Quarter 11 - Week 3

Nothing special about this week, just the cold December mornings and the standard cusses about how we end up in class by 8 AM instead of snuggling in bed under a warm blanket. Then your thoughts go out to those batchmates of yours who finished last quarter, and how they're gleefully sleeping soundly in their warm homes. Tends to bring out very un-Christmassy thoughts...

New Enterprise Financing

This week, we continue a little with the Capital Market Myopia paper. The funda for this, as I've mentioned last week, is that people go about investing in stuff that is actually good, but because there's so many people investing and they've got their blinkers on, the sector gets filled with money - which is not so good. Innovation and money tend to bring out the worst in each other... you need to starve one to make max use of the other. Anyway, our prof's trying to approach it from a different angle. We were discussing if there were some early signs that we came across, that should have pointed out to the investor that it's not the right time to do that particular investment. And so we pore over the GDP data for those years, the returns that the companies tended to have, and relevant data about the population (such as unemployment rate) to identify the possible signals that investors had. One thing the prof said stood out in my mind... sometimes people see other people investing in something, then you tend to wonder if the rest of the world has gone mad OR are you not seeing what they're seeing. That's a dangerous place to be in, says the prof, and it inadvertently leads you to making the same mistake they did.

The second session had us discussing the case of Vegetron, and how they came up with estimates for cash flows, and a balance sheet for the next five years of that startup. I didn't really catch much, because the professor's voice was being drowned out by my snoring (I'm not entirely sure if the snoring was in my head, or out there for real). The prof did say that you need to love numbers, I understand now why he said that. But yea, he says that we need to give this a manual run after class to really get the funda across. Maybe once I do that, I'll be better poised to understand the nuances.

Reinvention through Entrepreneurial and Intrapreneurial Learning

We had this guest speaker who looks like he's a simple person from one of India's many villages. He comes in, introduces himself, and then spends two sessions just yelling at us and making us feel worthless. That's it. Funny thing is the whole class was hanging on to his every word. He talks of how the IT wave ruined our country's progress, and how we avoided hardware development which is difficult but far more profitable to us in the long run (both socially and financially), in order to make a quick buck out of software which is far easier but has had us do the equivalent of slaving over work that no sensible person would do. The only reason we do it is because they're paying us for it, and we dont bother finding a more efficient way to do it. The concept of time vs. money comes out very clearly when you look at why we do what we do, and why the clients do what they do.

He talks to us about how India has so many problems, and how if we apply 1/10 of our mind, we can bring a great deal of happiness to many of India's underprivileged folk. He shows us examples of guys who travel to tribal village in various parts of India, or inside volcanos in Indonesia just to bring clean drinking water or electricity to the people who live around the region. He gives us more examples of how students who fail to pass out from some of India's colleges are groomed and now paid a hell of a lot more than India's finest Ivy League scholars by some of India's top corporates, after they're trained at simple institutes started by some visionary men. He talks of how we can make a difference, but just because of our colonial heritage and our middle class mindset, we hold ourselves back.

He challenges us to break away from the rut and do something useful with our lives. He stops short of asking us to drop out of the Indian Institute of Management, just pausing to say that we're just here to get yet another certificate, or sticker of authenticity using which we anyway go back and do dull jobs. He expresses his anger and disgust for the IITs and IIMs saying how they've ruined the country when they could do so.. much.. more. Instead of encouraging and developing visionaries out of the capable minds that come to them, they just convert those minds into more expensive cattle. The fault doesn't always lie with the institute, the students still have that middle class mind, but it's the institute's job to help students break those shackles.

The class stays silent for most of the two sessions, either pondering how right he is, or how wrong he is. Time will tell if anyone takes his talk to heart and really does something. God knows we're capable, and there's plenty of opportunity out there. We don't need to be in the IIM to know this, or help do something about it, but now that we're here... do we have the courage to make use of what we know for the benefit of others and not just ourselves? Or are we still going to be a better breed of cattle?

Quarter 11 - Week 2

The hustle and bustle begins, half of the courses started this week (courtesy of the mixxup from last week) and the halls are bustling again. Starting at the bookshop where the long queue snakes from outside the door, to the Amrith Kalash cafeteria where you spend half the lunch break waiting in line to buy a token, and the other half wolfing down the meal with the case study for the afternoon's session.

New Enterprise Financing
This week has us discussing funding sources and the differences between VCs and PE guys. Apparently HNI individuals/trusts play around with a specific class of assets called alternate assets. This is approximately 5-6% of their capital, and goes towards VCs and PEs, real estate, oil, arts etc. Depending on the size of the VC fund, it wields a certain amount of power in the new venture arena. We even spend a little while discussing basic differences between the types of firm ownership, how partners are compensated, and how returns, once harvested from a venture, are not reinvested back in... that's the name of the game. The prof takes us through the stages of new enterprise funding and talks of the gates between them, and how certain problems with the venture partners should be unearthed far earlier in the process than much later.

The second session has us discussing more about what makes new ventures tick, and about why some ventures tend to come together, mainly due to aspects like capitalizing on knowledge intensity... or for something far easier to understand, like having a global footprint. We had a case for the day, not so much a case, more a reading that talks of how myopia can affect the ecosystem/field. Apparently, individuals tend to think from their perspective while investing in new ventures, without realizing what can happen at a large scale when everyone invests. By themselves, it appears to be a really good decision, but when you look at it from a larger perspective, you tend to realize that there's too much money in the game, for a value that doesn't measure up. And it was not only the individual's fault... collective thought was just missing. Or so I think the funda was. The example was the hard disk storage domain back in the mid-80s.

Reinvention through Entrepreneurial and Intrapreneurial Learning (REIL)
The prof starts off with an abstract talk. Speaks of how this course is something we should be aware of. He wants us to uncover a deeper meaning for ourselves, by paying more attention to what we want... to what we believe in... and to have some sort of direction. He opens up a little about himself, about his journey and then speaks of how we seem to be missing ownership. This lack of ownership is what tends to crush innovation, and he's hoping that by the end of this course, we'll walk out knowing what we want to do, and what we're willing to take ownership of.

We spend a little time discussing the characteristics of entrepreneurs in the second session, and the different aspects that make a workplace entrepreneurial. It's interesting that we are now drawing block diagrams with words we learnt in school. Stuff like passion, competence, trust, support, discipline... these are lofty goals that we're primed for in school. But something goes wrong, and we get to hear all this again when we come to do an MBA. Anyway, we move on to discuss the difference in the outlook of an entity as it transforms from a startup to an organization, and about how people tend to choose between two roles in their lives - One as an administrator, and the other as an entrepreneur. It's quite interesting to see the different outlooks of both these types of people, and as to how willing to stay low down in a hierarchy need not mean that you should be willing to remain at the level of an administrator. The prof only says one thing, even if you're a clerk by the time you retire, maintain that spirit of entrepreneurship and know that your choice is conscious. I know it sounds a little abstract, but I think his basic funda is that irrespective of our station in life, there's no reason to hand over the reins to any other individual. Be your own master, he says.

2 weeks down, eight weeks to go.

Quarter 11 - Week 1

Damn it, I'm still here.

I come in to campus on Friday, and the regular classrooms look much emptier. It's like PGSEM Quarter 7 and 8 all over again... the halls are a little less noisy, the energy a little low, the mad scramble for the attendance monitor at ten minutes before class (I never really understood that, we have like 15 minutes to swipe... why the hell was everyone waiting till the clock struck T-10 anyway??)... anyway, I miss that. I think I was actually happy last year this time... it looked like more space to breathe now that those 'damned seniors' were gone, felt a little lonely this time around.

Would have stayed that way, had it not been for a couple of things. One was the small bunch of us 2009ers who hung around for yet another quarter. A couple of them were sneaking back into class, hoping to do an audit (they'd be mad to actually take more credits and go through the pressure, even if it was just one more quarter!), a couple others actually willing to undertake the extra credits because.. well.. they're crazy... and finally there's a bunch of students who just took up the freedom and kept some credits for one more quarter. So they kind of made up for part of the melancholy. Then... a few juniors were walking around confused as usual like we tend to be, see me and walk up to me. "What the hell are you still doing here? Why can't you get out and leave us in peace!" they ask, another guy asks "Failed, aa?". As I correct whatever misconception comes across with a tinge of despair, confusion and glee... the remaining gap was filled. Home, sweet home.

New Enterprise Financing

One of our profs from first year happens to be teaching this course, he's the prof who did the first half of corporate finance for us. This course was really given the two-thumbs-up by many seniors (personally, I think to spite us and make us go through one last round of pure hell), and I just had to attend this one... especially since it says "New Enterprise". Imagine my shock when the prof outright says "Guys, I've gotten feedback from your seniors that many join this course thinking that it's going to be about entrepreneurship. This is not about entrepreneurship. This is hardcore finance topics, where we study the numbers of new ventures.. and study the various aspects of the same. You better like numbers, and better remember corporate finance and FinAcc, else you're in for a load of pain... there's the door, get out while you can". Here I'm thinking that let's save one course slot for this guy, it'll be good.. and here he deflates any entrepreneurial learning bubble that I had within the first five minutes. Yet, the introduction of the course still sounds interesting. Appears to combine the concepts of FinAcc and CorpFin to understand issues that come up while dealing with new ventures, both from the perspective of the entrepreneur and the investor, leaning more towards the latter.

Of course, the standard drivel about it being a heavy course... lots of reading, lots of numbers, standard pain and relative gain etc. I'm going to give this course atleast a looksie, before considering if I should make a switch. The prof doesn't gain anything out of this course, I do... and seeing him plead to us to really think if we want to be in this course if we don't appreciate numbers much is worth giving it a rethink.

Reinvention through Entrepreneurial and Intrapreneurial Learning

It's a mouthful, and I'm thinking of just calling it REIL next time onwards. Why oh why can't people come with less complicated names. In any case, there was some botchup by someone either in the PGP or PGSEM arenas (I'm betting it's the PGPs.. the PGSEM office makes their plan way out at the start of the year and it's far too simple to screw up. Think about it... 10 weeks classes, 1 week break.. repeat 4 times... really, how could we POSSIBLY screw up?). Thanks to that, our classes will only start next week.

This totally spoils my concept of a weekly update, but I guess we'll just have to get around it... one week I'll probably write up a double-sized account for the week that was.

It's good to whine again. It's good to be back, even if it's just for one more quarter (hopefully).

Quarter 10 - Week of Exams

The storm clouds are rumbling above. As the batch sits for its last set of exams, it begins to get dark. Come on, it's GOT to mean SOMETHING atleast... hunh, hunnnnh? All we needed was an orchestra in the background doling out some music that sounds like impending doom. People scratched their heads for the last time. They had a frown on their face, replete with pursed lips, for the last time. They took one last sneaky look at a neighbour's paper.. for the last time.

Business Data Mining & Decision Making

Ok, so I haven't started yet on this take-home paper. The prof is either extremely confident that we won't copy from one another, or he knows it won't help anyway. No, I'm not talking about 'It doesnt help in life if we copy now', I mean 'What the hell are you going to copy, and are you sure it's right in the first place?' I like to think profs have their minds filled with little cherubs when they think of us.. dreamy little angel-faces. BUT.. enough of the profs. I have atleast done SOME reading of the questions, and they look do-able. So I'll sit on them for a while.

Strategic Thinking & Decision Making

The last time around, the prof had come up with a bunch of questions that required us to use a fair amount of analogy-tical (Is that a word? Analogous doesn't sound right... it seems... continuous!) thinking. This time though, if the answer was X, the question typically were like 'blah-blah-interesting-blah-blah. Does XYZ apply to this? How, which and why?' It's almost like a trick, to make us look up all three article sets, read them in the exam and figure out which applies! But in any case, it didn't seem too heavy, was just right, and it's one of the few times I came out of the exam without worrying about whether or not I was atleast in the same ballpark as the actual answer.

Soon after the exam, the zombie-faces around the block gave way to enlightenment. College was done (for most of us)! After some hanging around, people decided to move over to their favourite addas outside of college for one last meetup. In a flash, the block was empty. In hindsight, all this probably caused a sudden depression in the area. The rains could not have come at a more appropriate time.

Quarter 10 - Week 10

As is typically the tradition in the last week of classes, people are frantically running around bleary-eyed, cursing the printers, yawning every two minutes and punching in a few words into their reports every time the prof turns towards the board to write something. And yet, most of the seniors had this spark in their eyes. I wonder why.

Business Data Mining & Decision Models

The class presentations were split across the two sessions, where each group came over to describe what they pulled out of their raw data. Quite a few of the teams seemed to use the C5.0 classification model to do their analysis. There were a few teams that played with clustering and market basket analysis. Personally though, I liked the text analytics ideas. There wasn't much detail provided on how the algorithms worked, or any non-intuitive observations like the diapers and beer sales (Trust me, every group was gunning for some kickass insight like this!), but the very fact that this requires the analysis of grammar and spoken words lends some grandeur to it.

Strategic Thinking & Decision Making

The first session gets completely wrapped up in a case. It was a good one, it combined aspects of Prospect Theory with ethical decision making. There were so many aspects to look at, though the choices were reasonably obvious. I say reasonably obvious since a person could go on and on describing why other options are also equally valid, but for some reason, this one tends to hold itself out.

The second session revolved around the concepts of planned rational decision making, and naturalistic intuitive decision making. The funda's pretty simple - in times of great stress, you'll be damned if you sit and weigh all the options, and decide which one's rationally best for you. Emotion plays a part, time plays a part, so you tend to be a lot quicker in decision making. You would think up one option, and then intuitively accept or discard it, then think of another solution, and repeat the same process. Therefore, the prof asks, if you're anyway going to go back to your old ways when your decision counts the most, what's the point of all this learning?

Practice. The whole point is practice. You can't stop yourselves from making quick intuitive decisions, but you can train your mind to intuitively find the closest possible good option. There's a lot of good info surrounding how other people do it, and what we can learn from it.

And so endeth the last class of the last official quarter.

In a fit of nostalgia, and sudden recognition that we need to capture these moments for a lifetime, a whole bunch of people were running around class taking photos of one another, the classroom, the benches, themselves, the attendance monitoring device and the profs. Sure enough, after all the classes were over, a horde of people move all around, to the area behind the audi to take a few pics, and then to the amphitheatre to take more pics.

Saturday, the 19th of November 2011, was a special day.

Quarter 10 - Week 9

My classmates are really restless... it's two weeks to freedom for most of them, and the tension in the air is palpable. Some of the guys are tearing out whatever hair they have left, despite everyone telling them to chill... only two weeks left. Some of the others are wear blank expressions, head in one hand, the day's case study in the other, and people come by saying "Hold on man, just another two weeks!". The combination of rushing around for project work, and knowing freedom's this close is tearing our people apart. Stay the course, people... just hold on... the end is nigh.

Business Data Mining & Decision Models
We got a little deeper this week, with sessions on text mining and web mining. The first was taken by a guest speaker, who discussed what his company does, and how they use their mined information (collected from various sources like blogs, social networks etc.) to identify what people are saying about a brand or organization. Now text mining isn't very simple, as the word 'Care' has a very different meaning from 'Dont care'. So it's the string of words that actually has more meaning than a single word itself. A lot more hullabaloo about how the summary is being done, and after some examples of actual customer projects where they've worked, it 'kinda' got clear as to how text mining is done.

The second session, being about web mining, was easier to understand. Easier since the prof talks about stuff like how you move from one page in the site to the other, how you understand when the usage on the site peaks, what are users more interested in etc. All the more fun when you consider the example he takes - of a matrimonial website. So he goes on to explain what percentage of people actually make a purchase/payment on the site, and what are the most popular pages etc. One of the strange findings was that traffic peaked around 4 AM in the morning, and the prof wonders why the vast majority is logging in that early in the morning in the first place. Then comes enlightenment - the time's according to US time, and there's an audible signal of understanding across the class. Fun stuff!

Strategic Thinking and Decision Making
We're still on the emotion bit... why we decide what we do. Today started off with understanding how our brain functions, and how we make decisions. Apparently, two parts of our brain help to make the decision - one is more dependent on our primal instincts, the other tends to reason. So, the fact that people tend to wait instead of jumping to conclusions show that they rely on the second part, as against people who react immediately and impulsively. The prof goes on to show us some images, and asks us what sort of emotions they incite in us... and based on that, he claims why certain emotions are more likely to cause larger effects than others.

We then go on to the concept of ethics, and personally, it was a rehash of what we studied in EBM in Quarter 8, so just a few new nuggets there. Oddly chilled out class this time, it's getting frighteningly calm. We know what that means...

Quarter 10 - Week 8

Last week was a brilliant break from the typical rigour (*cough*) that we face on the weekends, on account of Diwali. Now, any sane person would think that you have a holiday so that you can relax... but obviously that sane person hasn't done the PGSEM, much less prepared for a project that was due to be given in three weeks! Three weeks? That's a lot of time, you'd say. And I'd agree, if it wasn't for the fact that WE'RE NOT GETTING ANYWHERE!! WE HAVE THE DATA AND THE DAMN THING ISN'T ALLOWING US TO MINE IN ANY REASONABLE WAY! WHO THE HELL INVENTED DATA MINING!! It's a good thing I'm taking this quite well, and not over-reacting.

Business Data Mining & Decision Models

We had the research assistant take our class, and he typically does a good job. But he sort of over-estimated our concentration this time around. Our man is trying to take us through a practical demonstration of how people choose what liquid detergent to buy, based on brand, price, quantity etc. And how the effect of price can affect purchase decisions.

With all sorts of magical flourishes, he stands at the front of the class and with eyes glistening with the promise of the future, and no mic, explains some fundas which I couldn't hear. But they must have been good, as the front benchers weren't looking all around. Some of the guys out at the back are straining their ears, hunched forward, staring pointedly in the hopes that they can lipread. Some others are poring in a concentrated manner on the news of the day. In a nutshell, either the speaker should get a mic in future, or give us our handouts so we can run the experiment. Now all we have to do is get that message across.

The second session was a lot more chilled out (for most people). It was a interim casual report of where we've reached in our projects, and where are we stuck. So that actually passed by like a breeze since a lot of people had some very interesting projects.

Strategic Thinking and Decision Making

This week had quite a bit going for it in terms of a proper case discussion. We ACTUALLY read the news article/case! Well, atleast most of it, and most of us... enough to discuss! The topic was about the Challenger disaster, and what could have been the potential decision failures in the system. We go on to discuss how our biases tend to play a role in our decision making, and how we need to be aware of them. We also did a small experiment on assumptions. The prof puts up a slide, and makes us all write atleast 10 assumptions. And then he goes on to explain, how our assumptions affect our final decisions. Being the kind of people we are, we tend to abstract away and assume stuff... because apparently if we DON'T make assumptions, then we get stuck in some sort of analysis-paralysis.

So the next time you go around assuming stuff, remember... you're moving forward.

Quarter 10 - Week 7

You'd expect that as the finish line draws nearer, you'd get re-energized to run faster. I do have another quarter left (oh, the choices one makes...), and I'm looking forward to a couple of really cool courses (New Enterprise Financing and Reinvention through Entrepreneurial and Intrapreneurial Leadership) *fingers crossed for no schedule clash*, but still it's almost a feeling of relief, and the 'slow down, whats the hurry' syndrome. I want to think that I'm going to miss college once I get out, but I'd be lying. I can't wait to be done with the busy Fridays and Saturdays, the sleepless and least-efficient weeknights. Yes, I know I'll miss the refreshing gyaan (in most cases) that's being poured on us, which we then go and spout to our colleagues as if we came up with it... but hey, three years is a LONG time in an MBA programme. Let's get it done.

Business Data Mining & Decision Models

This week continues with more lab sessions... so we do Artificial Neural Networks and Market Basket Analysis. The funda of the first is that the model slowly learns how to set weights to the various inputs such that the output can be predicted. It still uses the concept of training data (the set that is used to prepare the model) and the testing data (the set on which you try to confirm if the model does indeed work). We got to see that sometimes models need to be 'tricked'. You'd oversample one particular segment of input records, to balance their weightage towards getting the final answer.

Why? Let's take an example. Let's say you want to understand attributes of the people that are likely to use an online dating service in India. So ASSUME you run an analysis on your users (OMG, you have no privacy concerns, you have no ethics etc. etc...) and ASSUME you find out that a majority of the participants like to watch TV shows about war, wrestling and cricket. ASSUME you also find that the majority would still browse through the profiles of the opposite gender, EVEN if they were already hooked up. Now you're wondering if something's off, even the so called sensible women, epitomes of loyal partners in relationships *cough*, appear to be going nuts. What you don't get immediately is this. Anyone who uses chatrooms in India knows that the ratio of men to women in such sites is *very* high. It would have been much higher, had we not had some nutty Indian guys parading as women online, for whatever psycho reasons they have. So your results are actually dominated by male attributes. Therefore, you try to oversample the women in the group, to get a more fair representation amongst the genders. Then, the results you get are more likely to be attributes of the psychographics that visit online dating sites. Get it? No? Remind me not to join the faculty at the IIMB.

The next session was about identifying what options in a set go together. For e.g. when you visit a supermarket, is the purchase of bread and butter highly correlated, or is the purchase of milk and vermicelli highly correlated (yum, payasam!). Therefore, the Market Basket Analysis tries to see if you can identify any trends in co-purchases/activity in a particular field. Fun analysis, lots of weird looking graph, but some interesting thoughts from our lab guide on what could be the possible reasons for the correlations we seemed to find. For e.g. milk and cheese. A possible reason could be that they're both being refrigerated, hence stored together...). Incredibly fun stuff.

Strategic Thinking and Decision Making

We go even further down the emotions route, we add the concept of affect this week. There were a lot of interesting principles.. stuff like how group decision making appears to be as flawed as deciding by yourself, since people tend to go with consensus more than rational debate. Or how you're likely to think more about how a particular decision benefits you rather than the company. Or why people who're advertising about 'Feed a child' always show you an EXTREMELY impoverished kid, to bias a rational decision making process. It's not a bad thing, it's just that people appeal to your emotions, instead of your logic, in some scenarios.

Or even the fact how you don't understand the scale of certain problems. For e.g. if there are two jars, a really big one with a lower percentage of green to red gems, and the other is a much smaller jar with a higher percentage of red to green gems, you're more likely to pick from the big one when asked to get more than 10 green gems in your hand (because you seem to be overawed by the magnitude). Or even when you're gambling, you're given a chance to win really big with lower probability, or win very small amount with a much higher probability, and you pick the latter because you enjoy the concept of winning more than the value of what you're winning. So the point is that the way elements AFFECT your decision making process is not visible to you, but it should hopefully be visible to others. So try to get groups to think together, and question each other, rather than letting one person dominate the discussion and then sway the group in his/her favour.

Next week's a break for Diwali, so it should be quite chilled out. I so look forward to being waken up by noisy crackers at 5 in the morning. My alarm clock chime just doesn't convince me that its worth waking up early anymore, maybe this will change that perception...

Quarter 10 - Week 6

It's been a reasonably calm week, not much out of the ordinary. The profs continue to remind us about the upcoming projects so that we don't go crazy in the last one week. They're still very optimistic. Their faith in us is troubling... or rather guilt-inducing. Whatever works, right?

Business Data Mining & Decision Models

We continue with labs this week, we've been doing stuff on K-clusters and Decision trees. The funda of the first is simple, take reams of data and let the software (Clementine in this case) work its magic on it to bundle them into clusters. The more clusters you decide to have, the more 'internally aligned' the clusters are supposed to get. So, after a little hulabaloo, you get 4-5 clusters with descriptions like (Male, under 30's, <50000$ income), (Females, over 40s, >30000$ income)... etc etc. The second session had us doing decision trees, where we feed in a bunch of inputs to the software, drag in a model and 'train' it with one part of a data set. We then just apply the trained model to the rest of the dataset and check if it still accurately identifies the type of output we're expecting (based on its understanding of the training data set). Totally takes the fun out of number crunching, but saves us a heck of a lot of time. Yay. And here I thought, the point of number crunching was to identify some human aspects of what were evidently just becoming statistics.

Strategic Thinking and Decision Making

A very creative midterm, if you ask me. The prof tries to compare a Prisoner's Dilemma with a marriage, and asks us what strategies go where. Or he asks us why Apple comes out with an iTunes store, what's the point of it? Was it strategic, or a hint from God? Some questions like that, which required us to think, assume and chew on. Finally when we start discussing the solution, heated debates about what assumptions are right, what weren't. Why one answer is as good as another... sigh, that's probably why some IIMB profs stopped getting creative with their questions. It's difficult to 'hold on' to assumptions...

We were supposed to do a case in the next session, but apparently EVERYONE forgot there was a case, and didnt even realize that the handout wasn't in the book. The perplexed prof has come totally prepared for a heated case discussion, and then realizes to his consternation that the guys in class didn't even realize there was a case (though in our defense, we had a friggin' midterm!). So already tired from the debate, and the futility of it all, the class gets cancelled and for the first time... in our time at IIMB... we were left with a free period. I should be happy! Wonder why it doesn't feel good then.

Quarter 10 - Week 5

It's the usual calm before the storm... midterms are beginning this week, project proposals are also expected to be turned in. The guys working on their final projects are frantically running around trying to give some shape to their mid-term submissions. The profs have now stopped chiding us on the fact that we're not reading the readings, and have not sarcastically taken on to the 'In the reading you SHOULD have read, the saying goes...'. Everything's normal, we're in the midst of the sea and there are no rocks to crash against, yet.

Business Data Mining & Decision Models

We're coming to the more complex data mining modes - we just began with text mining this week. The prof takes examples of how words by themselves are not as important as n-grams. These n-grams are certain combination of words that actually have a sensible meaning. For e.g. 'great' is a good word, but 'not great' implies sometihng else entirely, while 'not great aesthetics' implies yet another meaning. Hence, he goes on about a case where they had to identify trends based on feedback left behind on something. I'd have been more specific, but I'd fallen asleep thinking of n-grams.

The second session was our first practical session on Clementine... which does some pretty cool stuff with data. It's like excel, only that you can do some cool graph-y things with it. Combine data sets, filter stuff out, sort it, sample it... and finally display or extract stuff. And we got to work on a cool data set too! One of login data of students and profs.. probably to check attendance and other such stuff. Good fun...

Strategic Thinking and Decision Making

We continue down the emotion route... further refining our understanding of Game Theory. Apparently, humans are lazy, that's a shocker! They tend to make decisions based on incomplete information and rely a helluva lot on their intuition. Again, such a shocker. The funda appears to be bounded rationality. We tend to look for answers, and will continue looking till we get what we deem to be a satisfying answers, and not the optimal one. We also seem to have some sort of an opinion bias? We are more likely to think our harebrained ideas are the awesomest, while some brilliant ideas from others are downright crappy. Apparently, our intuitive part of the brain is different from the reasoning part of the brain. What makes it worse, is that we can't realize when our intuition is suggesting something downright wrong.

We're also quite risk averse! If we're getting a chance to look at good things happening, and are confronted with two options, we're more likely to take the less risky one. And if we're getting a chance to look at bad things happening, and are offered two options, we think 'what the hell' and are willing to take much riskier options. So, interestingly, the way a problem is phrased to you ends up with you taking different decisions. Good tip to have, no? It's one of the reasons we stay invested in a market that's obviously going down (because we *think* it will come back up again anyway), or why we don't invest in markets when they're going up (what if it goes down?). Interesting to know how nutty we can get!

Quarter 10 - Week 4

It's about that time of the quarter when people suddenly realize that they're supposed to settle down on a project topic, and then heated debates rise on what to study. The debates essentially come down to convenience vs. interest... 'my topic is easy', 'yes, well, mine is easier!' or the 'Man, let's study social networks!', 'Are you crazy?! Let's do a system that can rival S & P's credit ratings of countries!' to the ever glorious 'The prof doesn't understand your topic, we'll get less marks', 'The prof doesn't understand my topic, we'll get more marks!'

Business Data Mining & Decision Models

This week was supposed to be about pruning/cleaning data. It might come as a shocker to you, but people aren't collecting stats on their companies/divisions/teams so that data analysts can come and do one click with their mice with a magical flourish and charge them a bomb. Everyone wants to make everyone else work, so they deviously collect some data in one form, some related data in the other, jumble the two up and generously offer the analyst some tossed salad. If that weren't enough, they will specifically allow users to half-enter their data (in response to surveys etc.) and submit it, without offering the 'Fill everything, or you dont go further!' clause. Hence, the analyst has the mind-numbing job of having to sift through the data, find out what goes where... neatly order it, find some intellectual way of filling the missing data.... and THEN he clicks the magic button. The prof takes us through multiple examples where given a subset of data, how would one go about gleaning enough to complete the dataset. Appeared to be fun, will know for sure when we start.

Strategic Thinking and Decision Making

We had a quiz worth 20 percent of the overall count, so we justifiably had a reason not to go through the readings for the day. The prof enters the class, and is eagerly getting ready to talk of the Cuban missile crisis, and describe the various mechanics at game theory at work! And he asks 'What do you guys think??'... Pin-drop silence. Even the crickets that typically make an appearance here and answer in an unknown 'crik-crik's were silent, presumably since they were studying for the quiz as well. The prof fumes on how we've got to catch up, this is nothing, the readings are tiny compared to what we'll get later... and I'm guessing he doesn't realize that it is not really a motivating line to begin with.

In any case, we continue discussions around game theory, about how the Cuban missile crisis was an example of how the two most publicly powerful people at the time signalled their intentions to each other and how the world was at the brink of a nuclear war. Then, for the first time there was a little addition of emotion to rationality. The prof makes us play a few games, and then he questions why we don't behave rationally... and then brings in a sense of fair-play etc. to the table. Apparently, if I was offered a 100 bucks, on the condition that I share it with someone... I could come to you and say here's 10 bucks, I'll keep 90 and you're likely to show me the finger, maybe give me two rupees due to my apparently dismal state. What you don't realize is that if you don't accept the 10 bucks, you get nothing anyway. So you have nothing to lose even if I were to give you ONE buck. By choosing to walk away, you show how you bring a sense of fairness to the game. You'd rather take no money than take a pittance or unequal share. And hence, we begin our descent into the nature of the human aspects of the decision making process.

Quarter 10 - Week 3

The IIMB Vistas are coming up, and the buildup is palpable. Some of the final years have finally begun to ponder if now's a good time to take part in the fest, considering it's their last time to do so! The first years are enthusiastic, some with starry eyes... the others with a newbie enthusiasm to make their mark. The second years are busy co-ordinating, from the PGSEM side of things... to ensure that we do our bit. Pretty much like a family when you think of it... the grand-people are thinking if they've done enough to leave their mark in the sands of time, the young want to go out there and rule the world, and the stuck-in-the-middles are busy paying all the bills.

Business Data Mining & Decision Models

This course name is still such a mouthful, I have to check the previous blog posts to know what the name really is. This week we move along with more means of analysis, and we cover Artifical Neural Networks and Logistic Regression. The funda from the Neural Networks is pretty simple. Assume you have a black box, and you know that there are some inputs going in one end, and some output coming out the other. You take a sample, look at the values and arrive at what weights are to be associated with them in order to get the result. Then you take the next sample, and by applying a set of simple formulae, you find out how wrong the previous weights were and correct the weights based on the current inputs to get the output. And the cycle goes on and on, till hopefully you have such a confused set of weights that begins to predict what the output should be given a set of input values. The prof covers the funda with a case where he used such a thing, and then we marvel at how accurate something can be, and give a contemptuous smirk at all the previous methods we learnt over the last two weeks. Artificial Intelligence rules!!

The next session when we read about Logistic Regression, we find out about how this uses an exponential function to find out what the effect of the input variables can be. While explaining all of it, the prof decides to show us another case study where he applied this and how it gave all awesome results, and we smirk again at the uselessness of the other methods in this study. Funnily enough, this time the Neural Networks method was pretty bad. So, the question then arises that if all the models have an insanely unpredictable error rate, how do you identify the best one for use on incoming data, when it cant even predict past data as accurately. To which the prof sagely responds - It depends on the input format. If you use continuous variables in these two, and bins in those two, then this method is better else that method is better. That's just convenient if you ask me - Tomato / Tomaahto! A value is a value, how does it being continuous affect the model to be used is beyond me, but I didn't do the PhD or run the painstaking tests and examples, so I'll leave it to the wizened old goats and trust their statements as I've done for the last 2.5 years.

P.S. Yet another difference between the PGP and the PGSEM came forth this week - We seem to have a PGP-er attending the class alongwith us, and the chap is definitely the most inspired by this prof. How would I know? Because while his eyes are focussed on the prof like the latter's a wonder of the world, and the prof's simplest joke or statement is met with a wide grin or a vigorous nod or scribble, some of the PGSEMers are more interested in his reactions than the prof. Analytics must really be their holy grail, if they are dive this deep in a lecture. I'm guessing the prof realized he's losing our attention, because he now cracks fewer jokes. Therefore, to be mesmerized 150% or not to be, that's the difference between the young and the 'experienced'. (Bows to a rumbling applause, and a few delirious fainting acts for the earth-shattering gyaan)

Strategic Thinking and Decision Making

'Tis a game this week, and one where a number of PGSEM team look forward to tearing the guts out of one another to be the top boss! Our prof thought now'd be a good time to let us try out rules of game theory, and so asks us to be ready with a strategy to take on the other teams. And so we prepare over the week and come to class, only to realize that the rest of the class is just as nuts as we are! To put it simply, the game was five round of bidding for business and at the very first round, one of the team lands a shocker by going so deep that the rest of the people go blank for a second. From then on, we ran around trying to figure what the other crazy people might do to get the order, and we went into mutual demolition. The price of the winning tender kept going lower and lower... till finally we look at the numbers and realize exactly why this happens in the real world as well.

We then move into some theory, to understand how people can resolve the prisoner's dilemma. After hearing them, I just wonder why we need to learn strategy when obviously the answers lie in the good ol' religious tomes. Be good, care for others, don't fight, forgive people etc. are the way to go in long term relationships. It's not put as lightly as I just did... there's obviously tons of backing, because hey, it's strategy and its based on inter-entity behaviour. The prof ends with a reminder of the quiz next week, and as usual threatens us enough about reading the soporific chapters early on, if we are to do well.

Not much else on campus, other than a guest lecture on Open Innovation. The preps seem to be in full swing for the Vistas, the students seem concerned about the type of projects to choose, it's a normal week.

Quarter 10 - Week 2

The weather's been surprisingly accommodating thus far, rains when we're in class, stops when we're out of class. My fellow students seem reasonably chirpy too... you'd think that after nine quarters they'd know these are short-lived moments of joy, but they seem to like living life in the moment. I'm a lot more chilled out so far, you wouldn't believe how relaxing it is to take just two subjects instead of the standard three... phew!

Business Data Mining & Decision Models

Ok, so I might be a little TOO relaxed. I fell asleep in the first session... I dont even know why! I'm getting enough sleep nowadays, for God's sakes! I remember some fundas about how you shouldn't overcook your analysis. Apparently, when you have your data set, you randomly select 70% of the values and run your magic on it. Fry, Flip and once your gyaan is condensed, you apply your analysis on a randomly selected 30% data from your set. If the values are very close and matching, then you know its not overcooked. He obviously said a lot more, but hey... if you don't fall asleep in a class, you don' give a chance for subliminal learning (You know, let your subconscious do some work), and therefore you're not really learning anything...

The second session was a lot of practical examples that made use of the learning from the first class. The prof takes an example of how they studied sericulture (silkworms stuff) and how they helped add some method-of-madness to the quality grading procedure. Apparently they ran some tests on a sample of 100 silkworm cocoons on various parameters of quality, and where able to find a condensed and quick mean for farmers to get their produced judged and paid for. I'm reasonably sure that I've learnt everything I missed on the previous session, this can be confirmed only during our midterm in a few weeks.

Strategic Thinking and Decision Making

Today's class easily makes it into my top-5 list of most active sessions. The criteria for judging is simple. The number of open eyes and fishmarket noise when the teacher is present, but where everything is directed at one destination(the prof) and everyone's vehemently arguing about points that they think is right. The prof knows how to make his examples - he actually 'localized' the examples from the textbook and added a few more examples of his own. Kept the class active for most of the two sessions (except for the last half hour in the second session, where he left us looking at twirling stars).

During the course of the classes, he managed to convince me that icecreams are a very diabolical device meant to force strategic thinking in innocent young minds - especially siblings. Most parents have a very simple formula for icecream sharing - Get one to cut, and the other to choose his half. This prof applies strategy. And because he knows it will be too easy, he forces us to consider that the icecream can melt. Therefore, there's a money value of time (Ahaah! No you finance chaps, I'm NOT talking time value of money, I really AM talking money value of time!). Did you know that if the icecream melts with an even number of negotiation rounds, people share 50:50, but if it melts with an odd number, people take an advantage of n/(2n+1):n+1/(2n+1). Get in touch with me, I'll explain why! Oh, charges of Rs. 3000 apply.

If that wasn't enough, he gives examples of husbands and wives who want to spend time together, but one likes sports and the other likes movies. So who wins? Again, ask any normal person, and he'll say 'Listen to the wife. Long-term happiness over short-term gain'. But the prof made a 2 by 2! And via this he actually explained a Nash equilibrium, a dominated and a dominant strategy! Therefore, if you've been wondering how your parent/spouse is constantly getting the better of you, and if they have an MBA, you should know... it's not their fault. There's an even bigger sinister plot running in front of you!

While the class was definitely a lot of fun, and informative... the principles of game theory acknowledge one major shortcoming, the choices made are completely rational and thought of as the gains to the individual not as gains or harms to the opponent. It will be a while before we attempt to solve what happens if the opponent is in real life (thereby allowing emotional variables) or if the opponent is just plain dumb (Good luck trying to play the Nash game with a real dumass partner). The quiz for this is dawning up quite fast, so we've got some heavy reading to do... and a game to be ready for next week. Quite entertaining, thus far!

In the meantime, there's a ton of activity around the upcoming Vista fest at IIMB. We have a few corporate events too, hence external invitation is really welcomed! If you're interested, check out the site: http://www.iimb-vista.com and register for it! As a corp junkie, here's your chance to experience college life again! :)

Quarter 10 - Week 1

Snifffffff..... do you smell that? Of course you don't, unless you're from my batch! It's the smell of vacant weekends and jobless evenings in the near future. Many of our classmates have taken on a radiant glow, and I'm guessing it has nothing to do with better face wash products.

Just because I am going to be here till next quarter because there's a couple of awesome subjects I want to take, I've taken the phenomenal decision of doing only two courses this quarter! Yes, two! I'm expecting that it will result in increased concentration in these subjects, to an extent of an extra 50%! I have not factored in the 'Going-to-leave-shortly' aspect, but the dampening factor of the same can be calculated at the end of the quarter based on the deviation from the mean... BUTTT I DIGRESS!

Business Data Mining & Decision Models (BDMDM)

I took the course just because it has such a big name, and the abbreviation sounds like thunder. Actually no, but I wouldn't put it beyond me. The name is so obviously suggesting the amount of trouble it can cause, it would be a crime not to undergo the pain of it! We don't really come to study to have a fun life now, do we...

The first week was reasonably intriguing. The prof knows his stuff, and has a way of describing the problems in a imaginative manner. If he fails to help you picturize the complexity in your head, he'll have it drawn up on the presentation so you have no doubt about the fact that you're confused. He also spoke about how business data mining has evolved, from just simple metrics collection to metrics analysis. While making it absolutely clear that we are going to suffer under the load of the project, he has also managed to convince me on the value of doing this course. This week, we looked at cluster analysis and how this differs from cluster sampling (diametrically opposite in fact! These mathematicians have no sense on how to name things, thats for sure!) and we then went on to discuss how clustering can be done from the many different angles. Looks set to be an interesting course, especially since there's only one textbook which, in all probability, we wont read, and sets of slides that will be shared!

Strategic Thinking & Decision Making (STDM)

Fortunately not as dangerous sounding, this course attempts to explain the thought process behind decision making by people. I'd have put this down as an OB course, given the chance. This prof is very engaging, but the catch is that you need to get on his boat right at the start! If you happen to disengage in the middle of class over a game of Angry Birds, and then suddenly pay attention... you get completely flustered at the jargon being thrown your way! Therefore, the important lesson would be to avoid the Angry Bird. Or don't play the game.

For the first week, after the standard 'study-your-ass-out-or-else' sermon to a set of bored-looking 'Been there, heard that' students... the prof gets down to some practical examples. Takes up a mini case and asks us our thoughts on whether the decision taken was right or not. After a bunch of suggestions from the class, he breaks down what seems like a 'poor-chap' case into a set of discrete 'if-then' and 'cause-effect' scenarios. Talks of what would happen if you do this, or do that... about what the other person has in his mind, and why he should cede to your point-of-view. That seemed enough to get the class hooked, as he went on to explain in light sciency terms about why people make the decisions they do, and how it turns out. Something tells me that some of the students didn't realize what the course entailed, as after the break there was approximate 3/4 of the class around. The rest, having realized this has more to do with the fundas behind decision-making and not with actual strategic frameworks, had strategically decided to bolt out the door!

We then also spent some time discussing Game Theory, and it pretty shortly came about that the underlying principle is that every man's for himself. This intensely individualistic appeal also came about to explain how people look at the immediate short term, under the rules of Game Theory, than the collective long term perspective. Therefore, my takeaway was that Game Theory needs an infusion of collective thinking if it should take into account long-term prospects. Having said that, it's not the Game Theory itself that needs fixing... it's the inherent programming of the individual, who's being told to look out only for himself. A tall prospect, which probably explains why not much has happened to influence this theory in quite a while.

All in all, it sounds like it will be a fun quarter... I haven't done many quant subjects since my first year, and BDMDM seems to pose a good enough challenge. Similarly, strategy not being my weapon of choice, gets SOME makeover with STDM. Hopefully, I'll learn more consumer behaviour from this, and 'enhance' my Marketing knowhow!

Quarter 9 - Week of Exams

The halls seem a lot quieter, and you wonder if it's because we are going to have fewer people in our classes now that a few of our classmates are done. And then you realize it's because you are one of the few miserable students who's exams are starting at 8 when everyone else gets to start at 11 AM!

The mood had its mix, the outgoing students had their share of nostalgia and relief, more of the latter. They couldn't wait to snatch their weekends back... and their gleeful statements makes everyone else switch from a state of wistfulness of losing time with fellow comrades, to a state of vengeful fury. But that still didn't stand in the way of a horde of our batch waiting till the end of Friday so that we could snap some pics with the first set of pass-outs! :)

Consumer Behaviour

Knowing our prof, it wasn't surprising that we spent 10 minutes gazing at the paper going 'What the %#$%#', following it with thumbing (or rather frantically rustling) through the pages going 'Where the ^%$^$', with an 'I'm ^#$%@&-ed' with half an hour to spare for the end of the exam. Apparently, it wasn't that bad for everyone, a few of the students actually knew what the paper was about, so they went ahead and analysed it this way and that. I'm just glad that the exam's all done.

I didn't have any other exams this week, so all that's left is an assignment that needs to be submitted by Saturday. Once that's done, Q10 is just a week away.

Quarter 9 - Week 10

The final week of classes... it's a relief! The last week has all the presentations and the cases being submitted, and you finally wash your hands off all of that. Nice blank feeling, you never get tired of it, even after eight quarters. All this despite the fact that there are going to be exams the week later. Looks like projects worry us more than the end-terms!

Consumer Behaviour

One final case which no one was asked to present, but prepare for in any case. Interestingly the case was very real-life-problem-ish, since it was about understanding the steps that a local kirana store (kaaka-angadi) should take to combat the swanky new hypermarkets. Never mind that our recommendations were poles apart from the professor's... in fact, if there were two planets, we were on the opposite poles ACROSS the two planets. Get it..? No...? Sigh, it was REALLY different, all right?

The second session was on compulsive purchases and a couple of other simple concepts. Call it the end-of-quarter euphoria, but the number of questions that we peppered the prof with on the last day was phenomenal. The prof was surprised, since he expected a quiet fagged-out class on the last day, it's good to see the confused happy look on a prof's face... it's not often we get to shock profs at the IIMB.

Strategic Leadership

6 hours of presentations, all 6 ending with some great feedback from the prof. Mark my words, when I say great feedback, I don't mean praise. I mean very different thought processes. If you never get into consulting, just hope that you have profs like this one to judge your presentations. Considering the multiple topics you take up, you'll know enough about a lot of other industries by the end of it.

The basic statement the prof kept making -> where's the insight? You guys have so much information, that anyone can get by Googling... where have you applied your learnings from this course? Go deep into the problem. Ask why... ask how... get to the point where you realize why some company managed to buck the industry trend. If anything, that's the last and most important question I learnt from Strategic Leadership - Question EVERYTHING.

Personal and Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

The set of articles for this week build on a very interesting idea - spirit. Do you have it in you, to give without asking.. time, love, money, thanks... do you have it in you, to rely on your inner goodness... to lead you towards the right decisions than be frightened into the wrong ones? More importantly, do you have it in you to stick by your passion, instead of giving in to 'work'? And how long can you keep at it? The entire point being, you get stronger, by making your spirit stronger.

We went through the commencement speeches by Steve Jobs, the well-known Apple-honcho, and Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes fame. It's really disconcerting to see that most of these top-types, have been through hell and back. And they returned with a smile. In almost all their cases, they had to see complete failure, before realizing how they could not fail worse... and hence the only way let was forward... to succeed.

Our class shared a lot more than we typically did, I still solely attribute it to the last-day-of-classes phenomenon... but hey, who really cares huh? We know each other a lot better now, we've learnt from one another, we've shared with one another. We've even philosophized and giving holier-than-thou advice to one another. What more could you do to bring a class together?

The final project in strategic leadership and a research concept submission stand in the way of us and a blanker mind. And so I go back and join my team, in collecting the elusive pockets of data...

Quarter 9 - Week 9

What happens when you combine a long weekend, a fest focussed on entrepreneurship, and a couple of heavy assignments? Confusion! You get a bunch of holidays but you don't get enough sleep, you bunk some classes and attend some events, you crunch all the numbers and the speakers tell you that you need to focus on the heart... you get the point. It was a great time to be at IIMB, a time when people disagree with each other, and they are respectful of the fact. Oh, and yes, we did have some classes running at the same time.

Consumer Behaviour

This week like the last few have been Application Exercises and case studies, not much to say, just a lot of concept-applying in order to understand what's happening out there on the field. The case study this week was on Xylys by Titan, and to understand what went on in the consumer's mind when he was trying to select it. Also, since it was the last case, there were teams that did some proactive work in order to score a little. Since there was no particular chapter in focus here, we saw a lot of application of myriad concepts from across the book... one thing's for sure, it was suitable preparation for the upcoming exam,

Strategic Leadership

No classes this week since the presentations are set for the next. So some groups are busy hunkering down and writing something, some others (like ours) are still going through the material.

Personal and Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

This week we were to read a book called Siddhartha(Herman Hess), a book that looks at one man's search for what's out there... and what's the ultimate piece of knowledge. There was also a couple of readings, related to accepting what the world has to offer, right out of the book 'Feel the fear and do it anyway' and an article regarding Yoga Nidra. A little more into the practice of self-confidence and building inner strength, these two articles shed some light on activities that we can do... to be.... better. It's heavy stuff, so I'll just leave a suggestion that the book be read. If anything, I no longer have a contempt for self-help books.

The penultimate week of classes, and it's been very fruitful. It's time to deliver the coup-de-grace.

Quarter 9 - Week 8

Not much happening this week. Some interesting cases, but nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to college life. Ooh, can't wait for Eximius the next week though!

Consumer Behaviour

The prof was a little down on his regular energy in class. We were studying the reactions people have post-purchase, and essentially about the cognitive dissonance that consumers sometimes face when they find that the product doesn't fulfill what they thought it would. So we look at the different aspects of purchase, and what prompts people towards repeat purchase, or not purchasing it ever again. The whole funda lies on the premise that if the difference between consumer perception and satisfaction breaches a limit, then that's the time that cognitive dissonance takes place.

The second session was meant for a case discussion, one that's based on a venture of one of our seniors. It was quite interesting to read what happened at the venture, and a lot more interesting to hear people's interpretation of it. I totally thought that one of the teams had it bang on, when they compared the venture to other successful ventures, and tried to demarcate the roles of informational sites vs. commerce sites. Very interesting take, and one that I found to be quite apt. One of the few student presentations in class where I had some takeaway.

Strategic Leadership

Iconic. That's the one word I would use to describe the cases this week. We studied two behemoths in India - ITC and Tata. The first session, on ITC, was quite different when compared to what we had studied last week about Unilever. In the latter, we studied how the parent company and the subsidiary work together towards achieving relevant goals. In ITC however, we looked at how the Indian holding stands up for its Indian-ness, and how it asserts its goals irrespective of what the senior says. I found some brilliant takeaway in terms of challenging accepted norms, and challenging myself on some thoughts. A week ago, if you asked me, I would have said that ITC is only making its money on cigarettes, it's an unethical company... and this week, when the prof. gives us an option to sell the cigarettes division, no one wants to do so. It's a cash cow, we say... it funds all the other operations. What happened to all our ethics?? A very enlightening case, with a lot of different small pieces of learning, all of which require deep reflection.

The second session was on Tata, and how it grew from an Indian company to a multinational corporation. More importantly, how the dream of JRD Tata, was taken forward by Ratan Tata, but along a different course altogether. JRD was the tech guy, providing creative freedom to the different companies. Ratan appears to be the consolidator, trying to bring together the different companies under the Tata umbrella, and protecting the brand equity of the Tata name, besides enabling the acquisitions of international behemoths by smaller Tata companies, all because of the promise that the Tata Group can handle such an acquisition. Most importantly, we partly understood why promoter-led group holdings are more popular, accepted, and succesful here in India when compared to the rest of the world, that would rather prefer diversification of portfolios within a certain company.

Personal Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

Today's readings had a lot to do with the roles of others in your life, and raising your own self-esteem. The first reading takes off on the Polyanna story, about how being optimistic and trying to change your life might make life a little hard for your loved ones. The premise goes - the change that you bring to yourself might be acceptable to you, but how does it affect those around you. Were they aware that such a change was coming, would they be able to adapt to being a different person around you? The article basically suggests what we can do to make things easier for the other person, and how we need to stop being selfish and consider tying our goals with goals of those around us.

The second article, about self-appreciation and self-esteem, was all right. Not much to really speak about, I'm just getting tired of applying so many exercises to the same one/two instances that I find may be bothering me. There was also a story about hope, that prompted a lot of people to share their own stories with the group. It was an interesting session where we saw more of what our classmates went through, in terms of career progression and how they identified with certain characters in the reading. We ended with meditation, with an additional 'vipassana'-based step.

All my projects are expected next week, it's interesting how the universe (or IIMB profs in this case) conspires to put you through a living hell.

Quarter 9 - Week 7

By this time of the quarter, everyone's done with their midterms and they're scrambling to prepare their projects and presentations. The profs have by now made it clear that their time to drive the classes is almost done, and they're about to hand the steering wheels over to us. Looking back now, it doesn't seem as hectic a quarter as we've made it seem.

Consumer Behaviour

This week we had three other groups do their ApExs... the topics, having been already chosen by our prof at the start of the quarter, were meant as examples for illustrating our learnings from the topic. The teams compared products from different FMCG categories, and looked into why or what prompted certain responses from the market, and what the orgs were doing to better their standing.

The second session was a case on Ethnic Consumer Consulting, and it spoke of what drove people to try different skin care and hair oil products. So these guys go out to do a survey, and get a feel of what women are looking for. Based on this data, our guys try and draw parallels to the theoretical principles from our textbook, and explain where the different brands are placed on a graph that they make up. The prof seems happy, so everyone's happy. Look at us budding managers, with original thought. Sometimes, I wonder...

Strategic Leadership

The midterm last week seems to have struck some fire in the students, or put something out in the prof. The first session was spent on Cognizant's growth and strategy. Honestly, while their approach was interesting, the lesson was the same ol' 'this fits into that as a system of gears', and 'that system of gears fits into this system of gears', and 'this geared-supersystem fits with this geared-supersystem'. The standard thingy of you do a lot of things right, not just one 'competence'. Don't get me wrong, quite a few interesting tidbits, but as an awe-inducing principle, I think we've run out of cases.

The second session was devoted to Hindustan Lever Limited, and its connections with Unilever. I must confess, I thought I did a more involved case preparation by looking at the issues they were facing, and omg, were they facing issues! Being the top-dog in an FMCG industry is not easy. You don't know where your attackers are going to come from. Once in a while, your favourite nemesis attacks you, cuts price, at another time, a complete newbie comes in and attacks you. Now you have a large portion of the market, sometimes 3x-4x that of the closest competitor. So do the simple math... what happens when a new player enters the field, and attracts a set of first-tryouts... where would the biggest proportion of these trial-ers come from? And so these guys battle it, day in and day out... reducing prices here, consolidating brands there, reviving brands that they laid to rest, and laying to rest brands they thought were great. It's not easy. And I go in, thinking I know what the problem is. What does the prof do? He brings in a whole different perspective. He asks: Where in the entire picture do you see Unilever, the parent? To what level is a subsidiary allowed to question the parent's strategy. If the parent does well in one category globally, and you do well in an entirely different category... which one do you focus on? Who drives that focus? Then we see that the ex-top-dog at HLL had been promoted to Unilever's top kennel. And we are asked to think, who's line is he going to walk... Unilever's or HLL's?

For a moment, I'm thinking 'traitor'. Putting yourself ahead of the company (the subsidiary, that is). And then flash forward to today, the new top-dog at HLL (from the case), is ALSO now in the Unilever top-kennel. What does this mean? Can one of these actually become the CEO of the one of the biggest global FMCG companies? An Indian? So then again, we ask... who's line was the first top-dog following... The prof ends with a simple sentence, as you grow, your decisions are not going to be only based on hard fact... it's also going to cover all these hazy areas where you don't have openly-available data. That doesn't mean you don't do your best analysis, but the point is you will still not have all the info. Those instances, when you make your decisions, when you navigate those potholes, is what defines you as a leader.

Personal and Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

This week continues off on self-belief and confidence, by looking at being optimistic, creating rapport, persuading people, and the power of the self-conscious. There are enough people out there who are too busy being practical, and realistic, that the idealists are treated as dreamers. And rightfully so... who'd follow a dreamer into the hazy future? But then again, which practical/realistic/sane person would WALK into the hazy future... he'd be pushed into it, or the haze would come over.

The article was not so much about being the starry-eyed dreamer, it was about looking at the positive side of things as well, instead of just focussing on what could go wrong. You get the drift, I'm sure. The other articles were to do with how you could strike rapport with a person, and how you could persuade people. Reading those headings, I thought for sure this involved some sneaky convincing and deliberate half-lies. But as it turns out, it mainly involves showing integrity, and having your thoughts and voice aligned, before you find a goal that is mutually satisfying to the two parties involved. It's not 'Fix my problem!', it's 'What are our problems, and how do we go about fixing it?'.

A normal week thus far, and the only thing that's worthy of eagerness, is the upcoming Eximius fest at IIMB. Should be interesting to see ideas bandied around, on what needs to be done, and how they plan to get it done.

Quarter 9 - Week 6

About now the assignments start piling up. There are presentations, case deadlines, midterms and you're thinking 'Why God Why Did We Take This Up??". It's always fun listening in class, but when your pedal's to the metal, or in this case your head's nowhere near your bed, then you get to know your true self.

Consumer Behaviour

So we had our application exercise this week. That's another confusing word for a project. But unlike other professors, our prof decides that a few groups get to go through the grind early on. So we start chakki-peesing a couple of weeks back. Luckily for us, he didn't give us too much of a hard time then, gave us the freedom to decide what would be good to study, and then from our final set of options he selected a few questions that he thought would be interesting to focus on in class.

As it turns out, we didn't sleep for three nights in a row (Actually we slept at 1 AM, instead of the regular 12 AM.. but where's an MBA without the self-inflicted pain and misery. And complaining when in fact you get enough sleep.) And then the day before the assignment, a couple of our guys take a leave to solidify our discussions into a document for submission the next day. Till 3 AM, we're churning and reviewing the presentation as we can barely decide what should go in and what shouldn't. Leave us a chance, and we'll cram in 100 pages and turn in the report so that the prof goes through pain. But in our case, the prof has set a limit. 17 pages max! 3 for this, 3 for that, 1 for this, 2 for that... etc. So we had a hell of a time just deciding what should go in.

Finally the presentation happens, and yes, he likes it... but. Apparently we ought to go become strategy consultants for the company, since we did a great job on it... but then he reminds us, this was a consumer behaviour class.. and he would have loved to hear more about the focussed chapter. Personally I thought we used enough jargon from the chapter, but he seemed to be missing those few nuggets which would have been the crowning glory. Yes, the papers and issues we selected were top notch, but. Still, battle-scarred veterans that we are, two years later, we know how to not back down. So, the next assignment is going to be our last stand. Either we present to victory, or to get victimized, but kick some CB ass, we shall!

(Warning: Delirium due to lack of sleep. Just nod and move on.)

While the first session was three apexes by different groups, the second session was a guest lecture by a field veteran who's worked with Cleartrip.com. She helps us understand how decisions were made keeping the consumer in mind, and what kind of market they're dealing with. It was an interesting session, with a lot of questions from the attentive folks!

Strategic Leadership

In lieu of the midterm on Sunday (WHO THE HELL PUTS AN EXAM ON A SUNDAY??), no classes were held. Since no classes were held so that we could study, most of the students did their due by loafing around during that time. Some traitors were preparing for the midterm.

Personal Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

The readings were supposed to get easy, he said, it's an introspector's life he said. Any more reflections and journeys into the past, and I'm going to turn into a friggin' mess! Diggin' through all those old memories leaves a scar, we've got too many sharp stories in the dark memory box.

But it's useful, we're dealing with somethings that we shut out a long time ago, atleast I am. And the sentiments in the class seem to align with this too. This week we were dealing with how we look at ourselves, the happenings to us and how we respond or react to that. Do we play the victim (OMG! How could this happen to me??) Or taking some responsibility.. (Shit happened. What now?) There was another set of articles introduced as part of readings this time, from the concept of NLP. NLP basically talks about how people can overcome their fears and issues not by focussing on removing a root cause, but by modifying our reactions at the front end. So, in a nutshell, if we had a bad memory, then through some suggested exercises we replace the painful thoughts associated with it with some pleasurable thoughts. We'll soon find that we don't feel that pained anymore!

Seems too good to be true? Well, it partially worked on us, and we've only done something in two days. Imagine sitting through NLP for a long quality duration! They could potentially be made to think they're awesome and can change the world, and for all you know, they'll do it! It's a powerful tool, but in the wrong hands, it can be quite deadly.

Pretty rewarding week in all, and now I gotta go back and prepare for my SL midterm tomorrow. Sunday! Sheesh!

Quarter 9 - Week 5

Half the quarter's over, the pace is getting quicker, and the subject matter deeper. Typically, if you haven't caught up with the class by now, you're too late. Unless you're a senior in the 2nd year like me, of course. Because you then no longer have to worry about the rat race. Even if you did extremely well, your grade isn't affected much. If you do poorly, ditto! You've already got your eye on the finish line, and you're just going towards it.

Consumer Behaviour

This week we discussed Diffusion of Innovation (essentially, new products). Now our prof doesn't give much of a damn to the 'Crossing the Chasm' funda. He's more interested in why the consumer would pick such a product. So we study about the types of innovation, and the amount of change required and seen from the user's point of view. The basic funda is that the product is not new or innovative unless the USER thinks it is. You might be doing a whole new cool technological advancement, but if the end user doesn't perceive a difference in the way the product is used... then you're not really selling a new consumer product. Maybe some behind-the-scenes chaps (the earlier product developers) might be interested in your advancement.

The second session allowed a couple of teams the chance to study this concept of 'diffusion of innovation' in TiVo. So while the guys come out and mention that this is what we found, and that is what we think it must do, and these are the underlying concepts that we noticed... it slowly became apparent that the problem with TiVo wasn't the coolness, newness or technology of it. It was to do more with the fact that the target segment hadn't been properly identified, and neither had the positioning. People weren't very clear about WHAT the product is. When people try and judge a new product, they need a frame of reference. If the frame of reference is vague, then people can't really benchmark a product to mention if they indeed think this is cooler than before. So, when you think the TiVo is a super-VCR, or that it is a Season-Pass based system, they're two different views (like the blind men and the elephant). When these two thoughts are described to end users at different points of time, they'll confuse the user. THAT's the problem, and that's one of the main reasons the diffusion didn't happen.

Strategic Leadership

This week, in our first session we studied about the emergence of iFlex. The history of it is pretty cool. As it turns out, it was initially CITIL, a part of Citibank handling their BFSI services. They had one product, which was a little old for its time, but yet they run around trying to sell it. Over time, they realize that a common financial product would be a hell of a lot more beneficial to the banking industry instead of the typical services being doled out. Add to that the fact that one of the driving forces realized that the services they had rendered for a customer ages ago for a pittance, was being sold for more than a hundred million dollars now! So, then the framework gets formed (in the mind of the professor).

If I haven't told you yet, the framework involves a triple-axes format with Ambition, Resources and Opportunities on the axes. These guys had heavy ambition, and they recruited people who thought the same way. And, obviously, while Ambition is not enough, they slowly went about scrounging through the resources and opps to keep at their main vision. They also made the hard choice of keeping the guys separate in Product and Services (well, they were not going to stop doing the second! It was getting the moolah!). So, now how do they position themselves? Product or Services? As it turns out, they call themselves domain experts. So irrespective of what the customer comes looking for, as long as it's related to banking, these guys are here. There's a lot more interesting information about how they went about getting the reputation and knowledge base that they did, but the critical part remained as to how they envisioned something that no one else was thinking of at that moment, and how that vision helped them with building the best financial product as of the time. And all this from India.

The second session was a guest lecture by the CEO/Co-founder at Tejas Networks. The interesting part is he speaks in the same language as us (Inflection point and all that...), probably because our professor's on his board! But his story again was very inspiring. He went on to detail how the market for telecom networks was in the 2000s, and how the Chinese players were investing heavily when the others weren't. Seeing an opportunity, these guys decided to get in as well... so when the whole world's cutting back on investments, these guys are going full-steam ahead, at 1/4 the cost. So he discusses the choices they made, and what they chose not to do, in order to become one of the biggest suppliers in the industry out here. As of now, they're in the top 10 set worldwide, which is a tremendous claim to fame for a company from India. Our class seems to have picked on the lessons within the framework, because they badger him with all sorts of questions related to how 'this aspect' or 'that aspect' must have been an issue, and how he faced it. He must have attended a similar private course by the prof, as he generously and amicably doled out all the info about how they faced problems of leadership, and definite strategy. It's always very inspiring and cool to hear these sort of talks, they tell you what you can definitely achieve!

Personal Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

This week's readings were from 'Feel the fear and do it anyway', and another few about meditation. The 'Feel the fear...' readings talk about how people have different fears, from small to big, ranging from 'I am afraid of swimming' to 'I am afraid of public speaking' to 'I am afraid of death' etc. What the article tries to say is that in order to get over your fears, it's important to understand one thing - that you have the capability to control the outcomes. As long as you understand that YOU can handle it, things will be all right. The moment you resign yourself to fate, because you probably have given up the sense of control, that's when things really get undone. So our class begins to discuss, from their experience, about how they've had certain issues with dealing with fear, and what they did to support themselves through it. While the discussions tend to go here and there, many of the thoughts had the same underlying worry - if I decide to just follow my heart, and do what I want, how do I support those who depend on me. It's always difficult to really answer that question, and I hope by the end of this quarter, we figure out how to make the decision.

The second set of readings had to do with meditation and happiness. The meditation articles were straightforward. They talk of how and what to do while meditating. The happiness article was a different take on how to achieve happiness. The author tries to say that happiness is a state of mind, and we've conditioned ourselves into thinking that happiness comes by fulfilling goals or meeting a certain objective. The author says that in order to gain happiness, we create some discomfort by setting such goals... and when we fulfill them, we feel at peace. It's like pinching yourself hard for a while, and then letting go. And then he sets a wonderful analogy -People are changing the way they view life, such that when they go fishing... they forget that it's not the fish they're after.

That's just powerful. It makes you look at things from a very different angle. So, if there's anything I'd like to leave with you for this week, it's that.... Why are you fishing?

Quarter 9 - Week 4

Nothing very special from the classes this week, a couple of guest lecturers and a few cases. The highlight was the Pehel fest, thrown by the first year students. It's the first fest of the year, held in the first quarter, by the first years - therefore, the original name - Pehel. The amount of time invested in this was very visible, looking at the number of events organized and the intricate logos and t-shirts designed. A few confusions on stage, but nothing out-of-the-ordinary, and definitely a brilliant means of learning for the incoming batch about the rigour of managing the show despite the heavy workload. It was a good way to end the weekend at college! :)

Consumer Behaviour

This week, the prof decides to take a break and make the students do the presentations. So we had a couple of cases, one around the rollout of a shampoo for the rural masses of India, and the other about Canada Dry. The prof seems to focus primarily on the process of how we analyse the case, rather than the actual results itself. And yes, the typical dindora-peeting of the 'Use the data! Use the data!'. Apparently, we're not using it enough, and this is after two years in college. I don't get it! We spend a full 25 minutes on analysing the data, what does he want? 8 hours?? In any case, our case comes up in another 4 weeks, so we can just chill...

(P.S. For those of you who don't know, you ARE supposed to spend 8 hours atleast on case analysis alone. Reading time before that is a given.)

Strategic Leadership

The two cases for this week were FabIndia and Bajaj Auto Limited. Interesting cases, but they're now slowly lacking the punch that I've seen in the first three weeks. Maybe we're getting a hang of how this chap goes around the cases... but more importantly, he still sticks to the new fundas that these chaps have brought out. FabIndia seemed to be about how the basic industry was transformed, into something profitable and meaningful for the actual producers. More importantly it goes into how something that used to be almost equivalent to daily labour was transformed into something that enabled wealth creation (that's a cool phrase beyond your basic daily income. Essentially about 'munafa' over and above 'income'. Still don't get it, ultimate profit sharing.)

Bajaj Auto Limited was a case that essentially talked of the difference in opinion between two generations. The basic thought processes that define where the company is, what is should concentrate on, can be thrown into a tizzy - and the only way around this, is if one of the two sides win. So the case talks about how they went about the transformation from becoming an almost-monopolistic-incumbent in scooter production to the second-highest-player in motorcycle production. For those of you who think 'Two-wheelers right? What's the diff?', it's a big diff my friend... big diff. Come on over, and we'll spend an hour-and-a-half pakaoing you about it.

Personal Inter-personal Effectiveness Workshop

This week we're talking about how and why we react the way we do. Apparently, there's this major connection to the way we've been brought up, and we typically revert to the type of reactions we show as children to our parents or authority figures, when we get stresses. So for e.g., if your boss yells at you for not getting things delivered on time, your typical reaction is the way you might react to your dad when he yelled at you for not getting good marks in school. If you were berated enough to be scared, you're likely to get into that same feeling when your boss is yelling. If you yelled back at your dad, you're likely to yell back here. Of course, there are certain constraints - you will look at the surrounding environment, the person to whom you're talking, the relationship you both share... but in terms of deep stress, irrespective of who, where, when, you'll get back to your basic instinct. We also spoke of how giving strokes to people (when I say stroke, I mean 'feedback' in the simplest sense of the word) is important, and how people crave for strokes. As it turns out, negative strokes is better than no strokes at all... which was pretty surprising, but makes sense in the end. You'd rather have SOME feedback than none at all.

The second half of the session was about yoga, mainly breathing actually. The guest lecturer was explaining the merits of breathing, and how it impacts us. So we speak about different modes of breathing, and he also goes in depth about what are the changes that happen in your body, and how does it help you avoid getting stressed. Pretty interesting, and it looked like my classmates concurred! :)

Quarter 9 - Week 3

The assignments begin to pile up. You can see the difference between quarters when you have just two courses, and when you have three. We have had three quizzes already till date, and midterms are due in a couple of weeks. It's a fast quarter!

Consumer Behaviour

This week was with related to consumer perceptions and attitudes. We looked into what makes people think of products in particular lights, and what are the reasons for it. It can vary... there's stuff like classical conditioning, where you associate the product with some known experiences and hence keep buying it. There are different types of positioning, where you can either be informative, or base it on affective needs. Emotions are a huge driver, and we see how our good friends Maslow and Freud have unearthed elements that can be used in less-than-noble ways. For e.g. fear is a major motivator. So if you wanted to sell some sort of hair cream, or face cream... some brands try and position it on what happens if you DONT use it. Hence the 'avoid hair loss', or the 'anti-aging creams'. In order to avoid what might be inevitable, or essentially undesirable, you end up buying such products to be a little happier for a while longer.

And hence we got into the topic of motivation. To be motivated, is essentially to remove that which is causing some sort of a botheration for you, and once removed you go to your normal state. Like you, I initially thought.. that can't be it.. it's driving you to achieve results, that's what motivation is. But let's see it carefully. When you motivate your team to perform faster/better, you're essentially trying to tell them that meeting that deadline/achieving those results is good for the person, probably because they won't get punished if they DO meet it, or even more subtly, they will lose the reward if they dont meet it. Hence, there's an inner discomfort, to do something. And therefore the team does what is required, blinded in the notion that they're doing it on their own. That's just downright dangerous, but effective.

Strategic Leadership

Two cases this week, the first was that of Ranbaxy, and how they moved from being a domestic pharmaceutics distributor, to a global pharma corporation. The prof started the class with the answer to the question that was apparently posed to him by a few of our classmates... what is the takeaway that we're looking for out of this course? And so, he shows us the difference between what we learnt back in Q1, and what we're learning now. The funda, he says, is not to accept the frameworks that you studied way back in a blind fashion, but to go to the depths of it to understand why it works, and what are the boundary conditions. All the cases we've done so far have stuck their thumbs up to Porter and his five forces, not to mention the Resource Based View model. So he's trying to help us ask 'Why?'. What's the reason certain models fail, and when is that. What are the new upcoming frameworks that we should toss around at the back of our minds, mindful of the fact that the model could be a generic thing around which we could find loopholes.

This course is all about helping us ask the right questions, not finding the right answers (Fundoo global gyaan, but it can be inspiring when you're in a class). And so he takes us through the aspects of why and how Ranbaxy became the powerhouse it did... simply because the new blood that came in took it out of a slowing progress curve onto a much larger one.

The next session was about the Indian Software Industry - why is it the way it is? I can tell you, from the readings for the day, it looked so much like we should have actually failed. The sentiments in the class were approximately the same. When the prof showed us the NASSCOM vision that we'd be 225 billion in 2022, everyone looks skeptical. Prof. asks why, and we say, our cost arbitrage wont work anymore, not enough intellectual workforce, reactive organizations and most importantly, no local demand. After hearing all this, the prof keeps quiet, staring at the class.... for all of 5 seconds. In the remaining one hour of the session, he took us on a whirlwind tour of what we've accomplished as Indians, and shoved our noses into what we had achieved and mentioned 'You've done all of this, but when someone asks you if you can do better, how the hell can you say that we weren't capable in the first place! What you guys told me, any layman on the street can tell me, but what did you see about what actually happened?'. A major motivator session if you ask me... all of a sudden I feel proud to be in the Indian Software Industry. In case if you're curious, the reasons were mainly the fact that we adopted processes that helped convert software delivery from a chaotic, creative craft to a controlled science. We went together to sell our offerings, as NASSCOM, to those in need of it. We took advantage of the greatest catalytic element at the time, the Y2K bug, and once it was over in 2000, we continued to build on top of it, knowing that the catalytic moment that came for us can not be had by any other nation, the opportunity was already gone!

He then went on to show us what types of software industries have continued their growth, how many of them are plateauing out... and at the end of the session, he closes with the simple statement, 'What got us here, won't get us there. I'm looking at those potential people who can take us there, the question is if you're brave enough to take this challenge on'.

That's just awesome.

Personal Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

There were waaayyyy too many readings this week. And more importantly, way too many assignments from them. Things that we really had to think about, and think hard. Introspection isn't very easy, when you have to really confront yourself with the questions of why we're doing what we're doing, and what is it that we want to do from hereon. There were a lot deeper ones related to how do you perceive yourself and how do others perceive you. Are you ok with that interpretation, if not, why aren't you ok with it? What would you like to do to change. Phew! H.E.A.V.Y.!

This week's session was meant to make us relook at what makes us and our interactions what they are. There was also this bit about meditation, which I'm yet to complete. But I think it's got something that might be of help. At the end of the day, I won't be able to make decisions to the best of my ability if my thoughts aren't clear. Hopefully meditation is one way of doing so. We also continued to talk about what goes into a person's vision, and how does he want to approach it, what are the fears we would face etc. There's not much to be specific about, all the discussions kept meandering around this... so that's the takeaway.

The readings and exercises for next week are a lot tougher. We have two cases in SL, one presentation in CB, some intensive daily exercises in PIEW and an application problem in CB as well. Sundays are no longer fitted in my calendar.