mumbaikar.

Slog Overs!

I am starting to feel done and dusted with the MBA. I feel its dragging now. There seems lesser interest after placements in the course, but with a month and a half left for the course to end, I feel I must put an end to this feeling of misery within me. I have decided to revise all the subjects that I have learnt atleast briefly, to feel complete in all aspects. The slog overs and countdown starts now. The feeling of frustration is more exemplified by the fact that money worth 60k is still pending from two companies that I have been assosiated with (One former employer in Chennai, and other the company where I interned in November). I do some consulting work for them and havent recieved my payments due to some red tapsim. As a student, you realise the pinch of money more than any other time! add that to some pending assigments and term papers that involves quite an effort to complete. Its like climbing everest with eyes blinded! Any way enough of cribbing, I shall get back to work.

Life is Better!

Right now, am relaxing at home. Placement season is still on, though Placement day is over. The rest of the batch unhappy with profiles or money are busy attending more interview at Campus for the rest of the companies, that couldnt fly down on Placements day. Being a part of placement team was a good experience, especially the nitty gritties in organising it at a Beach resort. Have been hung up on time, so didnt write anything on my blog.

My offers reads like this: Business Analyst at a popular IT company that has the same three letters as TCS, when jumbled(Media Vertical) and a pre placement offer from the place where I interned, for nearly 1 and a half times the salary and a better profile, than company 1. This is probably the best time, to catch up on some snooze and relax to my hearts content, as none of the subjects that had taken, are scheduled this week. I havent been to college for a couple of days, but a couple of assignments and reports are due, which makes my face frown. You seem to have a mirage of relaxation, and the coco shoots a mail talking about pending reports submissions, which we had extended on mercenary reasons of placement.

I feel like taking a holiday, but where to go? Andamans, Goa or Ooty... or some Homestay option rovided by Outlook traveller. Life is starting to look interesting after the mercenary part of the MBA.

Loosen Up!

Midnight binges of finance books and discussions on derivatives, seem to dominate one set of classrooms, while the other class rooms have smaller group giving the last minute touches for the assignments in ERP, while the HR students seem to be involved in some activity, as the class room floor is strewn with straws and origami designs. It seems like a battlefield that is active at all times, except between 6 am and 7 am, when silence prevails as students use this time to head back to the rooms and get some rest. The last few days have been tense, running from one assignment to the other, burning the midnight oil for the finishing touches to the CGPA's before the placement season starts. Hunger and sleep seem to be my main issues, as too many cases and promises stack up. I feel like a over worked battery that has lost the enjoyment in the MBA program.

I just rewound life over the past 3 years . I was dyslexic to coding at Infy, and after 14 months of confidence taking a beating, I decided to quit Infy and join a job that allowed me to breathe. Sulekha seemed the right panacea, but at as time wore on, the enjoyment in the job was slowly getting lesser, due to some politics played by some higher mandarins of power. I battled on challenging myself parallely with CAT and GMAT preparation and finally reached a stage when I again reached a stage where I wanted to breathe again. CAT and GMAT didnt go as well as I wanted it.

I got a new lease of life with an employment in Delhi, but that was shortlived as the Great Lakes MBA call came along after the Otto Beishem admit fell through due to visa delays in a student schengen visa. April to January, I have run this race and discovered some great friends, some free loaders, some brainy nuts and in the process have observed like a passenger observes for hours at a station, with trains one by one passing him, to the extent that he doesnt even remember which train passes, but just remembers that the chillness of the air, when the train passed was an experience to cherish.

Now Cases and assignments dont really get me started all up. I have taken in too many things and am just waiting for a break, but as soon as I get a one day break, the feeling of guilt breakes through, as some case/assignment would lie staring at me. Nor have I got peace nor have the assignments got my attention fully.

There is a sense of tension in the air, as the mind is mentally prepared to adjust to the workload that the excel file instructs to complete, and sometimes a sense of resignation too. For the past 2 days, I had taken some long walks around the campus area into saidapet, with the music on, and that seemed to have cooled my frayed nerves. Frankly that's the best part of the 24 hours that I look forward to thinking about a make believe world, with the songs buzzing in the ear, as I walk along.... thinking about what I want to do about my life.

Life poses many questions with many unfinished ambitions and desires, all of which takes a back seat, during the mad-helter-skelter life at B school. Am I working more hard to get more of this in the years to come? Sometimes when I ask myself this question, I go numb, as the more I work at things that dont exactly give me time to breathe, I go claustrophobic and the small break becomes the whole object of reward for the work, which ultimately affects the work and the break. I spend the whole day wondering why some crazy bunch of CEO's took some path breaking decisions, and suggest ways to break the problem, by some obscure imaginative reasoning, but when the same applies to decisions in my life I just freeze.

What decisions you may ask? Its like a fight between ego, fame, ambitions and the risk factors and the monetary factors. Newer factors get added....to add to the confusion, when life presents with you with too many options. Strange isnt it? You come to the MBA program to have more options and when you have more options in life, it leads to even more chaos when it comes to choosing. I anyway take decisions based on gut feel in the end, after worrying days over it, so I guess nothing new this time around.

Just feel better penning my frustrations. I guess all this would be laughed at when I take a look at this post 2 years later. Thats life... you keep progressing from one state to another, but the catch is that the problems increase in magnitude too :-). So that pretty much means I have to loosen up for the final leg of this 1 year race. I am 75% complete with the MBA....

The Extremes of B-School Life

The best fun at B school happens when you work together on Industrial projects. Everybody follows the cycle of hardworker, lesser-work-mode, the complainer mode, Listener-but-not-doing mode and free rider mode. This would be the knowledge supply chain at group projects, with every one contributing his best and his worst across a given time period. This pic was taken during the Coke Project, where Rajesh is seen explaining to us, with Vinay Krithik, in more than a dormant mode. The alacrity in taking a quick shot, made me awake, or I too would have dozed after a tired day. The whole COKE project was a great excercise in getting to know the various moods and ways in which peers operate and dealing with frustrations of non-performance of various factions from time to time and also dealing with the brilliance of the same group the very next day. But as they say ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, the project was an immensely succesful project, as the smiles on the faces of the Coke honchos said it all!

Photographic Snippets from B School

There are times during coninuous assesments,case studies and night outs, the class room during the day could just be the last thing on your mind. Just to lessen the embarrasment for the prof, we tend to look for a strong well built male/female in the front seat and bask in their shadows as the AC just lulls you into sleep.


Sparks fly in a Placeom meeting. Any casual remark can set the eyeballs against you! This was shot in a meeting we recently had for discussing the status of our work assigned to us.

Some of the best ways to fool a prof is to say you have conjunctivitis and close your eye, but my friend Ashutosh is doing something far removed from that. This is a pic taken in Prof Shriram's class on Strategy, where Ashu was subjected to a blind test, to check whether his tounge could detect the different cola brands as part of our case analysis of Pepsi vs Coke. Lucky Dawg! Got free cola in class :-)

Oh! These so called discussions for presentations. If each one were to work individually for 10 minutes and then present his views life would be a lot easier and productive, but given the hi-fi management students that we are, we use the laptop to convey ideas, files and presentations. I found out the other day when we were to analyse a case in class, every body was speaking arbit things and fiddling their ideas on the lappy, and with 3 minutes to go, we couldnt help noticing that we had hardly progressed, and then the mouth just worked, with a ramshackle of 3-4 basic slides. So much for technology!!!

When one was working, it was all about the fight of "I-will-pay-the-bill", followed by the first few weeks of going dutch at B school outings. Now after Management Accounting, we follow Activity Based Costing strictly when we hang out at high priced shops.

Power Talk: Mr. Rajesh Gupta, MD, Bearing Point

MD, Bearing Point, India addresses students at Great Lakes

In continuation of power talks arranged at Great Lakes in the month of September Mr. Rajesh Gupta MD & General Manager of BearingPoint India entity (a captive unit of BearingPoint, Inc.) addressed students at Great Lakes here. Mr. Rajesh Gupta is responsible for development of business operations strategy for global sourcing assignments covering strategy and assessments, developing sourcing business models and conducting operational assessments, building service provider capabilities, and managing relationships. He is currently managing a team of 350+ professionals in India centre. For about 2 hours he spoke elaborately about the topic, illustrating it with quite a lot of examples from his own experience as a consultant and as a leader of a top notch company with consulting as the mainstream business.

He defined consulting as “sale of advice” – unbiased recommendation and solution to problems faced by various client firms with an “outsider looking in” approach. He said that, the three fundamental steps in a consulting project are: to diagnose the problem, device solution and implement it. He stressed upon the importance of knowledge management in a consulting business ie… knowledge acquisition, consolidation and exploitation. It is important to learn by experience dealing with customers and apply this knowledge appropriately for a new problem and a new customer. He observed that it is difficult to always find all the right people a customer wants in terms of specialization and credentials, in which case it is necessary to collaborate with competitors and exploit the synergy of resources. He also touched upon the fundamental differences in the way core consulting firms like Bearing Point and other multi-business companies with consulting as one of their verticals operate in Indian scenario.

Talking about the growth opportunities in India, he noted that global clients increasingly want to exploit the off-shore advantage which India provides. The overall domestic demand is also on the rise due to booming sectors like financial services, knowledge management, entertainment & media, aviation, hospitality and retail sector. He was optimistic about the upswing in global demand for both analytical consulting based on data crunching and management consulting by working closely with clients.

Towards the end of the lecture, he spoke about the values, ethics and passion that one needs to inculcate and the need to align what one does, sees & says, for succeeding in a business. He cautioned that while starting a business, one has to be conscious of the following: wrong reasons for choosing a business, importance of being passionate, choosing the right team, right business plan and how one is different from others while doing that business.

The session was an eye opener for the large group of students at Great Lakes who have ambitions in consulting career. The lecture gave a holistic view of the challenges and opportunities in consulting business and the thumb rules to follow when one gets into it. The audience enjoyed the experience and it showed in the enthusiasm with which they interacted with the guest of the day. Mr Gupta on his part expressed happiness on the high level of participation and enthusiasm displayed by Great Lakers and pledged his continued association with the institute.

Greek, Latin and a Million Dreams!

There are times, when you put a lot of enthusiasm into a project or a case study, but things dont always have to work out in your favour. I seem to be having quite a lot of problems deciphering questions on tests. You feel deflated when some of the questions seem greek and latin, and you realise that the whole night went by without any use, even though one has put so much effort for tests. A few more tests like this and it could be like driving a bike through a road of rusted nails always. 3 terms over and I have just stepped into term 4.


The Past week went off so quickly. After a Bangalored Weekend on September 1st,which was eventful for the following reasons- ESPN STAR CRICKET DREAM JOB, BANGALORE AUDITIONS, DAY 2

7 am: I get up at Prasanna's house.

7 20 am: All set to leave Malleshwaram, and I have no cash, and Prasanna fills my purse with 2 hundered rupee notes.

7 21 am: I get an Auto and ask it to go directly to St John's Auditorium, which takes a lovely fresh morning ride and at the stroke of 8 I am at the place with a suitcase and a laptop bag

8 01 am: Tempted to taste the Bangalore Sambhar, as I was feeling hungry.

8 20 am. The ESPN team asks me to wait outside the gate and the folks who have come with all dreams and ambitions (me too!) feel neglected


Mera Number Kab Ayega?


Waiting till Eternity... for the Gates to open

9 20 am: We are still waiting near the Gate while the walk in starts, and to pass time, I see the ESPN anchors interviewing some candidates from yesterday's selected list. Giving an Interview is a Mallu B school Professor, and a Die Hard cricket grandad from Tiruchi


Thats the Mallu B School Prof being Interviewed



Nothing More looked surreal than Shaan's song

Ankhon mein Sapne Liye

Ghar Se Ham Chaal to Diye

Jaane Ye Raahen Ab Le Jayegi Kahan

Mitti ki Khushbu Aye

Palkon mein Asoon Laye

Palkon pein Rah Jayega Yadon ki Jahaan

Manzil Nayi hain, Anjaana Hain Karvan

Tanha Dil, Tanha Safar,

Dhoonde Tujhe, Phir Kyun Nazar


Tanha Dil, Tanha Safar

9 30 am: I get entertained when a presenter decides to do "bytes" with me. I might come on ESPN when they telecast the Dream Job, Bangalore Auditions

10 am: Finally, I get to go inside St. Johns College...but have just moved 5 mts from the gate, and thats when Gaurav, the former Channel [V] Vj spots me with my luggage and asks me a few questions on the journey so far. 2 Interviews in 30 minutes, not bad.... celebritydom calling heh!!

10 30 am: Allowed to park my rather tired legs inside the auditorium, but since they have focus lights all over the place, the room is like a cinder. They keep playing cricket and footbal clips in repeated mode for folks to practise, before their turn comes.


11 am: The first 2 contestants are through, while the next 10 are not. Getting insider info from candidates that judges are tough and award a green card only if a majority like the tone and confidence of the commentary. The judging panel is Mandira Bedi, Steve of ESPN Sportscenter International and Sheryl, a producer of ESPN Sportscenter.


12 pm: Hunger Strikes

1 pm: Nature's call, stomach stops rumbling

2 pm: Frustrated, create a scene with the officials about delayed time. They seem to get things done faster, but nothing really improves.

3 pm: All I want is a glimpse of Mandira Bedi, thats enough for me to say "take-aways from the Babe-a-lore trip"

3 46 pm: Kartik Kannan, where are You.... My Name is on every one's lips, as my turn comes next, and I snake through quietly to backstage as the producers of the show seem tense and nervous and pass on instructions to me, to stand at a point, and hold the mike at an angle. This instruction is repeated 10 times and at 3 55 pm, Folks.... Kartik Kannan is greeted with a genial smile from Mandira Bedi...and once Mandira smiles at you, with her V Cut dress, I start to melt..

A few questions on Blogging( Thankfully, I do this in every interview to confuse the interviewer and make them ask questions on that, the old ruse still works!!) and podcasting and the commentary bit of 30 seconds gets completed in 20 seconds as they seem to be pretty much ok with my voice and modulation. I get the coveted " GREEN CARD"


3 59 pm: VJ Gaurav meets me outside the hall for what would be my third interview


4 15 pm: The camera crew and anchors want to do a profile shoot with me, and I am encouraged to go on boasting till one of the studio lights goes Kaput. 4 interviews, no food, and NOT A bloated ego....thats a Cricket Fan for you....


5 15 pm, After scores of re takes, I give up and excuse myself for what would be my first morsel of food in quite a few hours...a samosa outside Koramangala BDA.


6: 00 pm: I take another auto heading to Bangalore Majestic, where I meet up with my friend Prasanna, and we rewind to our engineering college days, and as usual we have our dinner at "Hare Rama Hare Krishna", our favourite meeting place right next to the Railway Station Booking Office



Conversations around Dinner end up like this when the bill takes a little long to come.



I boarded a bus to Chennai and arrived on Sunday, the 2nd and quickly went home for a bath and was ready to go to ICFAI Business school, where I was invited as the guest faculty for taking a 90 minute session on E-Commerce and E business in the afternoon. The session went off very well, with no body sleeping in my session. That was a benchmark I generally observe. If folks sleep during a lecture, it might mean that the person delivering the lecture is not really making an eddort to connect with the audience. The only occaisson I remember people dozing and waiting to get out was a Lecture I delivered in early 2006, at the Rotary Club in Boat Club Road, on Corporate Blogging, where a bunch of 50 plus men, were all set for the booze booty that was awaiting them.


Soon after the lecture and a few accolades, I went home and slept like a log.The Week started with the usual hectic lecture and in this melee of ESPN Dream Job, I missed a Chinese test at college and I have to get another date to take the test.

2 Tests scheduled last week,MANAC 2 and FIN MAN2 and both have been moderately bad, and today's Marketing reasearch paper took the cake as it was a statistics paper in disguise that was waiting to a heap a rude massacre on most of the students. You feel like a worn out and overused socks at the end of such question papers, but today was different, as one glance at the paper revealed, It was instant death.


The Paper said it was 70 minutes long ....and here I was feeling for the first time that we had been allocated overtime for a question paper, and come to think of 70 minutes( Sattar in Hindi), I was reminded of Shah Rukh Khan's speech in Chak De India, ..... and rephrased it in my own words as I was glumly staring at the question paper.


Sattar Minut Hain Tere Paas


Shayad


Tumhari Zindagi ke sabse "Khaas" Sattar Minut


Aaj tum Acha mark karo ya Bura,


Yeh Sattar Minut tumhe zindagi Bhar Yaad Rahenge ( Kyun Nahi....? )


Kaise Mark score karna, Aaj tumhe koi nahi baatayega( Oye ! Kisne Padha Hain?)


Jao


Yeh Sattar Minut Jee Bharkar Mark Karo...aur Khoob Maro


I couldnt help laughing.... but just to get facts right, I used only 20 minutes, before I gave up my paper, as it was tough using probability to answer questions of the True or False Type...

There ends a week, a long one, that started with a milion dreams of Celebritydom, and soon nadir followed with the three tests. 5 weeks to go before I become a 50% MBA.

Sleep Deprived Soul

That's what the MBA has made me into. I sleep in bursts now. I generally work till 3 or 4 in the morning and get up at 6 30 to get started with whatever remaining work, including a quick breakfast, and a cursory glance of the case study to be done. There are times I do feel tired during the day, I just manage to catch a few winks... say 5 minute power siesta sessions, but I seem to realise how tired I am when I go back home and lie on my bed. My body seems attracted to the bed like an iron filing to a magnet. Life is interesting ....but its also tough!

It's All About the New Media, Honey!

Susan King at Great Lakes Institute of Management

Susan King of the Carnegie foundation was here last week. She spoke to us on the importance of corporate communication. She was stressing on the fact that if one doesn’t tell his story, somebody else will in this era where the better communicator wins. She was giving examples of how George Bush Senior beat Ronald Reagan in the US elections, thanks to a better branding campaign that was carefully built around a communication that made Bush more aggressive and Reagan more wimpy. She also touched upon the changing paradigms of competition in the new economy, and how communication has started to be more than just the print and TV media ,by extending across social media on the web like Blogs,discussion forums and social networking forums like Myspace. She also spoke on her role in the Carnegie foundation for doling out cash for organizations and causes. Susan was accompanied by her daughter and Rathna Mukherjee(Cultural Affairs, US Consulate)

Here’s a heads up of Susan King’s profile.

Susan Robinson King is vice president, external affairs, director of Journalism Initiative, Special initiatives and Strategy. She is responsible for the Corporation's relations with outside groups and devising strategies to ensure the Corporation's work has an impact on society. She oversees the Corporation's communications including its publications, web site and media and dissemination grant program. She leads the Corporation's Journalism Initiative, begun in 2005, which focuses on university based journalism education, its role in America's research universities, in preparing the next generation of media leaders and its commitment to strengthening journalism's seminal position in a democratic society. She spent twenty years as a journalist covering national and international issues and before joining the foundation served as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Department of Labor.

During her years as a journalist, King was both anchor in Washington television and a political analyst known for cover story reports on politics, diplomacy and major issues of the day. She worked for ABC News and served as a White House correspondent during the Reagan administration. She has reported for CNN and served as host for CNBC's Equal Time, NPR's Talk of the Nation and WAMU's Diane Rehm Show. She began her career working for Walter Cronkite and became an on air reporter in Buffalo, New York.

Compensatory Off?

Thats one term you would never hear in a B school, even in your wildest dreams. One keeps working close to 18 hours in a day, sometimes even 20, but you dont get to sleep those extra few hours the next day or take an extended weekend. At B School, we seem to live every day as if it were last day, and never seem to complain, except for the odd shrug, when you get a few minutes of free time belching over lunch. There is madness and mayhem in the volume and the quality of work given, and you need to multitask activities to ensure that nothing goes wrong.

Oh ya! between all this, you still have profs who dont tolerate dozing in the class to make up for lost sleep, and it can be quite a challenge in such classes to survive the class without the prof noticing your frame droop like a dead body. Some times life is crazy and complex and if you thought I work hard and am doing great at B School, I shudder to say that I have a lot of things pending still and I keep running with a damocles sword over my neck.

This has become my default schedule

Reach college at 9 15 am
Read News Papers for 30 mins
Check out pre reading material and close it before I start pre reading
Classes till 6 pm with a few breaks of 15-20 mins
6-6 45 Dosa Tiffen at a nearby hotel
7 - 9 - Work on research project
9 30- 12 - work on current market researcg project
12 15 - 2 15 am, lie down and sleep on the bench.
2 30 am to 5 am- See the case study/problems for home work to conclude at 5 am, that this has gone above my head.
5 am- Start the bike and head home.
5 30- Have my bath in Hot water to sleep well...
7 45 am Get up in a frenzy and quickly get ready...now with a Cold water bath, to shake off all signs of laziness.
8 15 breakfast with THE HINDU.
8 35 Start from home to college

The 2 Terms at Great Lakes so far

Updates from Term-3 at B- School

One of the things B school education prepares you is for handling Murphy’s law at any point of time. I’ve experienced it twice at B school and sometimes going for a certain class seems like Timbuktoo playing Australia and playing to survive and extend the game. There are so many activities apart from class room education like assignments, pre reading sessions, class participation, committee work, personal development and ....a plethora of things. Now the trick and challenge is to spare your energy for the best, but how can other activities be regarded inferior? There is also the possibility of laying it too thin and seeming mediocre across the activities. Its like wearing the war paint and ready to strike on all occaissons, which seems easy on a blog to type, but so far has seemed difficult to follow. Amidst all this work , some favourite hobbies tend to be sacrificed and all off a sudden there is no back up to cushion on that stress that seems to gaining day by day. B school life is never about pick and choose your best. Its about a defining experience in knowing how well you fare across all the things and then picking and honing your best, even as you digest the fact that you are not cut out for certain things or certain types of behaviour.

One slack activity in a session and people start to judge you and evaluate you, and a certain recognition sticks on after a term or 2 for the better or worse. To help you further Murphy’s law conspires against you to project you in a light that you just didn’t want to see yourself in. Now when you are all at sea with the activities, you obviously seek respite, and I mean immediate respite to start feeling good. What do you to feel good, when the group around you is making hay while you bask in the search of feeling good? The group is feverishly working on the next assignment, while you still are seeking for that one activity that would help you get into an inflated state of enjoyment. You seem to have done something , that you haven’t done in years like, call a friend or read a funny novel or see back to back movies, only to come back and realise that you spent too much time over relaxing while the world at B school has progressed by pages and concepts. You stare at your face in the mirror, wondering what’s hit you....and why do you have so much of a backlog...and as you wonder you realise that you have been wondering for 6 hours as its now 5 30 am, and the first thing you notice is that the guys who were studying at a feverish pace last night, have just finished studying and retiring to bed , even as you hazily watch them.

Since competition is fierce in various spheres, no love is lost between folks and this only seems to bring out a certain cut throatedness in handling situations or shows insouciance in its various forms. B school education will bring out a burning fire in your inner gut, when you see that if you put 100% commitment and the other guy puts 20% commitment, sometimes your work tends to get overshadowed by the other and in some situations, because of the other insouciant partner, you tend to get penalised.

B school life is about a 100 threads connecting various persons with different levels of dependency and when each one pulls the rope without a synergetic team focus, chaos reigns and each person would want that much of the rope that would save his day. Competition becomes intense and it translates to a battle in the mind to win the required component. This is where one sees secretive alliances and survival strategies in its own small way that builds the faculty of the B schooler preparing him for the onerous challenges in the corporate environment.
B school life is all about 2 things, namely accepting the fact that failures will come, and secondly to think on your feet, to be mentally agile and active in all periods. It doesn’t matter if you have been knocked down, but you need to realise that even worse knocks are in store and proceed to get up and run to knock the next person. Losing, if you are used to it, can be the most refreshing experience at B school life, as one needs to see the flip side of life to accommodate it in one’s value system. Another thing that comes to mind along these lines is the need to try out various things at B school, so that you know for sure what are your strengths and weaknesses.

I have so far made many mistakes and been knocked out several times, but when I reflect back, I realise that the knocks were taken because I was adamant about not protecting myself against an impending onslaught. After the knocks, I was too scared to get up and was slowly pushing myself against the ground aimlessly, but given that the traffic is high, one risks the ignominy of getting run over and the whole objective of coming here was to run the race and complete it rather than vying for the 1st or 2nd position. Each race runner has a special skill and will find his band of admirers from the corporate world. Its all about being positive and starting to run with a smile all over again, and invest in hope, as this is the only thing that can give Murphy’s law and bad luck a run for its money.

I have started running.... More updates as I keep running over the course of 8 terms.

A Day in the Life of a "Great Laker"

It was amazing fun designing the concept of this video and of course technical inputs from an enthusiastic group at college. This video is about my MBA life, the moods of people across a time line

Here goes the Video- Would Love to hear your feedback.

"Meet the Dean Sessions" at Great Lakes

Dr. Bala V. Balachandran, Our Honorary Dean will meet the prospective students as per the schedule mentioned below.

Chennai 27-July-2007 7 to 8:30 pm

Great Lakes Institute of Management,

24 South Mada Street Srinagar Colony, Saidapet Chennai - 600 015

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Bangalore

29-July-2007 7 to 8:30 pm

Ramana Shree BruntonBrunton Road, Off M.G. RoadBangalore - 560 001

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Mumbai

31-July-2007 7 to 8:30 pm

Golden Swan ClubPlot No. 110, Service Road,Off Hanuman Road, Vile Parle (East)Mumbai - 400 057

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Delhi

04-August-20077 to 8:30 pm

INDIA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE 40 Max Muller Marg Near Lodhi RoadNew Delhi - 110 003

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Hyderabad

25-August-20077 to 8:30 pm

The Walden ClubC/o Whisper Valley Near Padma Nair StudioRaidurg (Darga), Jubilee HillsHyderabad - 500 008

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Take a moment to submit the form below with your correct email address, phone number and your City preference at http://www.glakes.org/meetthedean.htm

The Google MBA

Sometimes when I sit back and see an excellent presentation, I realise that the only difference between my group and the other group at college, is the fact that the other group has googled effectively. Nothing bad about Googling, I am just suprised at the amount of learning google provides in various links and readymade presentations. I have learnt quite a lot in the past week, which involved case analysis and presentations. But the fact remains, that in this mad fast paced MBA, one hardly has any time to do a complete and detailed review.The onus is on quick fast skimming of information, and immideate division of chunks of information to be converted to intelligible form to be put on the presentation in a few hours from now. Time seems the most critical element of the 1 year MBA, where if properly and efficiently used, in terms of working out from the texts and additional reading, it makes your knowledge base very strong. But hey..all theory and no practice makes jack a less than dull boy and this is where one needs to deploy all that theory from macro economics,operations and statistics in terms of preparing business plans and attending various conferences /management events. Right now, I am trying to balance both with a skew towards the latter.

Coming up this week

Have been busy lately, so havent been able to update on the blog

Here are some things pending in my notepad

1) Why Snoozing in an MBA program helps you dream better and higher?
2) Life at Great Lakes- An Update from Term 2
3) Marriage of my cousin- A Photograhic review.
4) My thoughts on what makes an MBA and why they are required in the Industry

and of course my sports show this week....so keep tuned in..for updates late tonight.

Interview with Mr Chandresh Dhebar

Mr Chandresh Dhebar had addressed our College students on People Management and business ethics on the 14th of June. Chandresh Dhebar is currently the Chairman of HR Advisory services Pvt ltd in New Delhi.

A small note about Mr Chandresh Dhebar

Chandresh has enriched innovative HR practices at such global corporations like PwC, Adobe, GrapeCity etc. A HR strategist and a motivational trainer, also serves as a member of Human Capital Committee of FICCI. Chandresh is spearheading HR Minds Consulting to boost people revenues at its clients using its pioneering ‘performance with merit’ programme. As a visiting faculty to various business schools, Chandresh is seeding future business leaders with his HR innovations.

Some of the key points of his address were to know oneself very well, have a USP, Create credibility and reliabilty for delivery and finally to orient oneself as a person who executes all actions. He spoke on the subtle differences between promise and commitment and how working on business ethics helps in achieving business and personal goals.

Here are some pictures from the event and a small interview with Mr Chandresh Dhebar, on behalf of the Great Lakes Blogging Team.


Mr Chandresh with Seema Mohanty and Arunachalam.S of Team Gravity (Our Magazine)

Mr Chandresh with Seema and Balaji Sarukkai( The most experienced person with 13 years of Consulting experience)

Arunachalam.S welcoming the Guest, and starting the proceedings

Mr Dhebar on People Management at Great Lakes



Kartik Kannan interviews Mr Chandresh Dhebar


The Interview is shown below