Tsumani - Help!!!

Please read the mail below, received from a friend who works for Aid India.

FYI, Aid India is an organization started by Indians who studied in the USA and wanted to give back to India. Their India office, from where the NGO work is being coordinated in Tamilnadu is in Chennai at the following address:AID-IndiaOld No 132, New No 242, Avvai Shanmugam RoadGopalapuram, Chennai - 600 086Ph: 044- 28350403, 28115058
You can also donate online to Aid India @ http://www.aidindia.org/aidadmin/OneforIndiaDonate.jsp?p=Relief

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Dear Friends,
(If one of you can send this on the PHA NCC group - please do so. Also if the above emails bounce, please send it to the groups you can.)

Reporting from Chennai about the Relief efforts on the Tsunami hit areas. Please use the information here to collect donations, clothes, medicines, write up proposals for the rehab work, etc.

After the initial shock and chaos, we are now quite well organized to handle the relief efforts. A number of organizations have started working together to handle the relief work - AID, TNSF, Pondicherry Science Forum, DYFI, Vidyarambam, Pratham and the PHM Organizations. We have formed a quick informal coalition to coordinate this work. As of now the state level coordination is being done from the AID-India office in Gopalapuram Chennai.

We are together working on relief efforts in Chennai, Cuddalore and Pondicherry, Nagapattinam and Kanyakumari.

The relief work is planned in 3 phases:
(1) Immediate Relief - food, clothing, blankets, temporary shelter, medicines and health camps for emergencies and epidemics
(2) Second Level Relief - Construction of huts and houses and health needs
(3) Third Level Relief - Livelihood needs for the families affected - forming cooperatives and providing livelihood support like boats, nets etc.

Right now all our focus in on the first phase.
In Chennai - we have divided ourselves into 3 teams:
1. Collection and Information Team: This team will handle calls, receive donations of money, clothes, medicines, blankets and vessels and send receipts, give information on the current status of relief work. This team will also give out press releases, send out email reports and call for further donations based on the needs. This is the team that people from outside must contact.
The people to contact:
Bharati/Manohar/Hari (AID office - 044-28350403),Ravishankar (IIT Prof) (94440-84910),Chandra Anil (9382330752, 044-28350403)Smitha, Kalyani (98401-73800)Vibha Ravindran (98402-63275)Balaji Sampath (94440-61033, 28350403(O))(I - Balaji - may not be available for the next 4 days as Iam going toNagai and Cuddalore to help with the field coordination.)
2. Allocation and Distribution: This team will get the needs from various field locations, sort the materials collected,divide it up for different locations based on the need and send it to the field coordinators for distribution.
3. Field Team: In each area we have a team of volunteers who will be coordinating the relief efforts and distribution ofmaterials.

In Chennai we have started the relief work in 5 areas: Pattinampakkam (Foreshore Estate) Tiruvanmiyur Olcott Kuppam Kottivakkam Royapuram

In each area we have allocated 2 people to coordinate with the distribution. These 2 people are taking down names of people, family survey, needs survey and what is being distributed. The idea is that this individual rapport that is built will be useful in working with the people over the next few months - ensuring rehabilitation and livelihood as well. Every day as the collections are being done, the field coordinators will go to the relief camps to provide the people with what they need.

This is the plan everywhere - we work with a community, get a rapport during the initial relief phase and then work with them on the house constructions and livelihood rehab phase.
In Nagapattinam district - which is the worst hit in Tamilnadu - we have 3 organizations on the field working: Tamilnadu Science Forum, Vidyarambam and DYFI. We are also trying to get other orgns and the dist administration into a joint coordination effort. Many of our volunteers of who are from fishing villages have died and so have many of the children studying in the support centers. Ranganathan from Vidyarambam left yesterday from Chennai with a van load of clothes and relief materials. Locally DYFI and TNSF have collected some materials and started the distribution. We have sent them some immediate funds and I will be taking more funds and relief materials with me today.

In Cuddalore district - we have TNSF, PSF and DYFI working together. A cholera epidemic seems to be starting in both Cuddalore and Nagai - we are sending out preventive information pamphlets and are also taking medicines for the people there. Senthil Babu has gone there yesterday.

In Kanyakumari - MALAR is coordinating the relief efforts. Many of the villages where they are working have been washed away. We have sent Rs.30,000 yesterday and will be sending more.
I am leaving in a truck with Charles, Damu and Jagdish - with the relief materials collected here today. Will be leaving from AID office by about 5:00 pm. I will first go to Pondicherry and then to Cuddalore There we will meet with the local TNSF and DYFI and other teams to plan the relief rehab work for the next 1-2 weeks. Damu will stay there to continue helping with the work there as well as to keeping giving the collection/allocation teams in Chennai info about what is going on and what are the current needs.

Then the truck will go to Nagai and meet with the teams there - to plan out a joint relief coordination and also plan for the long term rehab work needed. Charles and Jagdish will stay there for at least a week or ten days and work with the teams there - and also send us back information about what is happening.

AID Bangalore volunteers have collected funds and a truck load of relief materials - they will be coming to Nagai and Cuddalore directly today.

What we need in terms of collections:
1. Money - lots of it - for buying quick relief materials as well as for the long term. There are many people contributing and wanting to contribute. Please collect it from people and send it to the AID office: Cheques can be made in the name of AID-India and sent to:
AID-India
Old No 132, New No 242,Avvai Shanmugam Road
Gopalapuram, Chennai - 600 086
(In the US - collections are being done by AID-US - you can contact 1-888-TALK-2-AID or 301-209-0508 for more details. Vibha is also doing collections for this.)

2. Clothes - particularly blankets

3. Food - rice, wheat and dal - as grains for cooking and using over the next one week.

4. Medicines (antibiotics, ORS, bandages, cotton, etc - basic first aid).

5. Doctors - people willing to stay in Nagai and Cuddalore and treat people in health camps.

6. Vessels
For the second and third phase we are planning on community groups and cooperatives that will jointly construct housing and buy boats, etc.
The total immediate relief budget (from my initial estimate) is about Rs.20 Lakhs. This may go up to about Rs.40 Lakhs. (This is what we need - ourselves and the other NGOs and community groups that we are working apart from what the government is providing.)
The long term relief budget needed is more than a few crores - but whatever we can get we can make use of. One boat for 50 people costs about Rs. 1 Lakh. We will need about 10 boats for each community and will be working with about 100 communities - a total of about Rs. 10 crores. Housing will cost about Rs. 50,000. There are more than 50,000 people who need this help. You can calculate the total budget required! We will of course also use the government relief support and try to reach to the most needy. But in spite of government funds, there will be a lot of need for rehab support that we will need directly as well.

Please use the information above to raise funds and collect the materials and to send out appeals. You can also draft short proposals to submit to your companies and other groups that may be able to give grants for the above purposes.

There has so far been a great response from all our volunteers and a lot of individuals from everywhere are contacting us with offer for help. People from Bangalore, villages in Vembakkam and Banavaram, Colleges in Chennai (Stella, Ethiraj, IIT, etc), volunteers in the US, Software professionals, people from slums in Chennai, people living in flats, people from different NGOs, individuals, etc. But the scale of the problem is so much that we will need all the help we can get.
We will keep you updated with the information from the field regularly. Thanks a lot for all your help. If you need more specific info please contact:

Ravishankar - ravia@alumni.cmu.edu94440-84910, 28350403
Chandra - chanvish@yahoo.com9382330752, 044-28350403
Smitha Kalyani - smithakalyani@yahoo.com98401-73800
Vibha - vibha_ravindran@rediffmail.com98402-63275
Balaji (me - after 4-5 days) - balaji_sampath@hotmail.com 94440-61033
Kalpana - kalpa@vsnl.com 044-28361033

Bye,
Balaji Sampath

150 rupees a year...

I had an interesting human experience last week.

As I was leaving work on friday, around 11 pm in the night, I stopped at the nearest signal. It had been a tiring day and I was really looking forward to the weekend. The was a slight drizzle in the air. The temperature was pleasant and cool. As I was waiting impatiently for the green light, someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was a young boy, around 12-13 years of age. He had a blue plastic bucket in his hand and was smiling brightly.

"Can you please drop me at the next signal sir?" he asked me in chennai tamil.

I am not one to offer a lift in general but this one was a kid. So I asked him to hop on. As we were driving towards the next signal, he spoke all of a sudden.

"Sir, I sell murukku in Velachery. I just finished the day's sales and now I am going back home to study...". I wondered why he told me that. But I was touched by the fact that he was going back to study. I liked his interest in studying.

I asked him, "Good. So, where is you house?".

"T.Nagar".

Pretty close to my place. So as I drove past the next signal I told him, "I will drop you there since I am going there as well". I saw him smile on the mirror. He said "Thanks".

I asked him, "So where do you study?".

"Corporation school sir". He paused. "Sir, can I ask you a favor?".

I thought this was another case where someone is going to ask me for money. I hate it when that happens. I am paranoid enough to believe that anyone who asks you money in the name of a favor is not being honest. I like to help people not by giving them money but in kind. I dont know why but I always have a suspicion about people who want only money. My kind hearted nature has been taken advantage of too many times for my comfort.

"My english teacher wants all of us to buy a workbook. But I dont have the money to buy it... Can you please buy me that book? It costs only 30 rupees. I know a book store that I open at this time in the night."

I was touched. Even before I could blink, I said, "Yes" and we started driving towards the bookshop. On the way, I asked him, "So what do your parents do?".

"My dad lost his job last month. Since then he has been drinking all the time. Even when he doesnt drink, his friends tempt him into a drink. Whatever little he earns now, he spends it all drinking. I have two sisters, one in the first standard and the other in the third standard. He doesnt care about any of us. My mom works as a maid and earns some money during the day. She then makes murukku in the afternoon and given it to me when I some back from school. We manage to make some money by selling it".

"Do you get any time to study then?"

"Yes sir. I get up at 6 in the morning and get atleast two hours to study. 8 o clock I go to school and some back at 3 pm. My mom keeps the murukku ready by that time. I take the bus to Velachery and sell it everyday until 10 in the night. By the time I come back home its 11 o clock. So, I get one more hour to study until I go to sleep at 12."

I wasn't speaking.

"I also study well sir. I get 2nd or 3rd rank always. Because I study well, my teachers like me a lot. This year I could not pay the school fees as we dont have the money. So I dont have the books or the uniform. But they dont complain because they know I study properly. I manage to borrow books and study."

Just as he said that, we were at the bookshop. Unfortunately the bookshop had just been closed. We went around the place looking for any other shops that could be open but all were closed. I could see the disappointment writ large on his face. I turned around and we
were back on the way to his house.

I felt a tinge of disappointment myself. Both of us did not speak for a minute. Then,

"How much is this year's fees for you?"

In a low tone, he said, "hundred and fifty rupees sir"

For a moment, it could not believe it. I did not know that all that it takes for a child to study for a whole year is a hundred and fifty bucks. I spend that money everytime I order a pizza. I tip waiters that much. The average drink in a swank pub costs that much, if not more. Have I ever thought even once before splurging that money on the tip or a pizza or a drink? How many of us know that the little amount of a hundred and fifty bucks can change a kid's life for a whole year, if not his whole life?

I was lost in my own thoughts. The kid wasnt speaking either. Maybe he was disappointed that he missed a good chance to get his book. We reached a spot close to his house and I decided to drop him there. As he got down, he said "thanks sir" and started walking. I pulled out my wallet, called him and gave him 500 bucks. He was hesitant when he saw the money but then smiled.

"Can I pay by school fees with this?" he said with a wide smile on his face. I said yes and before he could say a word, drove away. I was smiling from within. Somehow I felt, this money is going to play its part in making a boy's life.

Quizzes and Soaps

Nowadays television is dominated so much by all the cable channels. In homes which have a cable connection, the scene is dominated by the latest movies, soaps and cricket. No one seems to watch DD any longer. I was thinking that DD has sort of become the channel for the rural areas where there isnt any cable connection.

But over the last few weeks, I have been surprised by the fare thats on the DD tamil channel. DD has indeed transformed itself with the channel sporting the same kind of soaps, movie trailers, new movie songs through the night and other such shows. At the same time, some of the fare on DD has been far better than what you can find on other channels. One simple concept that DD has leveraged a lot has been live telephone call in shows. Yes, you have these song request shows on various channels which have been banal, but DD is not doing just that. For example every sunday morning, 10 am, the live sports quiz has been a great hit. Today, as I was flipping channels, I could not find better fare on any other channel at 10 in the morning. At least none of it was as exciting as this one. Come to think of it, quizzes make interesting programming always, more so in today's age of the internet and information hungry population. But one finds so little of quizzing shows on TV. Today's kids grow up so much on the scheming mother in laws and corrupt politicians of the soaps and movies that their parents watch and the various cartoons shows. There watch so little of informative programming from discovery or the pathetically little informative programming like quiz shows. While quizzing seems to be in short supply, atleast other kinds of good programs like the ones on NGC or discovery are still very much around but when do the kids get to watch them, given the prime time is full of soaps and the scheming characters that they are so full of.

Coming back to the DD program, it was great fun for over an hour. Though I tried hard but could not get a line to call, just the thrill of quizzing elevated my sunday morning experience. One only wishes that there is more of such good fare at prime time. After this one, I switch channels and there is this program on another channel which was matching answers by Moms and their kids to find out which mom knows her kid best!!! One question went, "Which is your kid's favorite song?". For those who know tamil movie songs, the mom answered "Appadi podu" and the kid answered "Manmada Raasa"!!!

Havent we had enough of movies and soaps?

Alan Cox of Software

All linux lovers know Alan Cox. Especially the ones who have seen the kernel code. Alan Cox is wrapping up his MBA now !!

So how have the linux code guru's views changed and what effect has MBA had on him?

Check, http://www.pingwales.co.uk/software/cox-on-better-software.html

Interesting read.

RSS

I started using an RSS reader a week back. Its been something I have been wanting to do for a long time but never got the chance. The lack of internet access had been a deterrant. So when I finally got around to it, checked out a few readers and settled with RSS bandit for now. My first step was to try and find feeds of all the blogs and web content I browse nowadays. The blogs were pretty easy. Almost all of them had an atom or RSS feed. But the websites were the real surprise. Almost all of websites had an RSS feed buried somewhere. Rediff displayes them prominently while it took some searching to find RSS feeds for economic times. I still havent found ones for Business week and some other websites but I already have a clutch of them to start with.
The concept is pretty neat. The first thing I do now is start my feed reader and ask it to update all feeds. This ones saves a lot of time I must say. More than saving time, I now am back to following news the way I used to when I had time to spare. Besides, there is a neat feature in RSS bandit that finds new feeds in browsed pages. I already have some 35 feeds in my reader and managing them is becoming quite a task. Going forward, I guess I would really have to be judicious in adding feeds. This one is going to hog some bandwidth otherwise when updating feeds. I also wish I could get my google news alerts through my feedreader. Does google news have a search based feed? They clutter my inbox today and how I wish my RSS reader could only serve the search results. Sounds like a neat idea. Overall, I am becoming addicted.

Finally today I had some time to kill. After a really long time, I had some time and I did not know what to do this Sunday. So decided to take time out to reply to all the pending mails and also read some of the ISB blogs. It was an interesting experience. I wish my class too had had a few more bloggers. The one year at ISB flew past like it had never existed. Today when I look back, what has stayed with me the most has been the understanding that there is still a long way to go and many more brilliant minds to work with. I probably use only 20% of what I learnt there as far as the academics go. In fact, most of the days, it’s not even that much. That is in terms of financial calculations and marketing concepts. Maybe I am able to understand the business of telecom better now and feel the need to keep track of competitors, emerging business models and have an eye out for a new opportunity to strike gold.

Otherwise, management most of the times boils down to common sense, people skills and presence of mind. I guess "management is common sense" has become a cliché of sorts but I think I understand the importance of presence of mind as I move up the ladder. When you are given the kind of responsibilities that a management grad is expected to handle, it is extremely important to be aware of the situation around you and have the presence of mind to understand, talk and react to the situation. I was extremely poor at this before ISB. I used to always feel the freedom to speak my mind unmindful of the changing pace and meaning of the discussion I am going through. I don’t know why I have changed or what I did in ISB that has seemingly changed me. What I do certainly now is listen more. That way, I do not give myself the chance to miss the plot but at the same time, afford myself the time to think through what the other person is saying. I was reading the book, "What they don’t teach you at HBS" by Mark McCormack when I was at ISB and I still remember the amount of emphasis that he put on the well placed pause in a conversation as well as the importance of striking common ground quickly in a conversation.

The other day, my boss told me that he had had no complaints about the way I had performed (which was in a way worrying). He went on to add that it was people skills that were the difference between me and the others (who were non management grads). It was heartening to hear. Though I fear many a time that I do not know how to act tough when the situation demands, I do certainly act soft and less impulsive nowadays. ISB certainly had an effect there. Before ISB, I was sort of the king of my world. Top ranks at school, topper at college and a great performer at work. ISB brought me down to earth. When you are battered with the kind of diversity, brilliance and smartness that you see around yourself, you begin to realize how important it is to know how to handle a world full of people who are either as brilliant or more than you. The student diversity works in many ways. One, the academically brilliant show you how important it is to know how to work with sharper minds and how important it is to not stop to challenge and push yourself to greater heights. The other students who are not so brilliant at the grades but have some special talent, be it anything, show you how important it is to read, understand and respect people for what they are. There were many fellow students on whom I had formed an opinion, which, as the year went through, I realized was completely wrong. Throughout the year, each person I got to know showed me something special about him or her that shattered the opinion I had formed.

I remember discussing exactly this with some friends and they reflecting the exact same learning. It is very easy to underestimate people. It is very easy to form opinions. But if you want to lead and inspire a team, it is extremely important to reach out and find out more about each person your work with. Everyone is special in some way. A leader has to be sensitive enough to find that out and nurture that. That special talent motivates and drives that person to work passionately. And passion at work is one of the best ways to extract success out of people.
Another factor that is important is to occasionally at least put yourself into a crowd in which there are a lot of people that are better than you. Going through humbling experiences time to time in life is very important I feel. Such experiences teach you a lot, remove complacency and bring you down to earth. If taken positively, they leave you with calmness and a determination to push yourself to greater heights rather than enjoy the accolades that you are receiving.

I noticed that there were comments asking for my mail address. It is ramki dot rs at gmail dot com. Added that to the sidebar as well.

Verizon has silently introduced something that is going to revolutionize the way you make and receive calls and the way you manage your communication channels...

If you live in MA, NH, you can get it immediately...

www.verizon.com/iobi

Its a cloudy and drizzling monday morning in chennai. This summer hasnt been the usual summer in chennai. Of course, when the days have been hot they have been HOT but there have been more than the usual rainy days. For all my fellow ISBians from other parts of the country, who decided to "take the risk" of coming to chennai, its been soothing. Talking of which, many of them think chennai is not as bad as it gets portrayed. The general impression among many non-chennaites, especially those form the north, is that of chennai being this hot humid and sweaty place all through the year, a conservative society, lack of social and night life and a huge language problem (like, "no one known anything other than Tamil"). Some even rejected job offers simply for that reason.

The fact, as they have told me, three months down the line, is that its not all that bad. Yes, chennai is hot and humid and sweaty, but bearable. Delhi is much hotter when in the summer they say. I wudnt know. I have never been to Delhi. And given that this summer has had quite a few rainy and cloudy days, its been all the more comforting for them. Besides, I am waiting for December to come by. There is no "winter" per se in chennai but December and January are months I would love to live in chennai anytime.

A conservative society, yes, any day compared to the rest of India, but they also say people here have a ready acceptance for things that are not so conservative as long as it does not affect them. There is easy tolerance for things non-conservative. Besides, the immigrant population that has changed the face of Bangalore in the past 5-6 years is beginning to do the same here.

As for lack of social and night life, yes, there aren't the numerous pubs and discs to go to as in say, bangalore or Bombay but the few that are there are as good. And there is night life for the one who wants it. There is a thriving population of youngsters in chennai who like to go clubbing and that crowd is only growing. Besides the partying, there are the usual movies and chennai's USP, beach resorts... Just go along the ECR. I wud agree.

As for the language, well many of them said the lack of hindi was being more than made up by the knowledge of english the average chennaite had. That was an interesting observation. Come to think of it, given the emphasis on education for the educated and the lack of other communication mechanisms for the uneducated, english had to take that place.

If there is one complaint that I could agree with, it was the auto rickshaw drivers in chennai. I dont like them too. I think they are a necessary evil. Especially after having seen them in Hyderabad, Bangalore and Bombay, chennai certainly has a minus there.

But all said and done, the opinion is that chennai is a lot better than what is being portrayed. I would certainly agree. More so because, chennai has the one place that I have missed a lot wherever I have gone, a clean and thriving public beach. There is nothing like a gossip filled evening with friends on the sands of the Besant nagar beach under the rising moon :)

Life has been absolutely hectic in the last couple of months... work has hijacked my life, but so subtly that I havent realized it... Its when work gets interesting that you dont realize that you are actually working for 14-15 hours a day... Its been such in the last few weeks...

anyways, now have a brand new PC at home... replaced my dear old cyrix 233 with a 2.8 gig pentium... now at least i have the time and peace to rely to a lot of unanswered mails... this weekend is going to be enjoyable...

Probably the longest break I have taken. Work really took off in the last 3 weeks.

I was talking one of my long lost school friends this weekend. He has a double masters from ivy league univs in the US and has just resigned from his job in bangalore. From his IIT days to his double masters, he has spent a lot of time in the academia. When suddenly thrown into the corporate world, the inherent politics, ego and lack if simplicity in people took its toll. Not to say the academia is rid of all this but at least according to my friend, it is much more profound in the corporate world. As I further conversed with him, I realized that he had not changed much from what I knew of him from school. He was his simple, unsuspecting and honest self who had thoroughly enjoyed whatever he had done in life. We were good pals at school and I always believed we had similar personality. Reflecting, I realized how much I have changed since then.

Its been a interesting story in being able to get a buyin and respect from your team, peers and seniors. From what I was when I first started working after engineering, that simplicity in thinking is gone. When I talk to people nowadays, I tend to read between the lines, understand inner meanings and try to understand the unsaid. I seem to think it is necessary too. Being able to understand vibes and handling the ego of anyone around you matters a lot more as you move up the corporate ladder. Somehow I dont enjoy it.

A comment made by Jack welch in a recent interview comes to my mind... "It is so difficult for people to be simple"

The dreamer's trap...

One of the advantages of being a firm thats not traditionally IT is that we are still distant from the many processes and procedures that have infested many an IT services company. Not to say that such processes are unnecessary (an easily customizable process framework is an absolute necessity) but I strongly believe that if overdone they can be a drag on productivity. When I say overdone, I mean following processess more for the letter than for the spirit. Being not caught in such a trap provides much freedom and scope for creativity so critical in product development. There are no mindblocks to asking the "why" and "why not" questions. Your performance is measured more by how much you contributed in the product gaining new customers, market share and in turn aligned with the company's strategy than being caught up in trivia like typing out an inconsequential document.

At the same time, I found myself caught up in what I thought was a dreamer's trap. Thinking about a new feature that I thought would make sense in the product I was handling, I managed to sell the idea to many a person here and thought I had a clincher. Somehow, whatever I found in analyst reports, market surveys, industry trends tended to support my argument. But then, as many a marketing course will tell you, "Know thy customer". For, beyond all these public digests of analyst reports, press reports, expert comments and analysis, there is a customer whose mindset is far more crucial. I had noticed this while working on a product at Nokia. So as to not repeat the same mistake, though I had a team in full steam into the project, I spoke to a friend of mine, who is an architect and tried to act the salesman, trying to convey the excitement I felt for the feature I thought was a clincher. The reply, the facial expressions and the reactions took me aback.

Diversity they say matters a lot in the thinking process of groups. So true. Though you see that in many a case study at bschool, it has so much more impact in real life. Especially more so when I was as involved as I was with the subject. That involvement is the dreamer's trap. It seems that product conceptualization is tricky business because while you need to be focussed and involved, you also need to be able to step back, exit from the dreamer's shoes and enter the end user's shoes. See if the world in the two sets of shoes are anywhere close. If not, you are in trouble. As easily as said, its a tough thing to do. Which is why talking to people totally unrelated to your profession, but those who can be a potential customer helps at times. Its reality check, to see if your idea is deviating from the practical track.

That conversation with my friend put the first hint of fear in my mind. Will this click? Taking a more patient look at it, I realized that I only needed to step back a little bit and refine the idea to suit my audience. As monica tells chandler, "Know thy audience" ;)

A nostalgic weekend...

It was turning out to be another dreary weekend this saturday afternoon. In the last two years that I was out of chennai, all my friends have either moved out of the city or have been married. Either way, I lost out of the buddies who made up my social life. The ISB alumni junta in chennai is what makes up to some extent. So, here I was on my bike at a traffic signal near my place, on my way to meet a few friends when a guy in front of me on a kinetic honda turned around by chance. He was a class mate of mine from school days. We had last met in 95, my last year at school before engineering. An absolute chance meeting with someone who had been a bum chum pal 9 year back, who I had lost touch with since. While I went on with my career, he had compelted his stints at IIT and IIM and was in chennai after a long time. both of us cancelled whatever we had planned and went to the beach. It was wonderful recollecting those days and looking back at all the fun that school was. Sometimes, you dont realize how much life has changed and how much you have changed unless you sit down and consciously recollect those days. You do seem to know you have changed, but the magnitude hits you only when you have a friend like that with whom you can recollect little incidents still fresh, but somewhere back in your memory. By the time we were tired of talking, it was 10 in the night. We planned some sort of a get together with junta left in chennai on sunday. Though only two more turned up (the rest are still untreaceable or busy), it was the best sunday afternoon I had had in a long long time. Sipping my favorite frappe at coffee day, we went back in the years, recollected such precious memories and laughed like school children again. The feeling of innocence and childlike immaturity was heavenly. We took a walk down the road and decided to see if our school was open. It was. A little chat with the watchman and we were in. The feeling that hit me when I entered the place, afte nearly 9 years is indescribeable. Everything was just the way it was. From the volleyball courts that I spent my mornings playing, to the lounge with the names of all the toppers to the huge tree under which we had spent many a day having lunch together it was simply amazing. If I were a filmaker, I would have blended this scene with a early morning 8 o clock shot, which I can remember so clearly, with me and my friends in those school uniforms, arriving in bicycles. The prayer hall, the classrooms, the lounge, even the washrooms (!!!) were just the same. It was the closest I have gotten to a teleport in time. For the half an hour we spent there, time stopped still, went back into the best memories of my life and somehow, I was floating just like I used to in those carefree days. We have planned a get together the next weekend as well, with more people joining in. I plan to take my digicam. I cant wait.

HR in technology companies

Over the past 5 years in the IT/Telecom industry, I have seen how the HR teams in many companies tend to classify you first according to the years of experience you have... I wonder how valid that is... Invariably, when recruiting candidates, I have found many who make it to higher positions thanks to their years of experience while not necessarily being as hard working or passionate as some of their younger counterparts... While it is true to some extent that the years of experience is a good measure of the amount of practical learning that a candidate has gained, is it right to get mired in such a numerical measure with such rigidity when evaluating candidates? I remember one company that visited the campus at ISB which in fact put up a formula for their pay packages in which your educational qualification and years of experience were the only inputs! Half the crowd that attended that ppt wanted to withdraw their applications when they saw such a shocking categorization even before the interview. In the name of process, if you are going to fix the limits of a person's financial incentives like that, how can someone who is really streets ahead be actually groomed to higher positions quickly though the ranks?

In fact, when I was talking to one of my US returned friends the other day, I asked him about the differences in HR policies in the US and India in IT companies. Though this is a very subjective opinion, it was not very dis-similar to what I had heard from many others like him... His opinion was that one, in tech companies, HR in India tends to play a lot more role in recruiting a candidate in the name of following processes, while in the US, all that mattered was one decision by the hiring manager about the absolute suitability of the candidate for the specific position on offer. Maybe this is due to the random hiring in large numbers done by the Indian companies in anticipation of high growth and a need to ramp up quickly. But the second point was more interesting. He said that if one were brilliant in the US, there is usually no policy that prevents you from gaining ascendancy (I am not going into racism and gender here). He was of the opinion that HR generally takes a backseat and is involved only when absolutely necessary. In India in tech companies have set up too many rigid guidelines in the name of processes that allows HR to be first involved and second interfere in every issue related to recruitment process, pay and promotion.

Personally, I have not worked in the US. So I cannot comment. But I can certainly say that I would like to see more HR personnel who have a techie background. HR folks in India are dominated by grads from XLRI, TISS and other such bschools or psychology grads who have never worked in an organization before in any other role. Isnt it crucial that someone in HR has actually been in the shoes of the average employee before graduating to manage employee affairs? Would it not be great if these XL and TISS grads had worked as a techie for a couple of years before moving into an hr role? If the average employee is the customer of HR, then wudnt it be great if, as a HR person, I have been in the shoes of my customer to actually understand what his needs are? In fact, this is more so in the IT industry, which is witnessing high growth, attrition and more and more ambitious employees everyday. Wipro, I heard, actually encourages and in fact has in its HR roles, employees who were software engineers. When I spoke to a senior HR guy from Digital when in ISB, he too felt the same. That a HR person is able to understand and perform better if he has worked in the shoes of an employee in the past. I do not know if the face of HR in the US is different from India because bschool grads in the US, who get recruited into HR teams, have actually worked before bschool, because of which they are more evolved and understanding when they enter an organization. I do not know the proportion of bschool grads among HR folks in the US, but this could possibly be an explanation.

Back from sleep

Well, the past two weeks have been busy or what? Have hardly had any time to think anything other than work... because its suddenly become extremely interesting... Being in a evolving organization that developing a matrix reporting structure is interesting. It all starts with a lot of micromanagement from the incumbents who setup the new facility. From then on, a gradual process starts where employees in the new facility come up to speed with the organization, with a lot of help from visiting expats (in the case of offshore centers). A stage comes in when the offshore center matures, starts delivering and is assigned more work and responsibility. But this is a dicey stage for the incumbents. How easy is it to start giving up responsibility or start offshoring more work, especially if you have not visited the offshore center? So, one tends to starts with a little pilot project to test the waters. Once that works, you begin to offshore more work, often appointing someone to assume responsibility for the delivery from the offshore center. But then, overcoming the mind block and being able to give up control completely to the delivery guy offshore is a challenge for most incumbent managers. It is akin to the ability to be able to delegate a significant potion of work for which you are answerable to your boss, to a new employee, who you know is good, but say, you cannot see working in front of you. Hence, you tend to retain some amount of the control and try to draw a line of power sharing, creating a matrix organization. Being able to draw this line clearly and to the satisfaction and complete knowledge of all involved is a very challenging task. If not done correctly, this can result in a lot of loss of productivity in terms of loss of motivation of the delivery guy offshore due to lack of power in decision making or due to the lack of clarity to the employees offshore in terms of who is in charge and whose commands have to be followed. Being in the middle of evolution of such a line is pretty exciting.

Now that today I have my free time, I was searching regd. social networking and found some interesting stuff, one which I have downloaded and am going to begin to use. Its called huminity (http://www.huminity.com/english/software.html) and what it does is amazingly interesting. Check it out. So is what the new ICQ universe (go to icq.com and click on universe under "Meet people"). The graphics are cool and I am still waiting for an invite into the universe. But then, the larger question of whether you can build a sustainable revenue model around social networking was still there. That was until I found spoke.com. These guys have been smart in addressing their products to a niche segment of the corporate market, the sales guys. Reminds me of my high tech marketing course, and all that talk about the product life cycle and crossing the chasm.

Schumi won again!

I am tired of saying this. This is becoming a one horse race. Especially this race, with what, just 8 cars finishing the race and Schumi and Ferrari far far ahead of the rest. In fact, its kinda become boring watching F1. The match between spain and portugal was much more interesting.

Rediff offers 1GB

Have just noticed that a lot of web mails are beginning to offer 1GB of space, the latest being rediff. But as I thought earlier, the point is not the storage. I was wondering, whats the point having 1 GB of e-mail in your mailbox, if you can search through it, unless of course you have taken the pains to organize all the mail. Even then, if you cant have good enough search to find an e-mail, God save you with all that 1 GB of e-mail. That said, I dont think its all that tough for these providers to provide a search function. Searching through 1GB of data should be a problem. Hopefully, they realize soon enough and add the search feature.

Orkut and Social Networking

I got an invite to orkut and registered there today. first impression: disappointing. I did not like the registration process. Like all other similar sites, there are simply too many questions during registration. One of the challenges in implementing social networking, I feel, is the way you collect information about someone's profile, interests etc. Asking a 100 questions during registration not only tires out the user but the fatigue factor will mean the responses need not be 100% accurate. Building intuitiveness into the process of interest collection by scanning the user's behaviour is a challenge. For example, if Verizon were to implement social networking, it could scan someone's call logs, cross check with superpages and see if he or she has been calling a particular type of numbers frequently, like pizza, chinese restaurants etc. That gives a hint that he likes chinese food for example and may want to network with other such people to share reviews, find new chinese restaurants etc. If Microsoft were to implement the same, scanning e-mail content (ala gmail) could be a way to build intuition. Of course, there are privacy issues that have to be tackled but building in the consent of the user in a non-obstrusive way will help handle that. Interestingly microsoft has been doing a lot of research in social networking. The microsoft research scientist who heads social computing research was at the Microsoft Summit in bombay making a presentation. Their work is very interesting. Check, http://research.microsoft.com/scg

Three links that evaluate social networks, that I think are absolutely excellent are these: (A must read for anyone interested in social networks)
http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/02/my_advice_to_so.html
http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/01/insecurity_at_o.html
http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2003/12/evaluating_soci.html

I have become very interested in social networking. If anyone has any links/research papers/books that talk about the mathematical analysis of social networks, (complicated math is no problem), please forward. Will be eternally grateful.

Pablo and Rahul, you are in queue :) Its already quite long now. So you will have to wait for some time.

Google snippets

just in case a software engineer did not have enough incentive to want to work for google... check, http://www.google.com/jobs/lunar_job.html

Google's own blog!
http://www.google.com/googleblog/

Of gmail and e-mail wars...

For those who still do not have gmail, there is some good news. I got a very early invite to gmail thanks to this blog. Of late I find that google is allowing me to invite more and more people to open an account with gmail. So much so that, I am beginning to have spare invites for more than a day before someone asks me for an account. I am not going to review gmail because a lot has been written about it, but I can certainly say that it has spoilt me from someone who organized my mail diligently to someone who doesnt care about the tons of email I get. I am beginning to search for the mail I want. I don't like it, but I am addicted to it already.

Talking about e-mail wars, just read that yahoo is planning to offer 100 MB free, going up to 2 GB for paid users. This is getting interesting. But, my hunch is that, this is not all about space. One look at anyone who has used gmail and you will notice that this is more about the email experience than anything else. What gmail is attempting to do is to change your email habits that you have developed over years. I for example have always been diligent enough to classify my e-mail in folders, delete unwanted email on the spot, keep a clean trash folder every week and even classify my sent items. Whenever I have used outlook, my .pst file has never ever crossed 300 MB. But, gmail is attempting something different. From what I was, I now have forgotten to delete my email. I delete irrelevant conversations (that's how ur mail is automatically classified by gmail) once in a while, but again, it goes into trash and I don't clean my trash folder. In fact, I search through it for some mail I may have deleted. There have been times in previous life when I have mistakenly deleted important mail in my eagerness to maintain my email, never to be able to recover them. But now, I am comfortable with having it all in my trash, so that even if by mistake, I deleted an important mail, "I can search through the rubble" so to say.

To be frank, it took time for my habits to change. In fact, when I started using gmail, I continued to follow my old habits, using a miniscule portion of my 1GB. Gradually, the laziness (which is why I don't like this transition) caught up with me. Gmail was involved in the process. Try cleaning your trash and it politely reminds you that you don't need to, that you have 1 GB space and that you can google search through your email! Gmail nudges you, slowly but surely, to change your habits, become lazy, don't care about organizing your email, but just google search when u need it and carry on doing more productive(?) work. It helps the process by automatically classifying your email into conversations. So when I search for an email, the whole thread is thrown up automatically. I like that! Which is why I changed. I still don't know if that's good, for I am hardly organized about other things in life! :)

Gmail has helped since I joined verizon as I have been busy with work and so, the little spare time has helped. Shifting gears (reminds me, schumi won AGAIN!), talking about work, its getting interesting and intriguing. Interesting as far as the technology goes, intriguing as far as the people management and group dynamics go. I realize that I have a long way to go...

In Bombay...

I was away for on thursday and friday in bombay at the Microsoft Executive Summit(MES) at the "Renaissance". Bombay is a city I love and it was great being there. As usual, my travel had its share of adventure. My hotel bookings were bungled up and I was stranded in the bombay airport around midnight. Had to call a sleeping friend to find a place to spend the night. The MES was primarily a hifi focussed sales pitch by MS. But it worked as a lot of the decision makers at the summit got the exposure needed about microsoft products. Some of the case studies were interesting and struck a chord with the work we are doing. We may end up doing more business with MS after this. The renaissance is an amazing place. The hospitality over the two days, needless to say, was very good. Two days away from work, with a little bit of networking and a little bit of fun thrown in.

The HCL beanstalk NEO PC, which was launched just a few days ago, was on display at the MES. What a PC. Seriously, I have never been a fan of MS or HCL, but the XP media center version on that PC was amazing. This one is a TV and a PC. It has a cable in, can record upto 30 minutes of TV programming (the closest we can get to TiVo in India), 120GB hdd, 256mb ddr ram and a 128 MB exclusive video ram on an agp card, p4 2.88 ghz with hyper threading and the works... at a lakh and 10 thousand, i think its a damn good deal. Atleast, its worth a look at one of these hcl frontline stores. Hot stuff.

Im not busy with work, but busy with shifting my house within chennai. Had no clue how tough that is, until it came down to it. Should have hired the professional packers and movers. Its good fun, but dont try this at home without expert help.

Schumi won again!

Second post of the day! Whoa! At work on a saturday means, I have exclusive access to the only PC that has an internet connection to blogger.com. So, I get the time to check out the newly redesigned blogger.com and find out that, among other things, I can e-mail my posts.

This free time also gave me the time to look back at my blog. Gosh, all so many serious entries that I feel like I have been working my a** off and changing the world for good. So here goes something other than work.

I finally get a chance to visit some of the blogs I have always wanted to frequent. Kanishka, is at his humorous best though it seems the HLL workload means infrequent posts. Thanks to my friend Sudha, I am now reading two other ones. Divya's blog makes interesting reading. No one topic in particular but kept me interested all through. The second one is about London, a dream city in my book. This one makes absolutely interesting reading for me because of my liking towards London.

Talking about London, I have been there for just one night. The easter weekend in 2001. but it was one unforgettable night. I had 16 hours in transit time on my way back from boston to chennai. Rather, I programed my flights that way to get the one night stay in London. I forgot it was going to be easter and was hoping to catch up with some London night life, albeit all alone. ;)

Having checked in my luggage all the way to chennai, I easily got the transit visa (pre 9/11 days :). I was badly craving for some Indian food for dinner, having got none in boston, that I asked the help desk, about where I could find some. Trafalgar square, I was told. So I catch the tube (the underground train), get there and get out of the station. I do not know what it is about London, may be the architecure or the old world look and charm of the buildings, but it captivated me no end. That combined with the narrow roads, the parks, trees, the bustling nightlife, the 3 deg chilly night breeze, and the london buses and taxis set up a picture I wont forget. I walked around pubs, discs, movie theaters and just soaked in the place, the people and the city in itself. I caught up with an Indian restaurant called "The Taj". Tasty butter naans, kashmiri pulav and dal makhni... After that wonderful satiating experience, I still had an hour to go before I could catch the last tube train back to Heathrow. I kept walking in circles trying to figure out where trafalgar square was. Walking around the St.Martin's church, I crossed the street and there it was.

The architecture of the place, the tall column guarded by the 4 lions and all the space around it, the St.Martin's church and the National Gallery, buildings of amazing stature and the other such around it create an ambience thats unbeatable. The only regret is that I did not have a good enough camera along with me to capture these moments. I sat around in awe for as long as I could before catching the tube back to heathrow.

If that was an amazing experience, what followed was unforgettable for other reasons. I had to go back to Heathrow terminal 4 for the BA flight. Terminal 4 is in the south side, removed from the other three terminals and the best way to get there is the tube. For some reason, being the easter weekend, and this being the last train, it was halted at terminal 3 and I was stranded there at 1 am and no way to get to terminal 4. being a holiday weekend, there wasnt a bus or taxi in sight. I had absolutely no clue what to do and it was freezing. So I walk upto the bus stand, hoping against hope and I find a few sardar's chatting. I thought I would have a way out but they too told me that being easter I had indeed run out of luck. The only way was to sleep in terminal three, on the floor or the waiting seats and get up early in the morning to catch the first tube back to terminal 4, that would be just in time for my flight.

This was the first time I was stranded and having to sleep in an airport terminal not knowing if it was safe or permitted or whatever. For the first time, I felt a bit scared, for I certainly did not want to be stranded on a transit visa in london. Thankfully, inside terminal three were a few other people sleeping on the seats and whatever infrastructure they could find. I hardly slept that night. Probably for the first time in my life I woke up at 5:30 in the morning without an alarm. I was there when they opened the station and was the first passenger into the heathrow express. I made it just in time to terminal 4, and into the flight. Relieved but one hell of an experience. All said, if there is one city I would want to visit again, it is London.

Almost every trip of mine abroad has had an incident that has made it scary, interesting and unforgettable. I have been caught over speeding and under speeding (is that what u call it?) on the same day, fined and almost jailed in the US, lost my colleagues in the Boston airport and have been stranded without the address of the hotel. I have lost my way in japan, where I walked around in the middle of the night, searching for a building that was hidden behind a few others. Only a miraclous coincidence, when my friend, dressed in a salwar, happened to come out to dispose the garbage at the same time when I walked past the front of that building, saved me.

If that is any trend, the adventurous me does look forward to the next trip abroad. Guess I have really trolled on this post. Enjoyed it though.

When in ISB, we had a course called management of organizations. It was the first course in organizational behaviour. Prof. Huggy Rao from Kellogg took a full session on networks in organization, where in he talked about the various kind of networks that get formed among people in an organization. One of them was the trust network. If one were to map the trust network in a firm on paper, the person at the center of this network becomes a sort of a pivot in influencing the way people behave, especially when they are under pressure. Someone at the center of this network can weild a lot of positive influence as she is trusted by the crowd around her.

At Verizon India, the three of us who have joined are the first MBA campus recruits. Its interesting as the organization tries to adjust itself to these three new characters, who seems to belong to a different genre of employees they have not seen before, but have to be fit into an organization, that at times it seems, is growing too fast for its own comfort. We are three new employees who have this stamp of a business degree in an organization that otherwise breathes only hardcore technology 25 of the 24 hours in a day.

Given that we are these new species, that too higher up the ladder, it is all the more important for us to first gain the trust and respect of the people we manage. Only if we manage that can we think of then building a trust network around us. Building a trust network is extremely important for us here, for one, we are in a very people centric organization. Besides the nature of work, the very fact that we are small and growing fast means that a lot of the success resides not in processes but in people. If our ultimate aim is to stay with this organization and play a significant part in its growth towards what it is potentially capable of, then we will badly need that trust network. And to begin towards that goal, we start with our own team, which, apart from invariably comprising of people elder, is also extremely technically oriented.

The implication of such a technically oriented team is that, respect is born, not out of your knowledge of how capable you are of identifying new market segments, but how capable you are in developing a complicated new feature, not out of your understanding of the consumer market, but out of your understanding of the technical design, not out of your ability to talk about the GDP, currency fluctuations, market research and statistics, but by your ability to talk about .NET, J2EE...

The requirement is to find the balance between the two. You need in depth knowledge of the technology, not just to understand the product but to be able to articulate that and get your team to work towards it. You need to be at the same time, aware of the customer perceptions and use case scenarios. I dont know if its as complicated as I make it sound but still, is extremely interesting and challenging.

Over the past couple of weeks, I am realizing how much your mindset has to change when you have to move from being one of those engineers who are managed to the one who manages them. As an engineer, your mindset is so much tuned towards a world of your own, where your only bother is that problem in front of you that you have to tackle, solve to make things work. Of course, you work with a team, help each other, talk to client but all that is again centered around the problem to be solved and the technology around it. But, once you are responsible for a team of such engineers, apart from the problem solving, the necessity to be honest and sincere to each one of them, a genuine interest to get to know each one of them is so important. This may seem very straightforward and cliched, but for an introvert like me, who liked achieving things in my own world, having your "achievements" depend on another set of people, these words hold a lot of meaning.

It is so important to go beyond what is normally expected out of you, take initiative and drive things when you go up the responsibility ladder. I am seeing it as part of my day to day activities. There is competition, tough competition when u move up the ladder. You generally find only self starters and those who love starting something on their own up here. So, unless you are one who goes beyond what is obvious, you will find out of sync many a time.

So, when you join a new place, it becomes extremely critical to come up to speed with the reality as soon as you can, judge people as quickly as possible, separate the wheat from the chaff, so that you find yourself a fit in the scheme of things, make that clear to others, establish your domain and start pushing that extra bit that hasnt been happening until then.

Well, looks like I have been extremely abstract... I dont know how much of this makes sense, but these are kind of the summary of what I have seen and experienced in the first two weeks...

When I get my PC at home set right, I hope I will have the time for better posts...

for all those who are taking time off to read this and putting through comments, thanks a lot... :)

The first one week at Verizon has been a mixed bag. Without going into too many details, let me just say that I faced some intriguing issues and people that I had to handle. Its been interesting and challenging. I am a freshly minted MBA in an environment that is not totally used to such people. So, I disturb the mindset of many people who are set to one way of working. Handling all of that, finding your feet, getting to know the company and defining your own rsponsibilities in such an environment has been, to be frank, a little too challenging for me in just the first week. But thats probably because I did not anticipate this. I was subconsciously looking for a cushy and planned orientation, considering myself to be the blue eyed boy who needs a bit of little hand holding before being allowed to go out and win the world. At least on one occasion, I took a break and told myself, "Welcome to the corporate world", though I am not sure if I said that for any reason other than it being a situationally appropriate cliche.

Ok, thats the state of mind I am in as I go into my first weekend. I look forward to these two days when I recount the week gone by, regroup and plan out my next week. I hope to catch atleast a couple of movies in between and of course, meet some other friends from ISB who have joined work recently in chennai. All you people, have a great weekend and keep smiling :)

This is after a three day weekend where I went around chennai house hunting. Im looking to move into a larger house and its been a nightmare searching for the ideal apartment that can have everything that my family wants. I got info late into friday about the work I am going to do. It involves process transition and new feature development for a new product. It sounded exciting and so, I spent the rest of the weekend doing my homework before my meeting today. The habit of getting up early for classes at ISB helped a lot today as I woke up to my alarm at 6 and was at work by 7:15 to do my preparation for the meeting at 9:30. Add to that free open roads, nice-not-so-hot-yet chennai morning weather and no rush hour traffic, its been a nice morning. Touchwood.

I still :( dont have seamless access to the net and my own e-mail.

Joined work. First two days have been a mixed bag. Got to meet the Exec Director on the first day and had a chat with him. Spoke to another from the US office on the second day and things are being sized up before I start work. Otherwise, there has been a lot of induction, filling up forms and procedures to follow... none too exciting. There is a lot of flux here as Verizon is in the process of shifting to its own campus in Guindy. So, I am kinda shuttling between the old office at Tidel Park and the new one to meet people. Thankfully the weather in chennai has turned lovely in the middle of may, with a sprinkling of rain. Otherwise, travelling during the day in mid may can be scary. The exciting part has been meeting people and trying to figure out where they fit in into the scheme of things here. I seem to have a choice of sorts about the work I will start with, which has made this even more interesting.

I still dont have the freedom or the time to blog or mail freely. Once things settle down and and I get on to something concrete, this blog should be a nice extra half an hour of relaxation towards the end of the day. Until then, godspeed :)

this blog will be in full force once i join work, thats next wednesday. until then, i am crippled with my old pc playing its age and a browsing center where there isnt much privacy :(

Well, a busy orientation week at ISB combined with some food poisoning has kept me away from this blog... Minus the ill health, this week has been very interesting. Its been fascinating meeting a new set of 295 souls, as passionate about ISB, if not more. I was seriously apprehensive when ISB's fee was raised. I thought it would influence the applicant quality. While I still believe it did, the incoming class of 05 has surprised all of us in terms of quality, credentials and maturity. I personally have been meeting a lot of these guys over the past one week and the I have been pleasantly surprised by what I have seen. It has left not only me but all of us from the class of 04, pretty satisfied that ISB now has a set of people who will help it take the next big leap towards becoming a world class educational institution.

More from me once I recover completely. Until then, lets bask in the glory of India's triumph. Saurav and boys, way to go!

Ganguly has just made me eat my words. Chopra dropped! I cannot agree. This is not fair on the opener. Ganguly better prove his worth by scoring a century. But even if he does, this is not fair.

I have been killing time with my macroecon text from ISB. Its one book that I wanted to read patiently. Economics, especially macroecon, is absolutely fascinating. I wish I had read more of this stuff before. Forex reserves, inflation, exchange rates, GDP growth, stuff u read everyday in the newspapers made so much more sense only after this course. Prof. Ravi Bansal had made it all seem so simple and no nonsense that you actually wanted to read more of this stuff. Once I give this book a detailed read, I guess I will start posting some links that I am collecting about interesting papers in this area.

Chennai is very different from what it was when I left this place 2 years back. So many of my friends are out of town that it does feel pretty weird sometimes. Keeping myself busy was never a problem until now. Im looking forward to the weekend. Its a long one which means my coterie will be in chennai. Friends from bangalore and other places will be back home. I look forward to that.

All this free time means I actually am sitting in front of the TV watching India lose to Pak. But somehow, the bad feeling one used to get when India lost in the years gone by is not there now. There is this confidence that the team will bounce back. Speaking either to my dad, who is a diehard fan or to some other friends kind of confirms this for me. I guess the resilience and grit shown down under will live with us for quite some time. Besides, only 3 years back, India winning a test abroad was a rare event. Its not so now. We are actually talking seriously about a series win abroad against the likes of aussies and pak. Ganguly has indeed succeeded where a lot of other captains could not. On TV yesterday, he was talking about the next test match and ruled out Yuvraj replacing Akash Chopra, the reason being "One test match cannot be the basis for deciding a cricketer's career". Finally thats someone in Indian cricket talking with a lot of sense and conviction. Ganguly would know, from the way he carried drinks throughout the '92 aussie tour and was then dropped without a word of remorse. He wudnt let that happen to anyone else as long as he is in command.

I saw this tamil movie, "Autograph" today. Pretty decent. Powerful and would relate to a lot of people and their school and college days in a very different way. If you can withstand some minor sentimental stuff, this is worth a watch.

I am back in chennai after graduation and the last few days at ISB. Its over with the course at ISB. It still hasnt sunk in that I will not be going back to my room in SV3, and there will no more be classes to attend. It still feels like a small break I have taken to come back home and its only a matter of time before I go back to the campus. Well, to be frank, it feels very funny to be back home doing nothing. Life feels suddenly blank. Recounting the last few days will probably help me come to terms with reality.

Graduation was a magnificent day. For me especially, for I did not go through a convocation ceremony when I completed my engineering. The academic regalia heightened the feeling that I was going through something very significant in my life. Looking at Rajat Gupta and Anil Ambani lead us in procession to the stage, actually walking in that gown to the stage, receiving the certificate, shaking hands and flipping the tassle across to the left, it felt surreal, oddly dream like. Anil spoke about his conversations with Dhirubhai, the practicality of the MBA education and the need to realize that this is where the learning really starts. Rajat emphasized that. So true, for I wonder how life is going to span out at work with all these frameworks in mind. There is so much that I think I have learnt but I wonder how I am going to relate all that to what is going to happen day to day. I look forward to life now, one of the reasons being, I want to see how much what this one year has taught me is actually going to change the way I work, handle people and my self.

The graduation ceremony in itself brought into focus how much this one year has meant not only to many of us at ISB but to ISB itself. In all the melee of the one year, from admissions to placements, it was so easy to have lost out on the bigger picture. At the end of the day, beyond the job that we will be going to, beyond that money we are going to make, beyond the career growth we are going to see, as "alumni", ISB has a lot of stake in the way we are going to carry ourselves. From the smallest help we can do to ISB, to being a role model that will build the ISB brand name, brick by brick, each one of us now have a greater part to play in building this dream. Ethics, discipline and hard work from each and every one of us means a lot to a lot more people that ever before.

ISB was full with the family and friends of many of us. For my parents, as it was for every parent on that day, it was a proud moment. For the professors who had flown down to see us graduate, for the staff of ISB who had put up with us for the whole of 11 months, for every worker at Sarovar, who had made our life so much more comfortable without being noticed, this event was significant for their own reasons. It was wonderful and moving to see all of them standing along the stage, applauding us and happy for us. Many of us will be leaving them, possibly to never see them again. We had just spent 11 months with them. But still, there seemed this bonding they had developed that made them feel that way.

The last few days after graduation were very unnerving. How do you feel when until yesterday, you spent the whole of 11 months, every little moment of your life in a campus teeming with 220 of your own friends and suddenly you see them leaving, one after the other. Every time you walked out, you had someone leaving. It did not hit me initially for I never realized that I would never see them again. Only when I went to the dining hall for lunch and dinner did it start showing up. And when it was time for me to leave, my room mates were still there, to say good bye. Saurabh, especially, for he and I had spent the whole of the year together, sharing every moment of triumph and stress. I possibly cant see this campus without the same old guys. It will never be the same. Makes you realize that more than anything else, its the people who make the campus what it is.

Back home, its been funny. Suddenly absolutely nothing to do. My dear old modem, which loyally served me for so many years died on the day I returned. So, I am disconnected as well. I am killing time reading some books I always wanted to, with prince of persia on my brother's new PS2, watching TV, sleeping and eating but it feels very funny. Its the same city I spent 25 years in. I have only come back after 2 years but suddenly all my friends are gone. Some married, some abroad and others in other cities. Suddenly I find myself alone, disconnected and feeling lazy and funny. Life has changed suddenly. The pace of change... striking.

I will back in ISB in another 2 weeks for orientation. Its the same campus but now there will be 280 new faces... its going to be a different campus. I wonder how it will be to mix thoughts of my 11 months with the same place now being occupied by a new set of excited souls. Life will move on...

There is so much to be done before I can say bye to ISB. Clearances, collecting my stuff, physical and digital, packing, calling up friends, so much to be done!

I guess I will get a chance to do one long post before I leave this place and leave this blog to rest for sometime... expect one in the next few days. Until then, sorry, I am extremely busy winding up and watching cricket ;)

My best friend is getting married today in chennai. I wont be there because of my exam in the afternoon today. It something I am not able to come to grips with today, when I realize that after 8 years of what has been an unforgettable friendship, I wont be there to see her getting married or for that matter not be able to meet her before she leaves for the US. I called my parents just now and they were leaving for the wedding. A lot of thoughts come to my mind at this moment. All the fun we have had together. Cannot be defined by words.

Today is the last day of exams at ISB. My final exam in Marketing Implementation concludes all academic activities. Well, there are a lot of sentimental mails floating around. Those who had leased laptops begin to give up their laptops tomm onwards. It is like a symbolic disconnection from ISB to give up your laptop and disconnect yourself from the campus mails. Over the past year, spam mails have been part and parcel of our culture. Anything from lost pencils and underwear to hate mails to complaints and praises. For us, without laptops and mails, this place can be pretty strange. Fortunately, I give up my laptop late, thanks to my last name. But what I am going to do afterwards is a pretty scary thought!

The next week is disorientation. Lots of activities, partying, the formal graduation dinner etc. There is so much to be done in terms of arranging for moving my stuff, my books, burning my stuff onto CDs... meeting up with other friends in hyd ...

There are too many thoughts and sentiments running through my mind right now. Its been magnified that much by everyone around me and the way they feel and react.

My mind is choking...

Some random thoughts while I complete my org design project...

I am listening to "Ayutha Ezhuthu" (Yuva in hindi). ARR and Manirathnam combo always works wonders. Being a die hard ARR fan, my expectations were very high. They were matched by the music. "jana gana mana" is brilliant and so is "Yakkai thiri". It hit me instantly, unlike most songs of ARR that grow on you. ARR rules. What talent! I wonder what is the thought process that goes on inside his brain. I wish I cud know it, even better feel it. A brilliant musician's thought process.

Nearly 3 months back, when Raghuram Rajan was here, he had talked about the job loss in the US. Employment being a leading indicator, should be on the up if the US economy is recovering. But it is down because productivity is up so much that some lost jobs might never come back. I read a report about exactly the same, in fact well written, in economic times yesterday. I am not able to catch the URL again. But reading about outsourcing and how politicians in the US are using this in the presidential elections shows they are no less then Indian politicians when it comes to exploiting a sensitive topic to their advantage.

I was watching some cricket over dinner and saw Kallis batting agains the kiwis. I would love to see him make that 6th century. I thought he was one cricketer who deserved the SA captaincy for all the talent and maturity he has shown. Not that Smith is bad but Kallis, I thought got a raw deal. At another edge of the world, Gilchrist showed brilliance. I saw some of his shots in the news. Especially one straight drive that was just a block, not even a punch. Sheer timing and brilliance.

Talking about cricket, I was in trance when I saw saching move from 40 to 141 in the second ODI. Sachin was pure genius. Like his good old self that dominates the opposition naturally. I have been watching sachin for such a long time, that some inner feeling told me that this innings was something special, very natural, unlike what he has been playing of late. Oh, I loved his innings. Seeing him hit a boundary at will, there isnt a better sight in cricket.

Well, hitting the bed now... One of the last few days of my stay in my favourite room. (A lot such sentiments from me over the next few days :D)




Countdown to graduation: 8 days to go...

Today is the last day of classes at ISB for me. Its 2:40 pm now and in another 2 hours, I will attend my last class. The first class we attended, our first case discussion during the take charge module at the beginning of the year is still fresh in my memory. I cruel aspect of a one year MBA is that time flies and you realize very soon that you are at the end of it all... too soon for comfort. I have one good photograph of me in the class to cherish.

Of course, there are a lot of such last times that are going by very quickly for me. My last class together with a few close friends. Last project report. Last mid term exam. Last assignment. Last class participation. Hmmm... looks like if I start getting senti, there is no limit.

I saw the movie "12 angry men" late last night. I had seen snippets from it during the negotiation analysis course. I saw the whole movie this time. Brilliant. If anyone gets a chance, see how one room and 12 men are enough for a talented director to create a gripping movie. Prof.Madan Pilutla had extracted concepts in negotiation from scenes in this movie which was a revelation. Had never looked at a movie from that perspective before.

I think I have become a bit too used to the pleasant weather that hyd holds out for you for most of the year. The heat wave is on now and although I am from chennai, I am simply not able to bear the heat. For all those visiting hyd, I recommend umbrellas, caps, airconditioning, anything that can keep you cool...

Check out politicalcompass.org. I belong to the liberitarian left. Not surpised at all! I always thought I was like that ;)

Countdown to graduation: 9 days to go.

The uncertainties in life are too many at this point in time. I certainly want to continue this blog beyond my graduation.

The first uncertainty: I have a cyrix 233, 16 mb ram, 33.6 modem, win 95 machine at home. Its an antique piece. But it is my first and only computer. There have been times when I spent oodles of my time on it and there is this seemingly explainable bonding... those who are crazy about computers will understand... Ever since I came to hyd, my little brother has not been putting it to good use. I hope it will be in a state in which I can use it.

The second uncertainty: Verizon. They simply arent letting me know my joining date... :( They are apparently busy shifting offices in chennai. I have to co ordinate that, orientation for the next class and my free time...

The third uncertainty: Me. :) Sometimes i feel the need for time off after ISB. Other times I am raring to get out, join work and kick ass. Confused...

Amidst all this, I wish I get the time, a good enough computer and time to keep this blog going... I really want to. So I guess I will.

After a long hiatus, im back online again... Term 8 is getting to be as busy as any other term... there is so much work to do... my whole sunday went in meetings for assignments and projects... what a sunday! i feel so tired at the end of it all that i want to sleep for a whole day... but i still have to read the case for tomorrow's 9 am class... someone help me :(((

countdown to graduation: 12 days to go...

After the mayhem that my attempt to picture things has caused, I am determined to find out an easy way to do it. Ashwin just registered at photobucket. It seems to work... thanks! :)

I was part of the same study group for the first four terms at ISB. 6 of us, totally diverse. Me the software/telecom guy. A shippee (that what we call anyone who was sailing before coming here). Another running his family business. All in the 26-28 age group. The remaining three were in the 22-24 age group. One, a masters in industrial engg from the US, another from infrastructure and construction and finally the better 1/6th of the group, a girl with a fin background.

In a way, the kind of group bonding that many of us in some other group never really happened. Though all of us are great friends of each other, we had out own circle of friends by the end of the first term, and none of those circles had anyone else from the group. We did assignments together, aced some, scored pathetically in some, spent nights together, even slept once in the same apartment... conflicts, fights, clash of personalities, what not... but it was fun... all of us understood that this is the way things happen when 6 such different people are put in the same group and put under time pressure...

I guess none of us got together after the core terms for any of the elective term groups. But the 4 months of interaction we had is something that will live with us for a long time... it was enjoyable after all... all of us learnt a lot i guess...

Another 20 days and we will be out of this place... So we got together and went out for dinner day before yesterday... it was fun... reliving the days of our first marketing case (which was a monster) to all the goof ups, wins and fights... it was the first time we actually went out together...

we went to angeethi... one of the many good restaurants in hyd... some beer, great food, lots of leg pulling, the usual gossip and photos galore.. atleast a couple of us felt we should have gone out more frequently... like how many other groups did... but looking back, i guess we were all too focussed on a lot of other things that we never thought about it... anyways, better late than never... it was a fun evening...

here is a picture of the evening... lalit, Shiv, mua, Raj, Sonal and Gaurav...

More holi pictures:
http://www.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=67b0de21b34e0212657a

Credits go to Ian Vacin, one of the exchange students from Kellogg.

And so, go to www.geocities.com/rsramkee/holi.htm

Atleast now do you see the picture?

Irritating geocities does not allow you to link pictures directly! I thought I wud put up the picture here and all attempts have failed!

Ok, 4th posting for the day...

From Rajan's Rambling, I picked up this interesting post about PageRank, and also another one about matrix and entrepreneurship... Good reads...

Btw, did I mention?

I love typos...

Sunday blues. I am feeling so damn lazy. Have been in the library since morning, reading up Wired magazine/Scientific American/Business World/All newspapers/Auto India, watching schumi show his class, eating lots of food from the brunch, gulping down lots of diet coke and on and on and on... Even read a case thinking I have to submit the analysis tomorrow when the actual submission is on wednesday. All this while I came here to study for my midterm in OD tomorrow. Huh... I am very angry with this guy inside me who is not pushing me in the right direction...

Wired Mag had a wonderful cover story covering Google from so many different angles... I love google so much and it was fascinating reading about content spammers, pagerank's intricate details, the possibilities for Google post IPO, aout larry page and the other guy and how Google simple text ads are generating double the number of average clickthroughs that any other banner ads on the net.

Scientific Amercan had a very interesting article about a particular mutation found in 10% of europeans which means that their bodies dont allow HIV to get hooked on to their body cells. The article was about how scientists are trying to trace the origin of the mutation to either the great plague that hit europe or the geographical spread of small pox. Interesting indeed.

It was interesting to read all this hoopla about Warren Buffet investing in ONGC and then his denials. The denial came yesterday evening and still Hindustan Times screams on front page today about his investment in ONGC!

Auto India's dec 03 issue reviewed the new Honda City. I had read about the diesel engine of the new City in some other mag and have been in love with this car ever since. How much I wish I could buy one for myself. Guess I have settle for a small little Santro Xing. Or maybe I will wait for the Chevy Spark. I always loved the Matiz.

Yesterday as I made another trip to "The spicy venue" in Jubilee Hills for another heavy Andhra meals dinner, I was wondering what drives people like Schumi. Today as I read his quotes after the win, I am left all that more wondering...

Ok, the following is a very bad attempt at poetry that I am risking publishing here... I wrote it for a friend of mine here at ISB... but it turned out so bad that I decided not to publish it... But still, for all the damn effort I took to write it, I am going to put it here... If it puts you off, forget my blog for a few days while it travels down this page into the archives...

When the going gets tough
When sailing in sea so rough

A friend emerges from as a cohort
Lending a shoulder for support

A smile here
A laugh there

All ears when you wanted to talk
Always there for a comforting walk

There were altercations galore
Fights when we have screamed war

Only to end up together in
Support through think and thin

We have with us impressive perks
We are armed with all the frameworks

But it is friends like you
Who make it difficult to bid adieu

have been busy preparing for a mid term tomorrow. plus holi bash is happening big time in the student villages. more about that later. The remote tokyo suburb where I spent two weeks was kashiwa. Now, I hope it is some kind of a suburb of tokyo as it was just two hours from Narita. hmm...

btw,

this happened in one of the GDs and all the IT folks can relate to this. Out of the box thinking if I can say that...

This was during a group discussion where the topic given was, "What are the similarities in project management and bollywood movie making"

The opening statement: In project management, we have the waterfall model. In bollywood, we have the model under the waterfall.

:))

Lost in translation was brilliant. I have lived in Japan for a couple of weeks, that too all alone, out of the blue, without knowing the language, without a translator at times, using just sign language at which I am the poorest, that too in a remote suburb of tokyo. I could relate to this movie so very well. Bill Murray was excellent. I had not heard of Scarlett Johansson before this movie. Checked her filmography but certainly dont remember her from "home alone 3" or "the horse whisperer". I almost fell in love with this girl. In the final few scenes, the silence had so much meaning. Brilliant. Well, I guess I am going overboard a bit but to put it simply, "if you haven't seen it, you better see it"

I read this article about the H1B thing in the US: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/mar2004/nf2004032_4623_db047.htm
Very sensible.

Life has been pretty boring this week. Simply too many assignments, project reports, one page memos, etc. For those who watch tamil movies, I am reminded of Kamal's tamil movie, "Anbe Sivam" and the way he introduces nasser in the movie. All these profs appear such, with due apologies ;)

But of course, that doesnt prevent me from escaping in the night from all my group meets to watch "Khakee" for the fourth time (!!!) in the night at Prasad's in hyd. Not that I like this movie but somehow everytime I go, this seems to be the only movie with tickets available. I am going to book in advance next time.

I finished reading the book "the biography of a germ". Kinda got a bit boring towards the end but if you want something very diverse and different to read, like me, I suggest you pick this book, skip the first 5 chapters and read on.

How many times have you found that you listen to a song in the morning when you are in a hurry getting ready for the day and then end up humming that song throughout the day without your knowledge. Its happening to me again today. I sleep with songs playing in low volume. So everyday when I get up, I have some random song playing and today was "Mr. Cellophane" one of my favourites. Kinda getting tired of humming it. Guess I will have to go home and play something else to reload my mind. Maybe some old A R Rahman hits. Im in the mood to listen to melodies today. need to soothe myself because I have a screwed up schedule. a class at 9 in the morning and the next one at 4:30 in the evening, with eternity inbetween when you dont know what to do!

For the admitted to ISB folks in chennai,
One of my fellow students from the class of 04, Karthik Srinivasan, has asked me to inform that he will be in chennai on the 12th(Friday) and the 13th(Saturday). He will be along with his wife Divya, who is an alum from the founding batch.

In case you guys in chennai are interested in meeting them, someone please take the lead, co-ordinate and let him know the date and the time in advance so that he can plan his schedule.

You can get in touch with him at karthik_srinivasan@pgp2004.isb.edu

Renee and Tim win! LOTR, well I am yet to see it on the big screen. I wish I get to see it soon.

Im watching Lost in Translation now, between classes. We had our second beer bath yesterday. More fun than the first one. I really wish I cud get the pictures out on the net somewhere.

Talking about movies... I was going through this blog by Sidharth, after he left a comment for my previous post. Somehow his predictions for the oscars matched mine perfectly...

Quoting from his post...
Best Film : The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King

Best Direction : Peter Jackson(The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King)

Best Actor : Bill Murray(Lost in Translation) I really hope he wins :) Sean Penn in Mystic River did an excellent job but I think Bill Murray fit in so well in the movie!!

Best Actress : Should be very close between Charlize Theron(Monster) and Naomi Watts(21 Grams) but I think Charlize Theron will win

Best Supporting Actor : Though I would give it to Ken Watanabe for the 'Last Samurai' I think Tim Robbins will win this one for Mystic River.But,should be a very close fight

Best Supporting Actress : Hands down winner will be Renee Zellweger for Cold Mountain.I really dont see the Academy giving it to anyone else.

I have been a fan of tim robbins ever since shawshank redemption. Same with Renee since Bridget Jones diary and more so after chicago. I sure do hope these two win.

Its been a pretty relaxed weekend on campus. Biswajit was asking about AP first. Well, their recruitment process is not over yet. They have had a pretty long process this time around... maybe because of the impending elections too... Otherwise, half the campus is in vizag this weekend. holidaying. Thursday and friday were busy for all the weekend work had to be completed before the vacation. For the few lazy bums like me, its been an enjoyable lazy weekend, of course, intersperced with assignments :(

I completed seeing the gladiator for the umpteenth time today... I somehow don't get tired watching this movie... and everytime I see the scene where Russell crowe remove his helmet in the middle of the colosseum and says,

"My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius. Commander of the armies of
the North, general of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the
true emperor Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband
to a murdered wife, and I will have my vengeance in this life or
the next. "

somehow my admiration for this movie doesn't diminish... I remember, the first time I read a review of this movie, it was called "Crapus Maximus"... Hmmm...

Check out the anniversary issue of "The Smart Manager" if you are in India. The issue is about 25 top managers and the framework and research was done by a team of students at ISB. Gita Piramal's smart manager team and the ISB team did this work as an ELP project.

Well done guys.

Today I skipped a class... A crime at one point in time in my life...

looking back the past one year, if I were to be absolutely blunt with my views about classes, fellow classmates and the education I have received, I should say, things could have been better and I could have done better... Though I don't regret anything...

Looking back, I realize that the major difference between a one year program at ISB and the traditional two year program is the amount of work one has to put in. If that sounds cliched, read carefully. If one has to gain the same level of depth of knowledge and the same level of comfort and understanding that a two year program will provide, I think the average student has to put in more than twice the effort. Just to give you an example, my fellow classmates on exchange at Kellogg and lbs say they are finding the schedule there simply too relaxed for comfort. Guys at Kellogg have one class of a particular course a week, that too for an hour and 10 minutes. We have two classes per week for each course and each class if two hours. While the guys at Kellogg say they have that much more time, anyone at ISB has to work really hard if he has to keep pace with all the reading and case analysis for each class. That requires effort and self discipline. At Kellogg, these guys say, there is more than ample time to sleep and enjoy life. Of course these guys may be biased after having gone through 6 terms at ISB, but the fact still remains. No one will prosecute you if you did not do the readings. You will probably look like a dumb dodo in the class, especially if the prof calls on you out of the blue. But at the end of the day, what separates the guys who go out of ISB will the same level of preparation as the ones from a two year program is sincerity and dedication to the coursework throughout the year. That requires some serious hard work and time management.

the profs I have been under have been generally excellent. There happen to be exceptions here and there. We provide out feedback in such cases. For the profs, its a different experience teaching at ISB. They teach probably one class a week back home in the US or Europe. They probably teach only one of the semesters. At ISP, they have atleast 2-4 two hour classes every week.

my fellow students, I know many of them read this blog, have been generally amazing to be with. I had my expectations in terms of intellectual ability and maturity from which I cud gain when I came here. While there may be exceptions at times (I am sure some of them think I am an exception ;), in general, I have learnt more by observing my classmates, listening to them and getting inspired by them, than in the class room. There are people who have managed to cope up very well with the workload from the beginning. Others adapted as the year went by. Others still haven't managed and have made tradeoffs to survive. There have been classes with brilliant discussions and others as drab as it gets. There have been classes where the whole class reveled with wonderful arguments and counter arguments and others where majority did not bother to read and come. Though class experiences have fluctuated at times, most of the time, I have enjoyed the learning to the hilt.

throughout the year, I thought I had seen the best course and the best prof until I saw another one in the next term beating all records. I had been pretty satisfied with all the strategy courses I had done until the last term, but none had really excited me, also because strategy is not my favorite area. But the course last term by Prof.Phanish Puranam (LBS), on managing strategic partnerships, was so enjoyable that there were classes when I did not look at my watch even once, for I did not realize time passing by. He was unbelievable with the concepts, the way he handled cases and the way directed our discussion. Stupendous in one word.

its been a wonderful experience. I am going to miss the learning experience once I leave this place. Sometimes I wish I cud stay on for another year and relive the whole experience, with a wiser brain... If only...