Blogs are like opinions, every one has them !?

A few weeks back, ISB hosted a talk on lack of political involvement amongst the youth in India and its ramifications on the India's economy. One of the eminent speakers felt that the problem is not that Indians are not involved, but rather they are involved only superficially. What he said was that even though a large number of youth discuss politics, they are only voicing their opinions while being ignorant of the facts.

Well, my post is not about that It is rather about blogs. A lot of people vent out their feelings on the blogs. A lot of that can be compared to the situation above. While, it is any day better than not having any opinion voicing at all, but the readers must read these blogs in that context and be aware that a lot of what is being propagated through these blogs are actually personal opinions and looked at in that perspective while forming your own conclusions. With the increasing power of blogs to influence opinion these days this assumes greater importance.


This is not to say that blogs have no utility. On the contrary, I feel that blogs have the power to become a huge tool for empowering the general public. But they should become more than the topic of this post

PS: Name of the topic lifted from http://adamo.wordpress.com

We, the Voyeur!

The above picture refers to the the search volumes in differrent cities, all over the world, for ''Pamela Anderson''. Once again saddi dilli manages to top the list. Amchi Mumbai comes in a close 5th. (For the current scores click here). Need, I say more. Google does not give exact figures so we cannot comment on the relative figures, ratios, per capita searches for 'Pamela' from this trend but the big picture still remains true. Long live C.J. Parket

Death and Taxes!

Just one hour to go before final exam today (Global Economics- which is second of two today, and last of four in two days.), I could not help but look at this on my google homepage.

"But in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

- Benjamin Franklin

But then again, it was followed by this...

"The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity."

- Harlan Ellison

Life, exams and google can play tricks on you...

Honor Code

One of the systems that ensures that we, students at ISB, remain true to our words is the ISB Honor Code. Modelled on ethics codes at top US B-Schools, this umbrella code covers all aspects of our lives and expected behavior for the duration of our stay at ISB. It applies to both academic and social life at ISB and is the first thing that is drilled into a person as one enters ISB.

Every year, ISB is becoming stricter in terms of adhering to guidelines.

One of the basic tenets of this code is 'Thou shall not Plagiarize' and we are all very careful not to violate this rule and its fair and simple enough.

While going through Liar's Poker, a book by a former Soloman Brothers, the author mentions the attitude they had towards this

"God gave you eyes,

Plagiarize!"

Was wondering, if there are any situations where plagairism is good. Of couirse, I am not talking about re-inventing the wheel every time you want to build a vehicle. With the easy availablity of papers on the internet, there is certainly a temptation to copy, paste and be done with it. But that would not be real learning.

But what about corporate life, between corporations. One should certainly not pass someone else's work as one's own. This is where IP laws come in. But would it be alright, if these laws were not there. Or more specifically, consider generic manufacturers launching products that are covered by IP laws elsewhere.

Is adopting evil for greater good alright or is it just self preservation and service and exploiting loopholes and market opportunities ?

TiE-ISB Connect 06 - Sculpting Ideas, Building Businesses

The TiE-ISB Connect is a joint initiative of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), Hyderabad Chapter and the Centre for Entrepreneurship at the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. It is a forum that brings together early stage venture capitalists, start up and growth stage entrepreneurs and academicians, on a common platform to interact and help build successful enterprises. The first TiE-ISB Connect held in July last year was a resounding success with over 300 delegates attending the full-day event. Over 100 business ideas were presented of which about 15 are in different stages of development/ discussion with investors.

The TiE – ISB Connect 06 is scheduled at the ISB during September 20-22, 2006. This year we have significantly up-scaled the scope and magnitude of the event, with discussion tracks on diverse sectors including Internet & IT Services, Bio-Pharma, Media and entertainment, Infrastructure/ Real Estate, Telecom/ Wireless, Semiconductor, and Retail. Each track will have a keynote address by a successful entrepreneur, a review of global trends in the sector by an analyst, and a panel discussion by venture capitalists and successful entrepreneurs on sector opportunities. Entrepreneurs seeking opportunities in these sectors may attend the event as delegates.

The entrepreneur community can also benefit from three specific opportunities: Investor Pitch (Presenting plans to potential investors); Venture Showcase (Exhibiting product/ service) ; Jumpstart your venture (Workshop preparing the aspiring entrepreneur for an exciting journey)

For further details, please visit www.tie-isbconnect.com

Source: Indian School of Business

3.23 billion to watch the world cup finals!!??

I am not sure how they come up with these figures. Its seems to me that this is more of a marketing ploy then any real figures. Considering the world's population is 6 billion, ( The times of India reported the no of people watching would be 32.3 billion), 3.23 billion means which means over 50 percent would be interested in watching the French and the Italians slug it out in Berlin In India and China alone this number combined is not going to cross 10-20 percent of the population. Similarly for America it is only likely to be 30 percent. I would put most optimistic figures to be around One billion of people who would want to watch this contest. Finally out of these assuming 50 percent actually get down to watching it live puts the number at 0.5 billion. Mind you not a small number by any means.

I believe the 3.23 billion, in theory, to be the population of countries/regions where these matches would be aired live.

Online Search Trend for 'ISB'

The picture on the left shows the trend for online search volume for "ISB" and in the lower part shows how often the word "ISB" was referenced in online news.

Two trends are clearly visible. There was a huge surge around 'E', early april that an ISB student had bagged a 1 crore salary. On the news reference trend, onve can see the trend line really taking off after the Bush Visit and continued to rise higher with announcements of placement results and even higher with announcements of profile of batch of 2007 (Marked 'F' ).

The two events have generated massive publicity and good PR for the Indian School of Business.

Picture Source Google Trends