My Kinda' ATM

There are ATMs and then there are some.

Finished both exams atleast half an hour before time each, so had time to chill out. Came across this link. Wish all ATMs were like this or atleast a few. Its swell.

Term 3 Exams

Its just today and tomorrow between us and end of term 3 at ISB. However there would be four end term exams, as per ISB tradition, in these two days. I am not sure what I am doing writing this blog at this hour and if you are here at ISB, between now and and day and a half after, you should be thinking the same as to why you are reading this now ;. If you are not, I am not sure what you are doing reading this post. Please come back later for more :)

Six Degrees of Separation

I never believed it. But having used orkut, its seems more and more a possibility that people all over the world are connected to each other with atmost six peole between them.

Consider this, I was able to link back to my brother, whom I had not added as a friend, through my group mates here at ISB. Even most of my other friends from school are connected through at least one of my group mates here. Just wondering, would this have been possible before the advent of the internet. And I haven't had to go beyond 3 intermdiaries yet.

No ELP :(

Well! Actually thats not too bad considering I am taking the PaEV Course and taking both would have been difficult to manage.(Though some alums have done that in the past). But the reason why we did not get the ELP.. For starters did not have enough diversity on my team inspite of having some really good profiles, or was is poorly crafted application. Should have focussed more on them.

Term III exams are next week. Between today and 3-4 weeks later, need to figure out what stream would I be majoring in, as the bidding for electives starts 3 weeks into the fourth term. Would need to do some serious thinking on the matter. Its been too long waiting for enlightenment ;).

Consulting or not to be?

Had a session by a group of 5 consultants from BCG. 3 of them were ISB alums. The other two had been with BCG for over six years and held the stage for the most part during the presentation.They were kick starting their recruitment drive from ISB for the year. I just about managed to drag myself into the session, while thinking that a consulting career is not meant for me. But really, they exploded a lot of myths that I had about them. But more importantly, I could relate to the the life and culture they portrayed or at least gave the impression. The challenges of living up the the levels of consultants notwithstanding, while some may argue that consultants are overrated, they did manage to impress me.

They plan to conduct a few more follow up sessions, apparently to help the students prepare for the placement week. However, it may have more to do with identifying the right people early on. Anyways, nobody's complaining, considering they can hardly afford to make, what they call recruitment mistakes and students benefit too. Some of the students turned out in suits. Reminded me of the MIB recruitment line,''... Best of the best of the best", for those who have seen the movie. Although the presenters themselves were dressed more in business casuals. But, I think they flew in to hyderabad, after a full work day.

It has been a long day and I must get some long deserved sleep now. Alas! There are three more assignments due for Monday morning.

Disruptive Technologies! Myth or reality?

Here's and article by John Dvorak, that certainly makes for an interesting reading. Enough to put doubt into theories of Clayton Christensen. However, on a closer read, you realize that he is just twisting the facts. This is the classical case of just arguing and proving point . You make a convincing argument for X and then concluding by refuting Y. By the way X never really had any relation with Y. But atleast the people who are not familiar with Y, would tend to agree with you and wala, you've got yourself a fan following (Of those who hate X or know nothing about it).

Its like saying..

Cows eats grass

Cow is an animal

Therefore Animals eat grass

Lion is also an animal

Therefore Lion also eats grass.

Other variations of this twisted logic are frequently employed by war mongers or politicians. A classical example is that used by Senators to convince Brutus that Ceasar would lead to Rome's demise. They convinced him that although Ceasar was not evil now, but evil resides in him. Resident evil, would rise some day and that day, Ceasar would take Rome down. So its better to kill Ceasar now than wait for eventual doom.

Its amazing how even well meaning people like Brutus, get taken in by this twisted logic and kill a good man(read idea)

Oh, by the way the here's a link to X. Make up your own mind.

The hottest hand in Silicon Valley

This lad from IIT Delhi went on to be known as the hottest hand in Silicon Valley. If you do not know him, he founded or helped to find these companies

Founding companies
Sun Microsystems Inc.
Daisy Systems
i-Ram Systems Inc.
Khosla Ventures


Helping to found companies
NexGen (now purchased by AMD)
Excite
@Home Network
Juniper Networks
Cerent
Corvis

Well, if you still do not know who I am talking about, then read this. Saw an old video of him of a session he conducted at ISB. Could not help being impressed. He certainly knows what he talks about.

Anyways, every year ISB plays host to TiE-ISB connect every year and if you are wondering what is this TiE I am talking about, then look here or here.

Our man has been one of the speakers at this event in the past.

Well, if you are even remotely thinking about enterpreneurship then you have got to be here at ISB for the TiE-ISB Connect.

ISB Applicants - Query Section

Life has come a full circle for me. From being and aspirant myself and asking for help I now have the opportunity to help this year's applicants. Having benefited from numerous sources, I think I need to return the favor by keeping this tradition alive. Thus, if you are aspiring for ISB and have some questions, please leave those in the comment section here. I would try to answer them as quickly as possible and to the extent possible, provided I am not deluged with assignments or impending exams ;).

So if you need any info or advice just shoot your questions.

Would I Bite The Bullet? Rather, Would They?

We had a session today by two eminent corporates, from two large corporations. One a global services giant and another a pharma major. They were here to tell us about recruiter expectations when they come to a B-School like ISB today. The pharma guy was an HR person and had fairly relevant points, one's that we could relate to, and he massaged our egos once in a while. The other guy was in a key strategy role in a big IT services company, was an engineer and had grown writing the company to take up this role. Clearly he discounted the fact that the audience was MBA students. The inhibition that a tech person would have (maybe, even I had against MBAs before I came here) were clearly visible. When asked about the roles that MBAs would get post ISB, he clearly thought that an MBA added little value to a persons skills that are relevant to corporates.

Now, I come from a similar pedigree myself, having worked at a tech company for a considerable period. This conflict between managers and engineers would always be there in such a company. Should they value their engineers more than the engineers or vice versa. An engineer would say that they are the real bread winners of the corporation and without them the company would collapse and Managers would feel the same way about themselves, but would probably not say tell this to the engineers.

Truth, for a technical firm, would be a combination of both. Fact is that without technical talent corporation would suffer and would suffer too, without good managers.

Now, I am wondering whether in the next session I should ask, who do they value more as an employee, an Engineer or a MBA? I am not sure I'd would like to hear any combination of the multiple choice answers without hearing out a complete explanation.