To do, or not to do ??

All those who talk of a 'work life balance' back home need to come to Europe and see things for themselves. Seriously !!Anyhow, this here is an interesting article on this topic. Basically, now you've got research to confirm what everyone already knew... you can either get a decent life, or you give...

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15 people are MIG pilots

Now, most of my music is fairly old school classic rock and roll, a little metal, a little random stuff. An interesting thing is, on almost every time I go to a song/page on YouTube, I find other old-school people spewing venom at a bloke called Justin Bieber.Having never heard of the guy, I had to look him up on Google. Turns out, he's a kiddie-pop chap. Each one to his tastes.But coming back to...

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Second Term - it's over

Back after a bit of a hiatus...Had been busy with the exams and final presentations and whatnot.First, the presentations. We had a bunch of presentations to make this time around. Economics, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Strategy, and Operations...phew !! The class is getting really good at this stuff...

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Looking back all the time

Both, the economics and Financial Management professors have remarked, as have dozens of op-ed columnists, that most financial/economic solutions target the last crisis, and lay the seeds for the next one.I was wondering, aren't most MBAs also looking back, when the career-changers pick their new careers?...

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Music maketh the mood, or is it the other way around?

Today, there I was, in an Irish pub, a pint of bitter in hand, watching Man. Utd. a goal ahead against Fulham. Neither of the two entirely unexpected, neither me in an Irish pub, nor Man. Utd. a goal ahead of Fulham. Everything ho-hum.Suddenly, Fulham equalized. The game came to life, as did I, and...

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Age: just a state of mind, or something like it...

Last term, one of the more interesting exercises the class did was in O.B. We were on the eye-roll inducing, but easy, stuff, like 'what do you want out of life', 'long term goals' and how these things evolve with time. The professor then asked us to chart out the amount of time, as a percentage, we'd like to spend on 4-5 aspects (the usual suspects, personal, professional, family, social etc.), and...

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Net Neutrality Neutered ?

In all this hullabaloo over the Google-Verizon proposal,there are a lot of grey areas...One good point stands out. No company can pay an ISP to prioritize it's traffic at the expense of a rival.That, I think, pretty much retains the core idea of Net Neutrality.Then why is there a reluctance on one's...

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Value addition, or Filtering?

Unanswered questions always come around, don't they? About two years ago, when I was midway through the thoroughly unpleasant task of applying to B-schools, I wasn't really sure whether B-schools really add value to students, or they simply select a bunch high-fliers, hand them an MBA, and let the world...

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Putting your money where your mouth is

Saw an article in the day's FT, on Flattr. Boy, I like the idea of this thing...The basic concept is really simple, you can reward the creators of content that you like, by crediting any amount to them. As little as 1 cent, as much as your pocket (rather, your mood) allows.What appeals to me is this...

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Buy Low, Sell High

Some time towards the end of last term, one item popped up on our calendars- CIA debriefing.No, our 'intelligent' class has nothing to do with the 'intelligence' agency. We were up for 'Change In Action' (CIA), something that we'll be doing for a week after every term's exams.The best part of the entire...

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Over and Out !!

We're done !! Done with the first term, 5-6 subjects, and a whole lot of fun. The exams were just the way I prefer, quick, short tests, one each day, for five days. No need to learn any formulae, no mugging... just go write down whatever you could retain from class!!An exam can tell you a lot about...

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Foursquare - $20 M raised in VC funding

Foursquare, the location-based social networking site that we discussed in class in the beginning of the course, has just raised $20 Million in Venture Capital funding from the VC fund Andreessen Horowitz.Not bad, eh?Looks like there are good times ahead for the people behind FourSquare!! Marc Adreessen (the Netscape founder) is counting on a rapid growth in the smartphone market to justify his firm's...

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Bring it on

Done with the posts/assignments on Tech. !!For the non-IMBA readers, those were our assignments. They're over and done with, and I'll be back to yakking about everything under this fine Spanish sun ...These assignments were fun, to the extent that homework can be fun... on to the exams now.I'll go out...

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Tesco - Scoring Points using IT ?

Retailing is a volume game. Shave off a fraction of the cost here, target marketing better there, and it all adds up. Tesco anyone? 'Every little helps', indeed.In the beginning, Tesco was playing catch-up with M&S. Then, Tesco launched the Clubcard, a loyalty card that entitled customers swiped...

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Casa del Libro - a not-so-tough choice

Casa del Libro, at the height of the dot-com bubble, had long been established. They were figuring on entering the online market, and had bought the best and fastest (and the most expensive) servers and software. Then came the dot-com bust. Budget cuts. Downsizing. Lowered growth forecasts. And a tough...

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ERP - Change is the only constant !

ERP softwares are weird.Lets say we have some ace ERP consultants, and they're going to foist an ERP solution (it's always a 'solution', never mere software !!) upon some unsuspecting co.THE GOALTo provide one single software for all departments within an enterprise, HR, Finance, Marketing, Sales, Manufacturing ... everything !! This should make life easier for all these departments.OPTION # 1If the...

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Could Have, Would Have, Should Have !

Consumer is king ?Not quite. But we're getting there. Dell found out the hard way, way back in 2005. Jeff Jarvis, a journo-turned-blogger had a bad experience with Dell. He contacted Dell for customer service, and well, lets just say the bad experience got worse. So bad, that JJ took to periodic venting...

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Back to the 3-6-3 rule ??

'Accounting is Sexy, Accounting is Fun !'... so goes the unofficial motto in our Financial Accountancy class.Huh?? While we've gone through lots of BS, (not what you'd think. Balance Sheets. On second thought, maybe it really is just BS), I'm yet to see how could a wannabe MBA find accountancy sexy....

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Open up to open source !

In a post some time back, I'd written about disliking Windows Vista, and having chickened out of installing Ubuntu. With a weekend at hand, and no intentions of hitting the books, I had to do something....well, Windows got the boot (pun unintentional) !The whole thing took just 10 minutes, starting...

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A victim of it's own success ?

Will Facebook end up being the victim of it's own success ? Methinks so.Sure, there are tonnes of arguments to be made, either way.For: the TINA factor i.e. Google's ineptitude at Social Networking (Orkut & Buzz).Against: Privacy, changing habits, blah blah (it's a long list)In my highly biased...

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OST : the rise and fall of the wannabe MBA

The beginning of an MBAwhen everybody's out to change the world, get filthy stinking rich, "give back", whatever !!I want it all,We are the champions,We will rock you....Sometime later, when the deliverables start piling up......Under Pressure !!Very soon, when the exams are around the corner....I want to break freeThe exam results roll inAnother one bites the dustPS: There I was, working late into...

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Don't be Evil

Don't be Evil, Google said. Yet, it streams cookies onto your computer. Knows what you read, what videos you watch, what links you click, what keywords you search for. The works. It even came up with a browser that is great for browsing, yet mysteriously, doesn't provide any real support for blocking...

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Hitting the roof

Today, I had a class that was the best I've attended at IE, as yet. By far, it was the most intellectually stimulating one.We just went through some basic 'supply and demand' curves, and saw how simple things can be, and yet people get them wrong time and again. The shocking part was that this stuff is so elementary, and yet governments the world over mess it up with their ham-fisted attempts to control...

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Microsoft - A Cloudy future ahead ?

A disclaimer, right off the bat - I'm not a big fan of Microsoft. As an end-user, I use Chrome, not IE, Gmail a lot more than Hotmail, and would love to have Ubuntu on my laptop instead of Vista, but have chickened out.The GoodHaving said that, Microsoft must have done some things right over the years...

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