ISB Leadership Summit 2011, AACSB and ISB@10

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog are my own and not of the school's.

Long before I had joined ISB, I had not thought about contesting elections to be on the Graduate Student Board, leave alone how to organize the flagship event of the school. Even when I came to ISB, I only wanted to join the Music Club as that is my hobby. However, when I spoke to a few friends of mine, they gave me the confidence and the rest, as they say is history.

While winning the elections was a big achievement in itself, I was entrusted upon the job of organizing the school's flagship event - the ISB Leadership Summit (ILS). It boasted of some sterling speakers in the past, but this time it had to be different. It was the 10th year of the school and we wanted to differentiate ourselves. With that in mind, and with the objective of involving as many people as possible, I started on a journey.

From thinking of the event's design to recruiting a bunch of people who could make or break the difference, it was an arduous task. We played with the event format, we played with the speaker sessions, we spaced out the club panel discussions and did whatever we could to ensure everyone got a chance to attend all sessions.

It was a fun ride all the way through! Kaumudi, the lead coordinator for ILS did excellently in garnering the troops and helping with the entire event. It was a triple happy occasion for ISB as it was the 10th year anniversary of the school, and also that very morning we got to know that our school was AACSB accredited.

I was very glad to know that our efforts to get the school accredited put paid and that set the happy tone for the rest of the event! This will remain a defining moment in my life and I will cherish the memories for a long time to come.

Goa 2011

Nostalgia, fun, euphoria ... and much much more! That's what Goa is all about.

The first time I went to Goa was with my college buddies - about a decade ago. Then again, when I was in Pune in 2006-07, I went there with colleagues and had equal amount of fun. This time, I went there with my wife on a vacation after a hectic 4 terms of MBA at ISB. After having seen some really good beaches in the USA, our expectations were not that high. But Goa never stops to amaze me. It was as good fun as it was in any other part of the world. Beach beds, massages, lovely beaches, lots of shopping... wow!

Should we really be scared of the economic turmoil?

Countries and corporations credit ratings are being downgraded.
Economies are shrinking.
Companies are downsizing.
Dollar, the ever so stable currency, seems to be deteriorating. Yuan is being talked about as an alternative.

Are these signs of an economic downturn? While infrastructure industry seems to be doing well and sees the brighter side, banks and IT companies are being extremely cautious. It is a direct impact of the recent happenings in the global markets. How long will it last is a question that not even the best of our leaders can answer. Nobel prize winners, market predictors, PhDs have no clue.

The common man is as confused as the people who run large organizations and national policy makers. Its scary to think of such lack of control. What kind of education is then required? There are only questions and no concrete answers yet!

Happy Teacher's Day!

Happy Teacher's Day!

A day when we recognize the efforts of all our teachers - our mother, our school, college and any other teacher who taught us something in life. To a job, that is really thankless in this society, here's really wishing a Happy Teacher's Day!

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Excitement of a new year

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The Jelly Beans story

The year was 2006. I had just started on the new project (Margin Management) in Chicago and was catching up. It was our first meeting with Dan. Subodh, Emmanuel, Kavitha and I were there in the room with Dan. We had a lot of questions about the application. Dan brought in a cup full of colorful jelly beans and announced that we would get one or more jelly beans depending on how good our questions were.

As we went ahead asking questions, he went on passing some jelly beans to the person who raised the questions. As it was a client meeting, we did not eat any of the jelly beans, but then Dan interrupted and asked us to go ahead and eat some. As soon as we put them in our mouth, we realized that we did not like those and they tasted real bad. We did not want to upset Dan and tried to put on a brave face (I am sure he would have made out that we did not like them). Kavitha just kept her mouth closed and did not chew on them.

Dan asks each one of us “Did you like them”?

Emmanuel, Subodh and I say differing answers, but each one of us just try to down play it by saying they are “OK”, “not bad” or just “hmmm”.

He then looks at Kavitha and asks her the same.

Kavitha’s mouth is still closed, and with a pitiful face she shakes her head to convey “No, I did not quite like them”.

Dan says, “Spit it out if you don’t like them. Oh, by the way, that was beef flavored. There are variety of flavors in these –chicken, beef, earwax, bacon and vomit!” and gives a wry smile.

We were dumb struck, thinking which flavor we just ate. And hearing those names did not sound quite attractive. We were tempted to run to the rest room and spit out everything. But here we were, in our very first meeting with the client – one that could make or break the relationship. One that could create a negative/ positive image. So, we quietly swallowed it and cleansed our mouth afterwards. It became a hot topic for discussion for us after the meeting.

And just before we were about to leave for the day, Dan came up to us and apologized for the prank that he played on us. Little did he realize then that some of us were vegetarians and may not have taken the episode in the right spirit. He was appreciative of the fact that we were polite and did not take the joke rudely. His son had seen those jelly beans on TV and Dan bought it for him. But he too, just like us, did not like them. That was why Dan brought them to work and wanted to play a prank on someone. We were the unfortunate ones to become ‘bakras’, but looking back, it was in good jest.

He has not played a prank on us since, but that one incident gave him an idea of how polite we can be. He recently brought another cup to work to mark our 5^th anniversary, but this time the flavours were not as bad. I am attaching a picture of that. So, that my friends is the story of the Jelly Beans.