Delivery of the decade

It was angled, bowled from some height and aimed at the base of leg stump - or was it really? Am not pretty sure about the former but I do know that it did knock the defenders fort down. And pretty ecstatic were all of us - it seemed to us that history had been made. The warriors, meant for this very battle had fought their heart out. And though the enemy did manage to take our lives (in the finals) they never could take our freedom, nor the pure joy of going out there and fighting for our cause. Some of the warriors,I am sure were immortalized today - at least in my books. Might as well make a note of the fearless warriors the the battle engendered :

Dhaval
Arun Singla
Saurabh Rungta
Yogendra Saraogi
Ashwini Tank
Pratik

And this one is dedicated to all those who had and continue to have the spirit venture forth whenver presented with the slightest chance?Thanks guys...

When was the last time you did something new?

Almost famous

An increasing empahsis is being placed nowadays on finding valid and reliable indicators of job performance. Never did I think that I would be out on a "job" for these two years. However, I did hope and expect to perform. It was tough to decide which committee or club to stand for in the recently concluded elections for the Students Welfare and Activities committee and the various other interest clubs that have just concluded.

I had stood for a post on the Media and Publications committee earlier and lost ( albeit gracefully, I should say). There is this something about the mirror that stops most of us having a deep hard look at ourselves. A passing glance ,now and then, off and away, is all the we like of ourselves. It is almost fascinating -this desire to avoid change and the consequences of change. Its just like the story of Peter pan - the boy who refused to grow up. Also similar to the human being a prisoner of his own creation. ( the so called psycic prison). I thought long and hard once again and concluded that the time was right for me to take a good hard look at the mirror. Though I still do not really like what I see, it does help in ensuring that I do not wake up one fine day to find out that the path which I had consciously chosen many years back has not come to merge with the one that I had so desired to avoid.

One this however is sure is that is not possible to fake such test advanced tests such as the peer performance evaluation tests. (This pertains to those votes that I would have loved to get, but did not. The only possible explanation is that I didnt deserve them. This leaves, as always, something to take in future; hopefully before I run out of time :-).

And yeah, I forgot to tell you - I lost the election for the post of the secretary, but did get elected to the post of a member on the committe for which I had chosen to contest....

marketing jargon

One of things they identify a clan is by its lingo. we , prospective future managers, are encouraged to be jargon-free as managers are deemed be people who are supposed to deal with complexity by simplifying things. Simplication, however, does entail a knowledge of the jargon before we set about managing by simplifying. Here's some jargon for you to munch over.

shotgun vs rifle approach to marketing segmentation
gorillas vs guerillas
built-to-order Vs built-to-stock
upselling, cross-selling and customerization
natural market segments and Concentrated marketing
brand-dominant heirarchy vs nation-dominated heirarchy
customer cloning

In case you do get to find out the meaning of any of these jargons, plz do write-back/comment ;-)

Of marketing and management

Marketing is(was) one of those subjects which I was clearly did not look up at. It seemed to me to be much too devoid of logic. Further, this was a subject with no right or wrong answers ( and I sure like to get my answers right)

It started on Day I when the marketing prof came hard at me. He had come looking for the person with 33 months of Infosys experience. He barraged me with questions, lots of them ; I tried to ward them off with my humor and wit, but aint sure about how successful I was

Example of a typical exchange that day

Prof : How does Infosys market itself?
Me: Well..by the time I joined Infosys, it was already pretty well marketed...So I dont know much about that.

However, I sure was complelled to be prepared for the next sessions as I did not want to be caught on the wrong foot again..( further, my wit really comes to the fore when I am well prepared)..At the begining, of the semester I had decided that if I were ever pressed for time, marketing would the subject I would have to ignore...Well...I ended up reading all but one of the chapters covered this term ( dont ask me about cases though)

Post some gyan from kotler in my next blog,

Lonavala, Amby Valley and Imax

Decided to go on a holiday this summer rather than go home. ( frankly I had been plain lazy to book tickets to home, though I haven't told this to anyone). One of my mates had come back from frankfurt on a holiday, another one from cincinati..(so then, what did you think...all of my friends have gone places by now). Finally however, I packed my bags to mumbai with one of my mates here. Had good fun in Mumbai for a day or two and then moved on to mumbai to visit some of my college mates.

New year a good time with us dancing our hearts out to "Dhoom"...The next day we visisted Lonavala, Amby Valley and other places that we came across.

Great that both my friends still had all the time in the world and it was like old times again ( perhaps better)...Friendship sure is old wine, in my case is seems to mature with time....

will post some of the pics as I receive them,