World Without Engineers (Part I)

Here's a quick reminder of what the world would be without engineers. More in part deux!

Paper Presentation

Finally managed to send out my first ever paper. This was finance paper for a B School competition. Even if I do not win or do not get shorlisted, it gave my a lot of satisfaction. More than anything, it meant that I had to read and understand a lot of greek stuff that I initially thought was I was weak in. Anyways this is a good beginning.

Hope to do at least a few more before the course ends ,provided I can afford some time. This effort meant that I slept less than four hours every night over the past 3-4 days. Hope to catch some sleep now on the weekend.

Or maybe not...

Skill and Resume Verification by NASSCOM?

Came across this post about NASSCOM creating a repository of information about skills of IT and BPO employees. While it solves some problems for companies and some for employees (Think lemons market...), it can potentially create a lot of trouble if not used properly. It says that the employees would decide about who can view their personal information, but do you think that a poor BPO employee can stop anyone from viewing his or her information.

Other problem would be deciding who updates the information with NASSCOM and the frequency of these updates. Lets say an ordinary IT worker, has learnt a new skill and now wants to update the skills registry, maybe to switch jobs. How would this information be authenticated. The current employer would be reluctant to update even the current skills of his/her employer on the repository. Well they can't even do it successfully on intra company databases except for a few companies. Consider this,1) why would a company, which is fighting attrition, want to update its employees skills on a common database so that others could simply poach these employees. This could also lead to a few companies blackmailing its employees. 2) If on the other hand, the employees themselves update their own skills, there would be no difference at all from the current situation or make the current situation worse. I see huge 'Agency Costs' in both these situations.

The answer is educating people about the pitfalls of resume fudging, and relying on honor system. Performace, in the first 3 months should give ample proof of the fudging if that happens.

A possible solutions could be, a registry for those who are found to have fudged data. The onus of proving the fudging should lie with the company.

Efficient Markets or A Random Walk

What affects stock prices or everyday basis?

Are markets efficient or a random walk?

If Current Price = PV of future cash flows for each share discounted at cost of equity and if stock prices change everyday than does cost of equity change everyday or cash flows change everyday ?

Is CAPM the right model for measuring the cost of equity for efficient markets or just a tool for efficient markets.? Does Cost of Equity determing P/E of stocks ? What about Sectoral effects?

Why do stock prices change every day? Is that so because of buying and selling?

If Behavioural effects determine stock prices how does it change every day?

If marakets are efficient than markets should move only on events, but what are these events? How many events take place each day? What are these events?

How do markets discount/price these events?

If large institutional investors use market models, how do they restimate risk everyday? Do they even use these models.

What causes market in efficiency?

Transaction Costs ?
Information Assymetry?
How Soon do people with information exploit this assymetry?
Minimum Tick Size?
Currency Risks?

What about trends? Bollinger Bands, Inverted Heads and shoulders, cups and handle , break outs? How come do market technical analysts make a living?

What about irrational exhuberence?

So how efficient are markets anyway? Perfectly efficient or Varyingly efficient?

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.

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