Quarter 6 - Week 10

Except for a couple of assignments, the last week of classes went by quite uneventfully. We still had one quiz and one guest lecture, but compared to the last few weeks, they went by easily. Maybe because it was the last week, so it's the extra enthu that comes up... whatever it was, it was easy gliding.

No standing ovations though, maybe it was the seniors' influence, they've been through this for 10 quarters... we had a few guys from our class giving an ovation, but they were drowned out amidst the hustle-bustle of bags being pulled up all around them. I miss the standing ovations...

Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation

This week only had presentations from all the teams, 10 minute lightning pitches of their ideas. Some interesting, some not-so-interesting, but all-in-all, a sufficient easy-to-relax week of classes in ENVC.

Social Entrepreneurship

The prof invited us to think about how to bring about large scale change, and pretty much reminded us about the key lessons from the last few weeks. Spoke to us about how it's important to keep it sustained, of how the power ought to be with the people as they know what's best for them etc. etc. Since I already heard all this, not too much enlightenment in the last class. But one thing for sure, this is an awesome course. The kind of learning I've had in this class was worldly, not theoretical. This is the kind of valuable rare experience that I was looking forward to from IIMB, and I was not disappointed in the least!

B2B Market Management

The first session was all about reseller channels, and the kind of power struggle that can happen between a supplier and their channels. Not too much takeaway, maybe because I had already read the book for the day's quiz. So, though it was practical experience, it was very easy to draw parallels to the theory in the books.

The second session was about Aurolab. This is the technology, research and development and manufacturing side of the Aravind eye hospital. It's strange to sit in the same room as some of the movers in this enterprise, after all the case studies we've done on them. And they come across like normal people... with normal pains, normal worries. Except that when they talk of the actual problems, they're dealing at higher levels. But still... they seem human. This session was more of an interaction with the Aravind system, and our students obviously questioned and needled the two guests a lot! Why they did this, why not this? Reason for this... etc. etc. Again, not too much takeaway, I blame the last quiz! Made us learn way too much! ;)

International Business Negotiation Skills

The venerable prof still stays true to his tradition. Just like he did in Marketing 101, he brought a pack of sweets and distributed it amongst us on the last day of the course... he really stands behind that "ritual" principle that he keeps talking about. It was a slow and thoughtful wrap-up as he closed the class, and asked us for some highlights of what we got from the course. Sombre session, but it was interesting to see people come up with different insights on negotiations. Simple, so simple.

And so, I'm done. Through an insane stroke of luck, I dont have exams this quarter, quite a few of the others do. So a double weekend for me! All I gotta do, is finish two projects, and I'm all set to enjoy two weeks of pure bliss!

Quarter 6 - Week 9

Whenever we get a weekend holiday in the midst of the course. it never fails to knock me out of my routine. The opening books at 9 PM, falling asleep while sitting on the chair at 9:03 PM, and the waking up at 1 AM and realizing that you fell asleep, and then really going to sleep with the warm thought that you "read" something, all this is replaced by blissful sleep at 10 PM everyday. When finally college opens its wide gates again to you, you grimace, growl, grunt and present your slides on the way in. And yet, you rebel by not reading the cases and sticking your nose up at those who do...

Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation

The first session was taken by a guest lecturer, one of NSRCEL's first successful ventures. He spoke to us about the journey and how he made it through all those times. A very easy-going guy, but appearing to be the quiet introvert types, he gave us some pretty interesting insight into what goes on in an entrepreneur's mind. The next session was a case study, but like I said, I wasn't paying attention or even read the case. What's that weird feeling, why do I think I'm so cool?

Anyway, since we didn't have Social Entrepreneurship today, I happened to bump into the Startup Saturday sessions here in Bangalore. It was really cool to see the room packed, so much so that the organizers had to bring in plastic chairs to seat those who were standing. Yes, IIMB has plastic chairs... we're not all wood and marble you know. Anyway, I could only listen to two presenters after which I had to go for the next class. The first session was about why and how one should go about an enterprise, and the second was the views of an experienced VC, who injected a lot of dark humour into the entrepreneurial mystery. It was really the best way to spend a free class.

B2B Market Management

Case study, atleast I did it the honour of thumbing through it... I didn't remember much from most pages, but I did remember some thing from the first page. Apparently it was very important, if only I remember what it was. Anyway, to cut a long story short, two cases in two sessions, with absolutely brilliant stories and morals behind them. Too bad I... don't know how we're going to be doing.

International Business Negotiation Skills

No public viewing of the videos we made for our negotiations exercises. Instead, we spoke about the nuances of negotiation. You know all those places/other blog posts where I say "Ahaah! I know wh y I'm paying 8.5 lakhs!"? Well.. this was one of those moments. To give a sneak peek, the more you appear to provide savings based on a particular scenario, the opponent is going to be risk-prone. The moment you make it look like you're going to chop some of the losses, the opponent is more likely to be risk-averse. The moral of the story -> People are rarely rational. Remember who you're negotiating with.

That's when I realized the meaning behind what the prof was trying to say. He was basically saying that the people and the problem are too very different thing. In order to be a successful negotiator, it's important to stay hard on the problem and go easy on the person. A few more such nuggets later, the classes came to an end.

The last week of the quarter lies ahead. Project submissions, exam finals... sigh.. you'd think I would have gotten used to the routine by now after a whole year. What can I say, the IIMB never ceases to surprise.

Quarter 6 - Week 8.5

'Tis the festive season of Diwali, and one of the side-effects of being in B-school is knowing that Diwali is like Thanksgiving in the US. India's mad spending spree happens now... so this is the time of the year that all merchants eagerly anticipate, in the hopes that their sales jump high enough for them to wake up every day in the morning with a good answer to "Why am I doing this business?".

While the rest of India is busy either bursting crackers, or frowning at those who do while holding the placards "Child labour/Noise pollution", some of us had the "privilege" of attending classes over the weekend. As it turns out, next week is placement week for the full-time grad students, so one of our profs in a fit of generosity decided to hold classes this weekend, so they could go and do well in placements next week. Of course, no one asked us corporate students about it, because those who don't want to attend classes, have the option to skip it. Unlike the full-timers, class participation / grades do not matter much to us... not like we're getting placed or anything. We're here for the LEARNING! New people, please get that in your head.. once and for all.. NO PLACEMENTS! ONLY LEARNING!

Social Entrepreneurship

While most of the previous weeks dealt with what are some of the more obvious problems with most of India and her development, from last week onwards, we've been looking into what are the options available to us if we want to make some noise. So this week too, was about understanding the internal working of political parties, the NREGA system, civil movements, and observing how the government is now including more people when they're making decisions, and how citizens themselves are becoming active. It's quite interesting to see that while India itself is apparently democratic, the process of getting into a party and standing for elections might not be. Apparently, in quite a few states, these "tickets" are auctioned off, or selectively given to people. Especially now, I can understand why politicians have "ulterior motives" when they come to power. It's mainly because if they've put in some money to get in, it is no longer upholding the intrinsic motivation to serve the country... it's more like an extrinsic motivation to make some money. No wonder they pull tenders here and there, give and take favours... the system somehow got a little screwed up and shifted from its original version from 60 years ago!

Now, they're looking into inner party reforms, people were approached to find out what would make a difference to them, and what are the things they want to stop. It's very interesting to see the difference between the mindsets of the upper middle class and upper classes, when compared to the others. As an example, the former would say that "Let's go for privatization! The government is inefficient, and it could use all the help it can get!". The latter would say that "Let things stay under the government! If it gets privatized, then the mediocre service we're getting now, we wont get at all!". Apparently, a case in point could be education. When education was only handled by the government, everyone got the "mediocre" quality... but now that there's also private players, elite students are going there... and the poor ones are in these schools. Immediately, there's a huge chance of ignorance that comes in. The two classes don't get to mix with each other, and they dont get to know what's happening on the other side. Not to mention, the other obvious aspect of the difference in education that is given to the two. Immediately, India becomes a land of two classes... where thoughts and actions are SO DIFFERENT from the other. It's a very interesting true-life example of what's happening.

The class went on to explore other aspects as well. I think this pretty much also tells us, why students come in to college on Diwali.