That’s the way I like it

Finally, i booked my site and will continue to blog in my own space..

www.isobee.com

will be active from 1st of october.

do visit and post your valuable comments.

Last mile

last mile in this journey… two more subjects to complete. Simulation Modeling and Managing Large Projects. Simulation Modeling is taken by the favorite IIM prof Mr. Ravichandran. He is the only reason for me to credit that course.

Lot of things is planned here for Alumini Meet and for smooth transition to the next batch. Mr. Ratan Tata is expected to be here by 28th of April.

People who waited have got some good offers and more over they are carrying more than one offer at this time.

Beach side with some friends, late night movies, dinners and in addition to this got my second offer from Satyam. I started to believe, most things happen when least expected.

Offer in terms of pay pack is very similar to that of ITC Infotech. But both are extremely different roles. I would say ITC Infotech is more for an MBA when compared to Satyam’s. In Satyam it is on Data Warehousing.

Hmm… some thing to decide upon over a couple of weeks which is going to decide my track in this journey…

Basics are one of my favorite brands in apparels. Collected some trousers and visited the newly opened Chennai City Centre. Life style has occupied around 75K sq feet. It is really big and awesome. Before that we had only Spencer plaza which of this big. It is very nice to see that lot of big malls are coming in Chennai.

Coming to placements, now the highest salary offered to current batch is around 18 lacs. Surely it will go up, since some of the super laterals are very close in getting the offers. Some of my friends who waited have got some foreign offers. E4E, Oracle, Aranca, Bharati, Threshold Partners, Motorola are some of the recent visitors.

What else can make a man happy who was fighting to bring down his weight for past 6 months? At last after a series and serious of efforts “I AM ON DIET” . What I mean by that ?… Doing more exercise, Intake of low fat food and consuming more water… is that all ? .

Started this morning with Black Tea, Lime and some Honey. I remember when some one used to ask me whether I am a vegetarian or a non-vegetarian? I answered them “strictly Non-vegetarian”. But now I am an eggetarian (only egg).

3 idili’s with two eggs without yolk and some fruits is my breakfast at 9 AM. Cup of rice with 100gms of vegetables occupy my lunch at 1 PM . Orange juice with some biscuits in the evening. At last, end the day with two chapattis. That’s sounds great. I need to stick on this for some time.

Things which I tried recently before this strict diet…
NOW : No Oil Week
SQT : Spending Quality Time
HIS : Have it simple
(planned to register all these )

Jus I feel like shouting ‘Once More’ to my MBA which is reaching its end. I am sure that I will be doing my 2nd MBA in Harvard may be after 10 years.

I am in my last term (8). I have got more than I expected in this journey.

“If you have a dream you will wake up in the morning” Came across this one yesterday and tried it today morning. Just a glimpse of all my dreams walked through me in the early morning…A sudden feel of pressure which pushed from stomach and I woke up without any alarm sharp at 6 AM. What I am doing with my dreams? Am I traveling in the direction to achieve it? (hah I should have slept for some more time.) Let me list it down on what to do for it to be achieved (doing this for the 1000th time). But I am very happy that day by day the clarity and list is growing big.

Hmm…Let I enjoy the ride… rather than enjoying the destination… what do you say

I and my brother went to buy a hip pouch. In the streets of pondy bazaar and T.Nagar it is easy to find all local products and also branded ones. After getting into many shops we initially settled on a leather pouch which cost around 160 rs. We then decided to go to WITCO and have a look. There the pouches are good but quite costly. Pouch range started from 650. Similar to the one which we saw in the local shop cost around 750. After that never my mind allowed me to take the local one. This has happened more than 5 or 6 times in last one month. Am I turning out to be BRAND sick ?

On search of a good restaurant was traveling on the T.Nagar road. Jus stopped my vehicle on a traffic signal and waited. That time a black Pulsar crossed us four seconds after the stop signal. They were riding at least at 60 KMPH. Since the signal was opened for the people on other direction, a car came at a normal speed collided with this Pulsar. Parked my vehicle and went to the accident spot. Two of them were lying in the ground and one was bleeding heavily. Both of them are injured in the head. A police came near and jus passed the words ‘Call the ambulance’ and he went back to his work. Nearly 10 people crowded and were standing around the guys. I went and held the guy who was shivering like anything and tried to calm him down. The man who was driving the car came out and was speaking with the policeman. Nearly 15 minutes went and none of them called a ambulance or took any steps to carry these people to the hospital. At last an auto was stopped and I tried to shift both the guys into the auto. Unfortunately our audiences are not coming forward to help me out in carrying them. Finally some people started helping and now the big question is who will be accompanying them to the hospital?. Waited for a minute and the car driver was asked to go along with them.

I have done this before, carried a person to the Apollo hospital and the process was not that irritating. Just we need to inform them it was a hit and run case. They never bothered me with any further questions. Fortunately he was brought back to life after a struggle of three hours. Even during that occasion none of them bothered to carry the person to the hospital.

I am seriously worried about couple of things. T.Nagar is one of the busiest places in Chennai, where hospitals are very nearby and all facilities are available in that area.
Even in such a scenario people are reluctant to come forward. What will happen to people who met with accident in highways?
Is that the policeman has seen so many such accidents and he is not bothered by this one and very lethargic in taking actions?

Better shout loud to take you to hospital when you are met with an accident…

Watched the complete cricket match ball by ball, collected nearly 10 DVD’s ( 3 movies in 1) from a road side shop of 50 each, some hours on snooker and downloaded some trekking forms…

Post placement all these things are happening… jus wondering what I might be doing if I am yet to get placed. Sure will not be that tough. I am confident that I learned how to crack an interview. Mantra is very simple “Have it simple”. We need to understand the fact that companies are here to pick people who will fit in their requirements. If we are a complex creature, making them to think too much, might create problems…

Okiee… that’s apart. From the collected DVD’s watched the first movie ‘Saving Private Ryan’. Excellent one. It really invoked lot of questions in the mind. How Project Management techniques can be applied in war fields where communication is big problem and most importantly when life are at stakes. If I would have watched this movie say a year back, these thoughts would have never raised in my mind. Is that I should call it a transformation ?…

Happy, worried, frustrated, angry, calm, confident, concentrated and lot more….saw all these faces around me in last two weeks.

Got my first offer from ITC Infotech. Role is quite attractive and need to relocate to Bangalore. My radar focused on three companies. Birla Soft, Mind Tree and ITC Infotech. After losing first two cracked the ITC.

Placement season taught me lot of lessons… very valuable to carry through out. The entire process is very interesting and invigorating. It’s true…tough times show us who we are… and what we are capable of…

I am not sure how I reacted on day one, but on the consequent days bounced back with full confidence. Statuses as of week 1, 70% are placed. We have one more placement week. Since IT companies occupied the initial days BFSI & FMCG students are waiting for their turn.

It is really tough for both companies and management, having the fact that 90% are experienced and more than 50% have work exp of 5 years or more. Some are more specific in the role they are targeting for.

On the other hand still contemplating whether to use my dream card…

Long time… no see…

hectic schedule. Classes are there from 8 AM to 9 PM. slowly started to prepare for the interviews. Out of 10 companies 6 are from IT. Not a surprise but a bit of concern.

As I mentioned earlier, Uncle is around here and we had couple of dinners with him. Believe me; He knows every one in this world. Bidding started for Day 1 and Day 2 companies. Nearly 40 companies are expected in these two days. Lot of work is involved in the area of logistics.

Latest news we got from uncle is ITC has promised to come this year. What else might make these FMCG guys happy? Last week Godrej was here and came up with an excellent pay pack. There would be a very tough fight for Godrej mainly because of that.

One thing I observed in the recent Pre-Placement Talks (PPT). Who ever come makes it sure that their company is the best and is offering the best in the industry.

So things are bright and very positive…

L’Attitude, Started and went well. Speech from Chandrababu Naidu, Jairam Ramesh & Harish Bijoor was awesome. On the event side Business Quiz was outstanding. ICFAI Chennai & ISB Hyderabad grabbed the first and second prize. The entire two hours of it was under the control of ‘Pick Brain’ Giri Balasubramaniam. Questions chosen where really up to the mark. It was damn tough and ICFAI Chennai made a great impression in answering 70% of them correctly.

Now, back to normal life… Caliber point dropped in here for placement talk. Sapient has shown keen interest in laterals… Most importantly Uncle Bala is around here. I don’t think anyone else can drive our placements like him…Next one month will be very crucial to people over here. Started preparing… Let me name this as Operation LTE (Leverage to Excel). If there are better ones pls let me know…

Our maiden annual fest is on the way. It is on 11th & 12th of this month. Mr. Sam Pitroda, Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, Mr. Jairam Ramesh are some of the eminent speakers in this conclave.

Visit the below link for more details:
http://www.glakes.org/lattitude/events.html

No cell phones… no mails… no classes…

Last 3 days got stranded from this running world due to severe fever. I remember the last time when I got sick. It was 2 years back and I took a long time to come out of it.

But this time it was less than 3 days. I have changed my food habits drastically in last one year. I am able to see the positive outcome of that.

In fact this time did a small analysis on the fever and overcoming sickness. My family doctor really got irritated by the questions I asked and at last he said that if he needs to invest he will better approach an Investment Banker and will not take decisions of his own. My intentions were to know about it and not to meddle with it. Anyway a small info on fever…

“Fever is not an illness. Far from being an enemy, it is an important part of the body’s defense against infection. Many infants and children develop high fevers with minor viral illnesses. While a fever signals to us that a battle might be going on in the body, the fever is fighting for the person, not against.”

Okie… Birlasoft & Oracle are here for pre-placement talk.

Yesterday bunked a session of PM and went to watch the match at Chepauk (MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai). Total disappointment, spent nearly 3K for watching the match. I don’t know why these people are still debating on refunding the ticket amount. The match was cancelled due to heavy rain and there are no reasons for these people to hold the money.

6 out of 10 matches I had watched in the same ground. Any way had a chance to walk down the pavilion and also to the pitch. Met all the Indian players and boarded them safely in the bus. Unfortunately South Africans left early, only had a chance to see their kit’s boarding the bus. Sachin was very cute & calm.

Strategic Marketing, Advertisement Management, Value Merger & Acquisitions and Project Management are some of the classes that are currently running. I am crediting two courses in the above list. People who have selected three subjects are having a tough time of sitting from morning 8 AM to 9 PM in the night.

Lot of companies have mailed across asking for dates between December first and third week for pre-placement talk. We have planned to conduct a poll among students in inviting the companies for placements on Day 1.

Students very busy with their laptops…Day dreaming and living in their own world and passing some messages across… all these things are likely to happen when the professor fails to capture the class with his style of teaching and knowledge.

Due to pressure from students some times management brings people directly from corporate. These people are highly knowledgeable in their field or work. But when it comes to sharing them or teaching they lack heavily in that. Really teaching is an art. When people fail in putting the thing across, I strongly feel that there is no point in having them even though they are outstanding personalities in the corporate world.

Okie… coming back to placement, some students here grabbed the opportunity from E-Serve and got through the interview. Very attractive pay-pack. Both Fresher’s and laterals grabbed the offers.

Its mind boggling to work on 130 CV’s to get incorporated in the Placement CD. Four ends need to mutually agree to get the final one. Management, Students, Placement Committee and at last agency who are working on this. But for all the hard work, we have really got an excellent output.

We have made this CD a very user friendly one for the employers. They can do all the searches and pick their gems.

Recent good news is that Sapient Consulting is interested in our profiles. Apart from that the companies which came last year (TCS, CTS, Infosys, ICICI, Godrej, ITC) have promised to be here by next month.

Students who attend the CII Management Mantra have grabbed the calls from HLL, Standard Chartered etc.

Coming back to the CD which we created in flash provides all the search options to the employer. Where he can drill down based on their experience, major, minor and all the possible things. Video part of it is the really high light.

jus be in touch … to know more on what’s happening on placement front.

Specialization terms started. Sectoral Perspectives in Marketing& Business Analytics are the subjects I am currently running with…

Learned more about Marketing in Telecom & Retail sector. Lot of insights.

Business Analytics spoke more about mental models, systematic thinking, personal mastery etc. This was used to be my favorite topic. Recently I found that I am spending more time on discovering the models and implementing it. More over that leads to perfections. Some thing struck to me that perfect persons are hard to handle and the real world doesn’t go easily with them. So I stopped them. But after these classes I am seriously thinking again on framing models. Earlier I use to discover to myself and try that, but now I know some well known models. Let me try this.

The highlight is “How to learn How we learnt” ? if we are able to catch that then making the right model and following it will be easy. More topics will be covered from Peter M Senge’s “The Fifth Discipline” , Edgar H Schein’s Learning cultures, Chris Argyris’s Ladder of Inference, Kolbe’s Adult learning and Kaipa’s Igniting the genius.

Nearly 1000 books are there with me….some are my school books, some are my CAT prep books and lot are my college books.

But they are there safe in cupboards… I never had an idea of maintaining a library. But for the first time this book made me think about it. I feel, I should start a library which has collection of books which I really love and want to have. “THE GOAL” authored by Elihayu Goldratt. Excellent one. “A Must Read One”. If you are a operations guy and want to know more, this will help. If you want sequence the things in life…. This will help. Some or the other this book will be of sure help.

It not only speaks about just about solving issues…The author narrates it with the other things that are important in life. The hero of this one Mr. Alex got into some serious and series of problems in his manufacturing plant. He has to spend overtime in the plant to solve in a regular basis which created some family issues. The highlight is how he solves the operational issues and balances his personal life. I feel this happens to all of us. We concentrate on one thing and misses out the other. Author narrates it in such a way that we feel as if we are into such an issue…

I have ordered my personal copy… First book in my library.

Spent the whole week on selecting the subjects…

As I mentioned earlier, I want to go for a general MBA rather than a specialized one, selected papers from Marketing, Operations, Finance and Strategy. Here we are given the option of selecting n number of papers. But advice from seniors is that it will be difficult if we audit more than two courses in a term.

To major in a particular subject we need to choose 6 subjects in term 5 and term 6. We can audit n number of courses where attendance is compulsory but need not take up the final exam.

So I have chosen 4 from Marketing, 4 from Operations and 2 from strategy and 1 from finance.

My initial thought was to take up operations and strategy. But as of now, very few subjects covered under it. So decided to go with the above mentioned mix. I know it is not an optimal mix. But still I get cleared on other things. let me have these things open…