A Walk to Remember !

One fine afternoon, I and my friend started our journey to the classroom for the first lecture of corporate governance course here in the last term. We started our usual discussion on how we want the course to be (given that it is the last term), how the prof. would be, how much the workload be, given that she will be teaching us for the first time and no one has any idea how she teaches as she has recently joined the institute.

On our way to classroom, walking down the corridor (devoid of any 2nd year student and full of the anxiety of final placements of the batch); my friend notices that the new professor is behind us, possibly towards the same classroom to take the first lecture of her course. He hinted the same towards me, and we came to an instant agreement (rarely arrived at between two MBA grads on any damn topic and that too at a lightening speed!) that we should mark our words and discuss limited stuff in the remaining part of our journey to the classroom. At once I thought why not discuss something really good on Corporate governance and act smart and then I realised that I was suffering from ‘Bounded Rationality’.

Gradually we realised that the distance between the prof. and us was slowly reducing and my friend was continuously keeping a watch on the developments like a manager trying to foresee what will happen in the immediate future. And then we started “moderating” our behaviour to look like ‘normal’, of course we are going to be managers soon and hopefully we have learnt that art by now (we hoped!). But again the reality was far different than what we wished it to be, possibly in our last term we did not have energy or enthusiasm and we were crawling to the classroom (a part of the brain trying to justify the remaining part that we need to attend lectures) so the distance was reducing. At the same time the professor is looking forward to meet the budding managers of tomorrow in the first ever interaction that she would be having with the 2nd year students, so she was walking a little fast, maybe she did not wanted to be late for the first ever opportunity to talk to 2nd year students.

Whatever! The distance was decreasing and again the two of us came to another agreement that we needed to speed up, the classroom doors are now visible and we should be able to reach them well before we have to greet the professor. My friend glances backwards a bit trying to hide the fact that he is continuously checking on where the professor is at any point of time. Front and then Back, front and then back, it is like we are almost there, (it is like I made 5 strong points in the GD and I should be just in the next round of the process), like we are sure our speed was just right to be able to get into the classroom before encountering the professor. We were almost confident that even if we cannot make sound arguments in the case discussions this was too basic for us to fail and that even if we do not know how to calculate the financial ratios we were very sure that we calculated our speed quite accurately. We were mechanically doing the same repetitive job, look front and then back, front and then back, front and then back; sounds something like the routine job at work everyday.

Suddenly we realised that the professor was right there behind us and we could very well wish her a good afternoon just by turning back. At the same time we were puzzled as to how this could have happened and we didn’t even realised, that we did not do the same repetitive task well. We did picked up some speed or at least we thought we did or is it the complacency that has occupied our mind before we even started our managerial carrier. How can the distance reduce to such an extent despite my friend keeping a close tab on the “developments”, the shock and surprise can well be described similar to what the financial world had got when they were hit by the sub-prime completely unaware. Well the ‘right sense’ came to our mind like a ‘bail-out’ package and we turned back and greeted the professor. She smiled and said “Don’t worry guys I am not following you”.

Well she noticed that my friend was continuously keeping a tab on the “developments” and it was rather obvious that we were trying to run away. Anyway we got another ‘bail-out’ and we realised that she was carrying a lot of course handbooks for the class and that we should offer some help on the same. Like our financial industry (after the bail-out), my friend too got new boost of energy and rushed towards the classroom door and kept it open for Mad’m to enter and I decided that very moment that I am going to pen it down...... errr "pen it down" or should i say "type it up"..... whatever !!!

Rating Agencies and Accounting Firms – fixing the responsibility?

The first session of corporate governance course started on a good note, why am I terming it as ‘good’, well was some good participation from each corner of the class. During the discussions the prof. made a point that accounting frauds and false rating by rating agencies are some of the important challenges while addressing the concerns of corporate world. Well, people sounded that it is difficult to penalise monetarily the accounting and rating agencies and usual norm is to rotate the accounting firm periodically (the regulation that came in after Satyam) and refer to credit rating of a firm by multiple rating agencies.

Yes, it is difficult to quantify the penalty that should be applied to accounting or rating agencies because they are not running the business, they are dependent on the managers to provide them with the necessary documents (that too only when asked), and that the size of the client company can be even 100 times the revenue of these accounting firms and rating agencies. We cannot ask these to compensate for the fraud in these big firms, the accounting and rating agencies will go bankrupt in just 1 fraud incidence. But does that means there is no way to make them liable, financially responsible for the fraud that could have been averted by ‘due’ due diligence by these firms.

I am not sure if there are already some experimentation done in this regard in some corner of the world but surely one can come up with some logical and acceptable solution.

You can make these firm pay for the proportionate amount of their own worth in terms of damages if there happen to be a fraud e.g. an accounting company with Rs 100 crore in revenue, acting as a accountant for a Rs 10,000 Cr company. Take a case that the client has done some fraud amounting to Rs 5,000 Cr, then the accounting firm should be made liable for 50% of its own worth i.e. it should be asked to pay Rs 50 Cr in terms of damages to the affected stakeholders.

Now the above argument can be contested on the ground that the accounting firm can have 10 different clients and out of which only 1 did a fraud so it is wrong to penalise the firm solely taking into account the fraudulent firm. OK lets modify the above statement a little bit, lets the total worth of all the clients of the accounting firm is Rs 1,00,000 Crore and 1 firm did a fraud of Rs 5,000 Cr in that case the accounting firm can be asked to pay Rs 5 Cr in damages. Well this can be very well too small for a accounting firm and may not make a significant threat!!!

Let us look at it differently, say that the same accounting firm has earned a total of Rs 50 Cr (present value) in term of fee towards its accounting services for the fraudulent firm. One can straight away ask the accounting firm to pay the same in damages.

Similar ideas can be put down for rating agencies as well and the final solutions (just and acceptable) can very well be a combination of the above three points or may be altogether a better option. But fixing the liability in financial terms is quite possible and can be done. May be there exists some sort of formulae that even I am not aware of; and the whole effort that I have put in while writing this is useless!

The World is Flat or it isn’t

Room 67: Let us go to Canteen and have some quick snacks?
Room 68: Oh, I just went and come back. BTW you planning to go out for dinner, today mess food is bad :(
Room 67: Let me chk and I will confirm in about an hour.

Thomas L. Friedman has written “the world is flat” where he has mentioned how beautifully the emergence of internet as a means of communication and information exchange has facilitated the birth of Indian IT industry where the projects are executed offshore without jeopardising on the quality but with reducing the costs. I was having this discussion with my friend yesterday about the evolution of Web 2.0 and user forums like mouthshut.com etc. The common starting point is that internet is so easily available that it is the first choice if you want to communicate to your friends, peers forget the unknown people.

The starting of the post is common form of communication between two rooms physically 5 ft away. I was wondering that whether the internet has increased or decreased the distances between individuals. If at one side it has made possible the interaction between two unknown individuals in different continents but at the other side it is replacing the personal communication between other two individuals would have met in person had internet not been in the existence. How do you evaluate the impact of this on human behaviour?

Man is a social animal, a lot is happening on the basis of personal rapport and relations that an individual develops over time, the relationship builds on trust and confidence when you physically meet and talk to someone. Verbal communication is just 1 criteria, you judge an individual by his body language, facial expressions, appearance and related physical surroundings etc. What implications will the internet have on the personal communications with the ‘known’ and ‘near’ people?

Let’s say 5 years down the line I want to watch a movie with my friend and he lives nearby but we do not want to take the trouble of physically going to a cinema hall and stand in a queue, take tickets and then watch the movie with 100 other people. Instead both of us log on to a movie streaming site on internet, enter into the same screen room, connect to the some personal instant message (or voice) window and start seeing the same film at real time and discuss it over the chat/voice window. But what do we do at intermission, I can't tell him that lets go and try some ‘crisy corn sandwich’? Or can I? Well I am talking 5 years down the line and surely we dial the same fast food chain, order what we want to order and it will be delivered over to our doorstep. “Hey do you think that guy has put a little extra cheese in the sandwich today?”

Room 68: Arey, wake me up for 3 pm wala class?
Room 67: Abe kya…. Put an alarm instead na?
Room 68: No bhai, I never know when I will put it off and sleep again, look you don’t have to take any additional trouble, I am leaving my chat window open and speaker on full volume, just ping me until I ping you back saying “yes, I am awake and ALIVE” !!!!

Wait a sec, did you say alive? I mean ALIVE !!

Politics and MR

Three of the Indian states have just gone through the assembly elections and I was reading an article which was discussing how the perception of voters is about the different political parties in that states. The article talked about what people expect from the political parties when they are in power, which issue favours which political parties etc. Wait a sec; did I just say perception of political parties amongst voters!

So here comes the question; is there an opportunity to apply the concepts learn in MR to position 1 political party amongst each other on the perceptual space of the voters? Well there is but whether it can be applied in Indian scenario I am not sure. We have national brands and regional brands here (read national parties and regional parties).

The need satisfied is favourable economic environment, job opportunities, social security and availability of products and services at affordable rates. The need manifest into wants and here comes the problem, our votes want the candidate of their caste/religion. I do not think there is any confusion over the needs, they are universal but whereas those needs manifest into a want of suitable, educated, and eligible candidate in a developed world, in India those needs manifest into a want of candidate of own caste/religion irrespective of his professional and personal records at the nearest police station.

If I talk about getting a survey done to identify the current positioning gap in the voters perceptual space and then positioning a political party appropriately depending on which social or political issue is most able differentiate amongst all the parties. However, the question that should be answered first is whether there is a need to differentiate the political parties by using perceptual maps. In India the political parties are not competing on functional aspects but on trivial issues. The consumers (voters) are not evolved enough to evaluate the promise offered by these parties rationally and take a sound decision. Rather the political parties have made sure that the voters who vote remain in the lowest level of their maslows hierarchy of needs and do not look beyond the religion and poverty.

I feel that these politicos understand the management more than us, i.e. we always talk of moving the customers up the value ladder but the politico has rightly identified that the best way for their survival is customer remain in the most basic level of their needs and only look for the core product offering. So I think MR has its application in Politics but we do not require it in Indian scenario.

Social Loafing and Diminishing rate of return

A very strange title, it may not make someone read the whole post; or will it? Well, to make people read it, I am keeping it short. Without referring to anything specific I want to tell you that I encountered the two concepts recently. Let’s say you are required to do a job for a social cause and you want to do it (so you had committed yourself to it) but then you know there are many who are volunteering to do the same job, your effectiveness decreases. OB guys will say social loafing and economist will say the marginal production (incremental job done) curve follows a diminishing rate of return. Do you know Tragedy of the Commons?



Take another example, Mr K usually gets numerous opportunities to attend conferences and he may substitute the next opportunity of attending a conference with a weekend retreat. Mr Y who usually does not get a chance to attend any conferences may compromise on his regular business and even willing to travel moderate distance to attend the same conferences. The utilities of both the events are different to both the individuals. Sometimes I feel (privileged) people have a tendency of discounting the true value of the most basic things in our life. Or continued success may give someone a false impression that one is fully equipped to overcome any sudden changes in the environment. No wonder strategist’s have modified five forces of Porter to include ‘Complacency’.

Songs – melody or contextual melody

Which one has more effect on you, the melodious songs or the songs with a context that you are familiar with? Which songs do you frequently listen, songs with some history (about the singer, band, or movie) or song that you just like listening? Is it only the song OR the associated video that makes it more interesting (Yes, i do not like the second half of chiggi-wiggi)? Sometimes you like a song from a unknown language so context is out of the question (remember las ketchup or Alizee); or is it not? You may be influenced by what others have said about that song, the stories that you hear about that band, that singer (the whole fuzz about Attaullah Khan, created by T-Series), does it not affect you? Sorry, for asking too many question but this is what I have been thinking for a while.

So let me give you a clearer picture. This is about my liking for songs, I feel that I am more likely to like a song if I see the corresponding movie (ehh may be applicable to bollywood movie). Though I am not sure if the vice versa holds. To give you an example, when I first heard ‘Love Aaj Kal’ songs I didn’t like them, but then after I have seen the movie, I started liking the songs. So there comes the question of context? Is it that after I know the context in which the song is being played in the movie, I start to move in the FLOW of the song.

Again is it only the context or just because I have heard the songs so many times now, I have developed an affinity to them, and I started liking them. I say this because I liked so many English songs after hearing them for over 100 times! This happened during my graduation, as it was the time when I heard English songs for the first time in my life. There are songs which I did not like in the beginning and then as I heard them every day (Thanks to my neighbours) I developed a taste for them. Most of my English songs collection has the same story. The context is not there, but there is a ‘late’ melody. I mean I did not found the songs melodious in the first 10-15 hearing.

And then the context can also have two meanings, the context of the movie and the contextual situation when you heard the songs for the first time. The songs may pop up good old memories in you whenever it is being played. For e.g. Asoka and DCH songs remind me of my first semester at IIT and Fashion songs remind me of my Summer Internship when I was on my way to Pune from Mumbai (I watched that movie in the bus). Why am I writing this????

Well I am not really sure what made me like the ‘Love Aaj Kal’ songs when I first disliked them and I kept thinking, unable to reach conclusion, I thought why not confuse others :) Do you really know why you like a particular song?

Ulta-Pulta

Wonder which one is the correct news.....!!! and yes, the shortest post ever by me. Date is 16th September 2009.

Generation GAP and Cinema

I had a course on Consumer Behavior (CB) this term and in the end-term examination of that course there was one question “Write and explain 5 values of Indian youth and what implications do they have on product consumption?” I remember in the course there were several chapters on how the consumer attitudes are changing with time and all sorts of terminologies have come up over time, ‘Baby Boomers’, Generation Y and Generation X etc. Though these terms are used for US population in general but the notion of changing customer attitude towards cannot be denied in Indian scenario and its implications are quite visible.

I was listening to Hindi songs after the CB exam and I generally keep my winamp on random mode with the entire hind songs collection put in the list. The songs that was played was ‘papa kahate hai’ from QSQT. The next song that the winamp played was ‘Koi kahe Kahata Rahe’ from DCH. ‘papa kahate hai’ start with “……Doston…. Shukriya…..party…..humare liye college ka yeh aakhri din hai aur mein jaanta hoon ki aane wali zindagi ke liye sabne kuch na kuch soch rakha hai……’ and then the songs starts with ‘papa kahate hai’ which says that ‘koi engineer ka kaam karega, koi business mein apna naam karega’. Now recollect the starting of ‘koi kahe kahata rahe’ from DCH, it starts with “….. who the hell cares where the hell we land up……”. Recollect that just before these lines the hero starts by saying that college passouts will go for higher studies and some will join their family business, some with start their own ventures and the response that the hero gets the crowd is a BIG BOOOOOOOO, he suddenly change the track and says “….who cares where the hell we land up…. Lets party……..”

Now let me talk about the commonalities in the context of these two songs, both the songs have a background of college graduates in their final graduation party and partying ways from their friends. Apart from diametrically apart attitudes of these two generations there is another thing common to these two songs which rather struck me a little late, and I want you to think of it till I finish my main story. So the main story is how cinema is sometimes a true reflection of a society or as the CB book put it cinema forms a part of cultural gatekeepers who screen the fashion and decide which trend gets a representation in the wider communication to public. The attitude towards life is definitely changed over the period of time. From ‘papa kahate hai’ to ‘koi kahe kahata rahe’ Indian youth has become more adventurous and risk taking, do not want to really lose their freedom so early by committing to job and increased responsibility. You can find out several contrasting themes from early 90s to early 2000s in Indian cinema and figure out yourself how the contemporary Indian youth is very different from its previous counterpart. These differences results in changed preferences towards many products, need for new products and services which the marketers constantly look for. Now that was a part of my answer that I wrote in the end-term examinations and I surely do not want to pen it down here.

Well, before I end the post, I hope you figured out the other similarity between the two songs I mentioned in the beginning of this post. Yes, both songs feature Aamir Khan!

The abused Advertisement

Consumers are bombarded with a lot of advertisement involving every possible media - The billboards, radio, TV, newspapers, mobiles, movie screens and web. We don’t care whether the ad was for detergent or chocolate. I remember seeing a new ad by Act II popcorn, some quick-cook popcorn product available in the market these days. The ad was without any background music, without any famous personality, forget famous it was without any human, It was only 4 messages one after another. What was the message then, well the message was ‘why do companies make ads’ ‘it is to help you take a break from watching tv’ ‘and go and make a Act II popcorn in two minutes’ ‘come back and enjoy the tv with Act II popcorn’.

Let me ask you 1 question, are we the consumers of advertisement. Do we consume advertisement, yes please refer the book for the definition of consumption.

Imagine a world devoid of any advertisements, also assume that people are completely aware of the brands available in the market so that I do not need to give the trivial answer that advertisements are to teach the consumers and make them aware of the brand or product. How will you feel, nothing to distract you. Moreover you are not required to pay a premium on products as whatever companies are spending on Ads is in-turn collected by consumers by marking up the price.

Nothing will disturb you when you are watching your favourite program on TV but what if you want to take a comfort break, you do not want to miss a part of the program on TV? What if you want to see whether other channels are airing more interesting program at this time? What if you pay Rs 40 for your daily newspaper instead of Rs 4 and Rs 2,000 to your cable operator instead of Rs 300. Shocked! well you shouldn’t be.

Advertisements do more than just subsidising the newspapers and TV costs, in general cost associated with entertainment and communications media. Let me try to put down some (not so thought) utility of advertisements.

• They make you feel important, you know there are companies wooing you everytime, and you easily tell your friends “these marketers do not know how to advertisement, they make such a terrible ads, they do not have any brains”.
• Not only they make you feel important, they provide you a constant source of ‘abuse object’ that you can abuse whenever you want to or whenever you do not have anything to discuss with your friends.
• While you are travelling the billboards alongside the road gives you a hint that a city is nearby, the size and shine will also tell how developed the city will be. Just imagine you are in a complete new city, unknown people and then you see a lot of billboards of known brands (Titan, Nokia, Coke, Adidas etc.), suddenly you feel connected (did you read my previous post on 'shades of journey').
• They decorate your roads, make it interesting, they are a proof that when you are in a city centre, it is indeed a city centre.
• They provide parents with options to show their small child different objects that are used in the advertisements like dog (hutch), leopard (Mountain Dew), jungle (Cadbury perk), stars (Airtel Ad); the child is ofcourse not able to see these things frequently in concrete jungle (yes our housing societies).
• Sometimes they provide you with new ideas, funny moments where you do not have to scratch your head to understand every bit of it. They are some of the simple things you watch on tv.
• Billboards also decorate the big walls of Malls, Cinema Halls and they appeal to your eyes. The actresses/models in those big posters beautify the surroundings.

In all these sorts of exposures, I am not consuming the product but consuming the Ad. And I am paying for this consumption, by purchasing those marked-up products of the companies that use these ads. Tell me, do you consume advertisements?

Popularity of your blog

How do you increase the popularity of your blog? Well I am not probably the right person to ask to, but I am the right person to ask you.

It’s been almost a year and a half since I started blogging and barring a couple of unknown visitors (of course who have commented) all were my friends. Well, your blog can act as one of the means to add to your popularity among the acquaintances but also gives you a chance to remain connected with your dear friends. So how do you increase the traffic to your blog. Certainly I am not able to do a good job, not yet.

But before I try to find the solution(s) to the problem I need to first define the problem itself. No, don’t get me wrong, it’s not a consultant’s approach; it’s the only approach I can think of. I seriously need to find what kind of people I want to visit my blog. Whether I want the marketers, philosophers, technical, freelancers, leisure readers or just my friends to come and read my blogs.

Well, one can write a professional blog, let’s say a opinion blog, travel diary, feedback blog on mobile technologies or a critic on films and blah blah blah. Even if I try to write it will be of no use as I have a little idea about these things. So far my blog entries are limited to random thoughts that I have pertaining to certain events that appear in our social or economic life. So the readers’ profile (please let me take the privilege of trying to profile the typical readers who come to my blog, I know the numbers are not in support of this analysis) is very generic with my friends who are pursuing their post graduate studies in technical field to management, some of the my other friends and few (highly valuable) people who have reached to my blog by “Google Search”, isn’t it amazing.

But still there are no clear indications as to what type of people are interested in my posts (yes if someone unknown comments on my blog posts I do go and check out his blogs). Could this be one of the ways to increase the traffic on my blog site, I should also go and comment on peoples’ posts and this would prompt them to come and see my blog. But this would not ensure the return visits………. he he the marketer in me has started speaking….. sounds like return purchase.

So how do you actually improve the popularity of you blog. Say use those terms in your posts that are frequently searched on internet and keep posting using the generally prevalent terms. So if you were to ask me what these terms would be as of today, I will say that IPL, Twenty20, UPA, Obama, LTTE, the terms that you encounter on your daily newspaper. So should one keep writing about the current affairs on a regular basis. Still, this will not solve the problem, this will attract the leisure reader, which unlike in the months of May and June you will not find (find the reason for May and June and you will be surprised).

One other option that seems a little feasible is linking your blog to other bloggers in and around you. Develop a blog network where the bloggers are following your blog and you in turn are doing the same. Google has recently made available such functionality in blogspot where you know who are the people following your blog. Once that list is builds up, you know the people who are interested in your writing and then you can write on interesting topics to suit the audience.

If you really want that only your friends should come and visit your blog the task becomes easy, just write on your personal experiences that you friends can easily associate with.

Shades of Journey

I find every journey (leisure trips not included) that I take bothersome, particularly to new destinations. The unease of leaving the current state of life, change in daily routine, disappearance of familiar faces, appearance of unknown faces, insertion of new surroundings put you a state of transition from a steady state (pardon me for the use of technical words).

So the anxiety of transition state makes me uncomfortable. Somehow I feel that I find a steady state inside this transition state. So the ever changing surroundings, faces, are all put together steady. It’s like inertia, if you are in state of transition you want to be in the same state. We attach ourselves to the objects in your personal space.

So if I have got a seat in a train, or bus, I want to sit in my seat. If I find someone occupying my seat I will ask him to vacate the seat for me. If the bus stops at a mid-way, you get down and have some snacks but when you come back you are again happy and relax once you are seated in your seat. You find the same window, same front seat (actually the back of the front seat) and the same side seat and the same faces. You find the same view of the bus from your seat and thus familiar surroundings. You will feel uncomfortable if after every stoppage your seat gets changed.

Let’s come to the hotel where you have done your booking. Day before today, you are not at all concerned about the room that are going to stay, but once you are in that room, the surroundings, ceilings, window, furniture, curtains find a place in your ‘comfort space’ (just coined this term, not sure if this exists). After having done a sizeable field visits to rural markets when I come back to my hotel room, I get some respite. You will not find that kind of relief anywhere else in that new city but your hotel room. Once again it’s the same surroundings, ceiling, window, curtains, furniture etc.

At once I thought that it is not the ‘comfort space’ but the privacy that you find in your hotel room. But thinking deeper you realise that it is not the privacy at all. Let take a train seat for example, you have other people in the compartment but you are confined in your seat and you do not complain, you are happy that the seat meant for you is all yours. Let say that you do not occupy the whole seat and someone comes and sit on the remaining part of the seat, suddenly you say ‘hey that’s my seat’; why? There is no privacy but the steady state in the transition state that I talked about is broken. Forget someone coming and seating, just imagine that someone put his/her bag there, still you do not feel the same. You want it to be removed immediately. This is the reason I call it a ‘comfort space’ which is little different from privacy.

And once again when you start your return journey, you again deal with the same experience. The changing definition of ‘comfort space’ and external space again keeps you guessing about the next station or the next steady state of your journey. And as I write this blog waiting for my return flight to Mumbai from lucknow, I am in my ‘comfort space’ of waiting lounge. Well this blog is going too long, and I do not like reading long blogs, so let me just stop here.

Innovative Premier League

I was surprised when I first noticed that Google is making money by selling English words. In Google Adwords one can buy a set of words/phrase and then whenever anyone searched for the term the buyer’s link will appear in the sponsored category.

IPL has gone the same path this summer in order to generate more revenues. I agree they are incurring more costs as they have shifted to South Africa but then the traditional means of getting the sponsorship has been given a new face.

One had never heard before a DLF maxima or Citi Moment of Success and you will never hear it’s a SIX or a WICKET. So in the already innovated version of the game has become more innovative.

This coupled with strategic break where you get ample time to advertise in between the match apart from the break between the overs. The thinktank behind all this has done a commendable job.

Another challenge while moving to South Africa was how do you get the local crowd to see the matches and I mean 59 matches. They have linked the IPL with a social cause by donating 100,000 Rand to a local school. At the same time you have Miss Bollywood South Africa contest going on.The TRP have improved a bit but still a long way to meet the expectations. I wonder if there are other things on store to excite the viewer.

Awareness campaigns gone wrong?

The first phase was very successful with round 60% turnout in many of the cities but comes the second phase and it’s all the same again. A meagre 45% turnout in Mumbai. Mumbai people are considered to be among the most concerned ones as it has business class at one end and emerging middle class on the other end. Still we failed.

The people who conceptualized the campaigns, who participated the campaigns and who endorsed the campaigns are popular Mumbai people but nothing worked. You discuss it with people and they say that it should not have been on the long weekend. It happens in 5 years and we value a long weekend like we get a long weekend once in 5 years. What is it that prevented the intellects to come out for voting. Are we elite enough not to vote for ourselves and intelligent enough to blame the elected representatives for non competence. I think we have lost the conscience of our duties towards our society, we are becoming more individualistic. The people who will surely benefit by our insensitivity towards these important rights are the ones who play around with the sentiments of masses by repeating trivial issues like Ayodhya, telangana, marathwara etc. No surprise why the vote bank of Lalu still remains the poor and why it is in his personal interest that they remain poor. Why the situation in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh hasn’t changed for the past 20 years. Why the issues 20 years back are still the issues today and they will be the same 20 years hence.

A recent news article said that the maximum increase in net worth of MLAs are observed for BSP MLAs, but this info do not ring bell in the ears of their vote bank, we pity them to have continuously vote for the same guy year after year on the same issue eradicating the poverty.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Lucknow/BSP-tops-list-in-fielding-candidates-with-criminal-background/articleshow/4315363.cms

Why do we always find happiness in pointing out what others are doing wrong and think that our duty as a learned class has ended by pointing out others’ mistakes. Why do we never change ourselves and just STOP. Why not just change ourselves and be happy about it.
Or am I completely wrong. People may have not voted because they wanted to protest the lack of proper governance for the past 5 years. I have read few stories in Mumbai mirror about a couple of people who wanted to cast a protest vote but they were not allowed to do so.

Would having an AC waiting room for the voters instead of long queue in the sun have helped in pulling the “learned class” out of their comfort zones?

While I was writing this one of my friend showed me this link -
http://election.rediff.com/report/2009/may/05/loksabhapoll-joke-ten-reasons-why-south-mumbai-did-not-vote.htm

Elections 09 – Politics ka baap

The elections are always the same from political parties’ point of view but it is different this time from the voters’ point of view. Political parties always look for third front or fourth front before the elections which never sees the sunlight. Some leaders are claiming that INC is a 125 year old party ignoring the fact that their own party is still reciting the same OLD Ayodhya aka Ram Temple ode. Others have promised in their manifesto that they will abolish English use in and schools and ban the computers and stock market. I wonder whether the respective leader of concerned political party is even able to understand any of those.

However, we have not seen the kind of awareness campaigns on TV ever before. At one side you have Amir Khan or Lead India or Jaagore.com, which are trying to educate the voters to vote judiciously; on the other side you have BJP’s campaign that lacks the charm. Mumbai is seeing independent candidates coming from leading corporate; villagers in Bihar have beaten one of the MLAs for no development in the constituency. The signs are good for the beginning but the end is as uncertain as it has always been.

The Supreme Court has restricted Sanjay Dutt and Pappu Yadav to contest the elections, Tytler and Sajjan’s ticket are cancelled, and things seem to be moving in the right direction. Though these are just a few instances but they are giving some hope to the true citizen of India. But as long as the ruling party is decided by minor (read regional) parties having 20-25 seats and acting ‘king maker’ some of the hard decisions will never be taken. This will ensure that the Indian economy will continue to crawl at the same slow speed. People hoping to see some great reform that can push the country as the next super power will have to come out and vote and make it count!

A clear majority for any party is not visible in the horizons and a really impossible event that I am hoping for (of course not in this election) is Congress and BJP coming together and forming a government together.

Recession - Counting on Traditional Jobs

What is in store for India in the recessionary scenario? Is cap on H1-B Visa really going to impact the Indian services industry or the Indian employers were already planning to cut down on the onsite staff to reduce the costs. Is the condition that each company getting the bailout money cannot outsource the work to developing nations and has to hire Americans, affect the outsourcing.

Never before students in IITs and IIMs faced difficulty in getting a job? (A job !!! they had plenty to choose from). Young fresh graduates are seeing 15-20% drop in the salaries being offered as compared to that of last year. Is there anyopportunity here for the true Indian employers. With the soaring pay packages offered at these campus till last year, manufacturing and engineering giants in India could not get the quality engineers/managers. I remember that a CEO of one of the leading engineering and construction firm had stated in an interview that India do not have sufficient engineers for engineering jobs and people are running behind KPOs and MNCs.

This time we are seeing PSUs are the most valuable recruiters at the campuses. Simple reasons, their ability to pay on a continuous basis and guarantee of business. Is it a good time for Indian employers or it’s just a temporary phase? Will India Inc. be able to retain the talent that is coming its way because it cannot go elsewhere? Will the revival in global economy (really do not know when this will happen) lead to people going back to the glamorous jobs?

Many people do not change job frequently. Fresh graduates are sometime not sure what they want to do, they take up the first job that comes their way. There might be some people who may not have joined the conventional job roles in manufacturing/engineering firms if the economy was good, but they have joined now. May be some of the people will find the job interesting enough to stay on. May be some of the people will get fast track promotion to reach at the designation where they feel they have all the challenges and satisfaction to justify their continuance with the company.

Is it a right time for industries to redesign some of the entry level jobs, making it more interesting and more challenging and hence a better learning experience that can result fresh recruits sticking with the organization. Can the competitiveness of Indian industry improve because of the easy availability of rich talent in the country to an extent that the traditional businesses are able to survive the bad times?

Or is it a farfetched conclusion by someone who is too optimistic about the future scenario and believes that India has seen it's bottom?

The case of ‘Case based teaching’

Almost all of the course outline out here proudly display ‘case based learning’ as a part of pedagogy. It was a feel good factor in the beginning but not now. No doubt, it plays a critical task, i.e. to instil real life problem solving aptitude in students. The complexity involved in real business problems, the uncertainty involved with every decision and the trade-offs. Professors expect students to sit in groups and discuss the case in detail, brainstorm, come up with alternatives and evaluate each alternative against short-term vs. long-term impact on the decision problem and business. But is it really happening?

All that I wrote is too good to be true. There are many reasons for that, some systematic and some random. I can’t discuss about random reasons out here, but what I want to discuss is the systematic ones. The IIMs are known for their hectic study schedules and numerous courses compressed into 2 years. I think they have just managed to compress it in two years, I say this on the basis of experience that people have had while student exchange. All the students who have gone for student exchange have one thing to say, the study there is balanced, i.e. you get sufficient time to study on your own, any topic of your interest. And if not, you at least get time to discuss the cases in detail.

The scenario is different here, if you have 2-3 cases on an average to solve every day, coupled with the regular lectures, projects and quizzes, what justice one can do with the case analysis. If you are fortunate enough to have good team members, willing to work, the maximum you can do (showing your management skills) is distribute the case amongst group members and somehow able to finish each of the case in time. No wonder professors here say “Students do individual assignments in groups and Group assignments individually”. On the contrary if you have an unfortunate group, well I need not write the usual method people adopt to do cases and assignments.

The idea is not to remove the case analysis completely, but the idea is to give students sufficient time to prepare each of the cases. I think we have adopted all of the ‘good practices’ from other B-Schools altogether, without even thinking that the time available is limited. Like you say in operations, if all the machines are individually efficient it doesn’t mean the process as a whole is efficient. The problem is amplified by the fact that groups formed here work as more of groups and not as a team (I hope you know the difference). So at the end of the day the objective of case analysis is not achieved.

I think I should end this on the same note as other cases end, the problem is out there, the situational analysis is almost done but like all other cases the ‘case of case based teaching’ is still there. The good part (or bad?) is that there are no exhibits in this case.

Scratch Pad – Store the ‘Waste’ Energy

I have written earlier about wind energy, the usefulness and the disadvantages. But one thought has troubled me for long, isn’t that the energy that we derive from wind is a cost to the ecology. Whatever efficiency we consider for wind turbines, still we are absorbing the energy from the winds and reducing their power. This wind power should definitely have some role to play in the ecology for e.g. monsoons in India is a result of Wind. I am not saying that if we build a lot of wind power stations then monsoons will stop but definitely we are reducing the power of winds that has some role to play in the ecology. The point I am trying to make is that we should be proactive and should start thinking of possibilities of storing the energy that gets dissipated in our daily course of actions.

During one of my recent air journey I realised that when the airplane touch down on airstrip and apply brake to stop, it surely dissipates a lot of energy. With a touchdown speed of 250km/hr and weight in the range of tonnes, the brake surely dissipates a lot of energy to decelerate the airplane. Instead of just exhausting it by applying brakes can we devise some method to store that energy?

If you have seen the way a fighter jet takes off from an aircraft carrier, there is a hydraulic piston that provides the much required speed for takeoff in minimum distance. Same is seen when a fighter jet lands on a aircraft carrier, a rope is used to quickly slow it down. Can we replicate this phenomenon? I want to say that when an airplane touchdown it should store its energy in some high tension spring/coil that can be stored. Remember the toy cars that we have used during childhood days, when we push it back and release it, it speedily moves ahead, while pushing it back we store a lot of energy in a metal coil placed inside the car. I am hoping of similar technique here. Yes, all of it does have a aspect of safety as the touchdown is itself risky but then if fighter jet can do it, the same may be possible with civilian aircrafts with required modification.It’s not just aircraft, think of driving your car, think of the same toy car here, and when you apply brake let the energy get stored in some metal coil inside the car. The same energy can be released by some push button whenever required; it will surely save some fuel. One can think of all other forms of energy that we knowingly or unknowingly dissipate and if something can be done to store/conserve that energy then I call this being truly proactive.