Coin-Box initiative on ISB website

“There is so much to talk about, but so little time…..” standard cliché it is but absolutely true for any student of ISB, especially for me. I keep thinking that I will write about a particular thing on the blog. However, by the time I find time, the issue gets stale and I end up not writing anything at all.

I wanted to write a post on the ‘coin-box’ (Yes, another post on it. If you have heard the word ‘coin-box’ for the first time on my blog, read the link posted in the end) but conveniently forgot about it. Nevertheless, here it is.

The ‘coin-box’ has become quite famous and quite a star. The initiative was carried as a news item on the ISB website and was widely appreciated by all the students and also by many eminent people in corporate and academic field. Some of the mails that I got appreciating the initiative were really heartening. The best was perhaps by Dr. Krishna Tanuku who saw this simple initiative going way forward.

Read the story at http://www.isb.edu/media/UsrSiteNewsMgmt.aspx?menuid=733

P.S. Yeah! Finally I managed to post another post fast and also keep it short! Hope I’m able to do that more often.

Secret Behind India’s Twenty20 World Cup Win – Me!

Outrageous! Is that what you said on reading the title of the post? I can give you statistical proof that it is me who is really behind the Indian victory. Don’t believe me? Read on.

I found perfect ‘statistical correlation’ between me not watching the match and the Indian cricket team doing well. I ran a regression analysis on several data points, with each point recording my watching the Indian team play and the actual happenings in the match. Believe it or not R² came out to be 99 % (For those with no stats background it means that my not watching the cricket match and Indian team doing well are closely related to each other).

I did not watch the first match between India and Pakistan and India won. All excited about the prospects of our team, I watched the next match with New Zealand and India Lost. I didn’t see the next match with England and again, India won. My friends somehow noticed this ‘correlation’ and didn’t allow me to come near the television set in any of the matches. Result? India won all its matches to reach the finals.

I believed that it was a case of statistical correlation and not of a causal relationship. Hence, I dared to watch the finals. But guess what? The moment I entered the hall in which the match was being screened live in ISB, India lost its first wicket. A couple of my friends saw me come and banished me from the hall. I somehow, slowly managed to again sneak into the dark of the hall and gosh, India lost its second wicket! I could not understand why this was happening. I was again blamed for the loss of second wicket and now no one would allow me to set foot in the hall.

I desperately wanted India to win, so I went back to my apartment and kept myself away form the live telecast. On and off, I kept following the score on the news channels. In the last couple of overs of the Pakistani Innings, believing that Pakistan had no chance, I dared to switch on to the live telecast and saw four sixes being hit by Pakistan. My heart sunk. Was my watching the match really so bad for the Indian team? It could not be. I convinced myself and stayed put to watch the last over. First ball bowled: a huge wide. “Switch off the TV, switch it off,” my heart told me, but my mind wouldn’t listen. Next ball: a huge Six hit by Misbah! I was aghast! “Shucks, I thought, I actually bring bad luck to Indian team,” and immediately switched off the TV. Dejected that I had put India in a losing position, I move out of my room. But the moment I moved out, I heard huge roars of victory all over the campus. I came running back to switch on the TV and to my great joy, found that India had won the match.

"Yippppeeeeee," I screamed! My sacrifice and efforts had finally born the fruit. “My sacrifice?” Is that what you are asking? Hey, who do you think won the match for India? Jogi, by bowling that silly ball which even Boycott's mom could have hit for a six? Man, it was not Jogi but me who won the match for India by switching off the TV at all the right moments, the most important of all being the last ball of the match!

P.S. If you are convinced and would like to thank me for my 'efforts' then you can send some of the prize money being given to the team members to me also or you could also just thank me by leaving a comment on the blog (Well, I’m quite considerate you see). And if you don’t believe me, you could mail me and I can send you data of my regression analysis....:-)

Calvin on DMOP

Woof! Two exams of the term 2 are done with and two more to go but it already feels like the exams are really over. Marketing and Economics are left and neither seems to be much of a problem. The only problem that most us faced was DMOP (Decision Models and Optimisation) and that is now behind us.

No amount of problem, however, it seems can stifle the creative juices of some of the students in our batch. Find posted below, a Calvin comic strip sent to the batch yesterday. I don’t know whose creation it is – but it is a really great one. If you know who created this ‘piece of art,’(or if you yourself are the ‘creator’) do send me a mail or leave a comment so that we can recognize this ‘creator.’ Here is the comic strip: Calvin & DMOP

(Apologies for the low resolution. Hope you all will be able to read!)

Meanings change at ISB

ISB it is said changes the way you look at things. Words and concepts acquire and different meaning after the great ‘gyaan’ you gain here. On the verge of completing two semesters, I could not agree more. Please find below some of the meanings I find changed after coming to ISB

MODEL

Before ISB: A beautiful creation with long legs and ……. ;-)

After ISB : An ugly creation with long rows and columns of data (Spreadsheets)

DOG

Before ISB: Dog

After ISB : A brand on your portfolio that you can divest/harvest (BCG Matrix)

T-SHAPE & I-SHAPE

Before ISB: Some ‘things’ possibly in the shape of a 'T' or an 'I'

After ISB: Shapes of ‘consultants’ working at McKinsey (T-Shape=Generalist, I-Shape=Specialist)

SLEEP

Before ISB: Necessity of Life to be indulged in for minimum 8-10 hours a day

After ISB : ?????!!! What’s that?

Well guys, I have to stop now. Have two exams tomorrow and two more the day after. Got a lot of syllabus to catch up with. Will catch up with you all after the exams.

Wish me luck!

Yahaan Itna sannata kyon hai bhai?

The classes of term 2 are over and the entire student community is in a studying frenzy right now for the exams beginning the day after. If you venture out in any of the Student villages you could easily get an impression that ISB is closed for holidays or something. Fed up with studies, I moved out and sat in the lawns of my student Village (SV) for about half an hour, sipping one cup of coffee after another but did not see a single soul except for the Security guard. Man, some studious batch this is. Come on, guys get a life! Don’t study so hard! The grades are all comparative. So if we all decide not to study we will still have the same grades. Don’t make life difficult for all.

P.S. I just realised this post would be the shortest post yet on the Blog. Feels nice to be so brief. Let's see how brief or vest I can be in the posts to come. (Excuse the PJ guys! It is just the effect of the PJ club here! I'll write about this club sometime later, otherwise the post will no longer be brief).

More witty one-liners

Term 2 is supposed to be the most hectic of all terms at ISB and aren’t I glad that it will soon be a thing of the past. There is so much to write about but so much more to study. So, I won’t write much but will leave you with some more of my status messages on G-Talk (You didn’t read my previous post on Status messages? Find it here: http://nirvanatisb.blogspot.com/2007/06/status-messages-on-g-talk-and-lull-in.html)

Here are some of the taglines that I remember

Some on Markstrat ( Markstrat is a Marketing Simulation game played in Term 2. It accounts for 50 % of our marketing marks. And it gives me great pleasure to let you all know that we rocked MarkStrat (literally too!). I’ll write more on this later)

Mark Strat is real bad – All are going Mad

MarkStrat is great Fun – We found our Big Gun

MarkStrat mein hum – Phode sab par Bum

MarkStrat mein abke – Hathyar nikle Sabke

In MarkStrat abode – V cracked its Code!

Markstrat khatam – term ka maza khatam

Tere Bin, Markstrat – Kaise jiye tere Bin!

Some on the Gtalk - Taglines

Tagline: ka maza le – serious na le

Tagline: ka maza lo – Dil pe mat lo ;-)

Some on Studies and Exams

Sab ko mile A – Hamaari dua hai ye.

Phir chale Padne – apne dimaag se ladne

Exam wala bhoot – Phir hua mazboot

Koi upaay mazboot – batao hey avdhoot

Tidbits from Actual ISB Application Essays

If I could list one ‘mantra’ that I followed for my essays then it would be – “Be yourself, be truthful” – and I must say it paid rich dividends (Should you be truthful only if it pays some dividends or should you be honest no matter what? This is a topic very dear to my heart but not a topic that I started out to cover for this post. So, I’ll probably deal with it as a separate topic sometime later). Now, being yourself could be dangerous for some as indeed it was supposed to be for me. Nevertheless, I stuck to my guns of reflecting my true self and today, here I am as a successful applicant to ISB, doling out advice on essays to others.

Let me cut the faff and get to the actual topics and the actual ‘stuff’ I wrote in the essays. That by itself should make it clear why others thought that being myself could be dangerous for me and why I think that giving out my actual essays could be dangerous for the potential applicants.

One of the topics for the Essays:

“Three things that I’d like to change about myself, and why?”

I devoted around 60-70 words to the first change and used up 210 of the remaining 230 words for the second change. The second change that I want to bring about in myself, moreover, was highly philosophical in nature and half of my friends who read the essay (before submission) could not make much sense of it. Added to this, as if I had no word limit assigned, I used an Urdu couplet (or ‘Sher’ as it is generally known) and even gave its English translation in the essay. Sample it:

“Shaayad main zindagi ki sehar, leke aa gaya,
Qatil ko aaj apne hi ghar leke aa gaya!”

(May be I bring with me the dawn of my life, But sadly it seems to be the end of my life!”)

“What the hell is a ‘sher’ doing in a B-School application essay?” asked my friends. Some of them even begged me to remove it. I, however, did not budge from my position and let both the ‘sher’ and the second desired change (which this ‘sher’ tried to explain) remain.

My reviewers made another vain attempt by asking, “Ok! Do as you wish but please tell us what now about the third change? What change are you going to write in the remaining twenty five words?”

This is what I wrote:

“The last thing that I would like to change about myself is my receding Hair Line – this for the sake of my loving wife!”

(Guru, ise kehte hai Bijness! Poora ek word abhi baaki hai!!!)
The reviewer in question laughed on reading the third change and said similar would be the reaction of the ad-com. The ad-com would send the essay to a creative writing contest but would in no way send it to the section of short listed applicants.

When so many people were advising me against the existing essay, I finally decided to change the essay and readied an alternative one. However, I was not satisfied and in the end submitted my original essay with all its idiosyncrasies and with all of it reflecting the real me. “The rest,” can I say, “is history?”

The above tidbits about my essays are in now way given to suggest that you (if you are an applicant) should tailor your essays according to what I did i.e. to include ‘sher-o-shaayari’ or poetry in your essays, or deliberately make an effort to make an essay humorous. However, this is definitely to suggest that you be yourself irrespective of what others may think about you or about what you write.

Then again, “being yourself & being honest” may or may not work. The question is that are you truthful and honest because being so promises you some dividends in life? Or is it that you are actually honest and would like to remain so – no matter what?

My turn to live the tradition

Around 30 of our section ‘dunkards’ got together to dunk me on July 2^nd (my birthday). The Cake was cut and smeared all over my face and then as per the commands of ISB tradition, I too was dunked (thrown) in the pool. Now, Cake was being smeared on my face in public, but I was loving every moment of it – that is the power of this wonderful tradition of dunking.

Many a times previously I had escaped dunking using my camera as my shield. However, this day there was no escaping and in fact I was warned before hand by our ‘dunkards’ against getting my camera. There was no dearth of photographs though as there were many who had brought their cameras. We had some strict deadlines to meet the next day and most of the ISBians were busy breaking their heads with Markstrat. Yet, a huge number of my section mates turned out for the dunking and I must admit I was pleasantly surprised by the big turnout. Thank you guys for all your love and affection.

The day was made even more special by my family who joined me on that day in fact joined the other ‘dunkards’ in dunking me. My three year old son was also there to witness it all and he still laughs recollecting that night of dunking.

I am still not very clear about my exact goals at ISB. My son, however is absolutely clear about his one goal at ISB – that goal is to dunk me again in the pool – and this time all by himself!

P.S. The second part of my previous post on Admission Essays is due. I shall post that part in the next few days.

Pointers to Application Essays

STATUTORY WARNING:

You are reading this post to the benefit of my blog and to your possible peril. If you benefit the credit is all mine (and only mine) and if you suffer because of any information provided here then you (and only you) are responsible. What may have worked for the author may not work for you and you are advised to exercise due caution before using any of the info given below.

I first thought and had even communicated the same to the ISB-PGP yahoo group that I would post my actual essays which I had submitted to ISB as a part of the admission application. However, on second thoughts, I decided against it. I somehow felt that instead of helping the prospective applicants - the essays, especially mine (I’ll give the reasons later), could actually work to their detriment. Therefore, I shall not post the actual essays but shall give a few pointers to some of the stuff I wrote in the essay.

First the reasons for not posting my actual essays (and you could look for pointers all through the reasons):

1. My essays or essays of any other ISB admit/student could be (mis)construed to be the model essays. There is no way of finding out if the essays posted are actually model essays or not. For all you know, the essays could have been treated as pathetic by the ad-com and the person could have got the admission not because of the essays but in spite of the essays (surely, this is not my case man! My essays were truly ‘top class' ;-) )
   
2. Even if the essay posted were to be a model essay, it would still be just ‘a’ model and not the 'only' model. The best of all 'models', indeed, could be the essay that an applicant (could also be you, if you are an applicant) is yet to write.
3. A sample essay might lead an applicant to tune the essay in harmony with the given model rather than tuning it in harmony with the real self of the applicant.
4. Each applicant is different in terms of the applicant’s work-experience, education, interests and aspirations etc. What might have worked for one might not necessarily work for the other.

Therefore I am not posting the actual drafts of my application essays.

Nevertheless, I shall post in the next few days some of the pointers to what I wrote and some ‘gyaan’ on what I think worked in my favour.

Keep watching this space for more….

Coffee & Coin-Box Experiment - Update

,

Ok guys, the results are out - not of the exams but of our “Coin-Box” experiment - and the results are quite surprising.

For the benefit of those who haven’t read my previous post on the experiment of “Coin-Box”, here is a brief recap. (Those who have read the previous post can skip this paragraph). A lot of students at ISB like to have a cup of coffee in the midst of a class break. ISB makes it easy for them by stationing coffee vending machines outside the class rooms. However, the unavailability of five rupee coins (for use in the vending machine) with the students often deprives them of the much desired coffee. To address this problem we tried out a simple “Coin-Box” experiment. As a part of this experiment we keep a box having around 50 -100 coins of five rupees each in the classroom and the students can take any number of coins out of the box after putting an equivalent amount of money back in the box. The catch is that there is no one guarding the box or monitoring the process. So, what do you think has been the fate of the money in the box? Read on for the results.

“Will the guys ‘loot’ the entire money in the box or will the money remain constant?” This was the subject of much debate and discussion in our class. Let me put the debate to rest – the money has neither been looted nor has it remained constant, the money in the box has actually grown! Eight hundred and fifty rupees have been drawn from the Coin-Box in four days over eight lectures and towards the end of this period the box has eight hundred and sixty rupees in it i.e. Rs. 10 extra! Therefore, the good news is that the “Coin-Box” will continue and the guys in our class will never, not have coffee for not having a five rupee coin!

It is worthwhile considering what is it that actually prevented the class from ‘looting’ the Coin-box? Is it the trust posed in them and the moral obligation of living up to the trust? Or is it pure selfishness of having the Coin-box alive kicking? Or is it just that the amount was too miniscule to messed around with?

The conclusions are for you to draw and I am not making any authoritative statements on what actually worked. However, there is one lesson that I feel we can learn form this experiment - that in an organisation less (stringent) rules and more trust posed in the members can sometimes be a more effective way of running the system than setting up an elaborate set of rules or regulations that betray a sense of mistrust in the members of the group.

The great ISB tradition of Dunking

As the clock strikes 12:00 in the night, a bunch of around 20-30 ghosts descend on to the rooms of some unsuspecting students at ISB and whisk them away on their shoulders through the dark and chilly nights. They shout and scream as they devour their prey and take it to the altar of sacrifice – the SWIMMING POOL!

If you still did not get it, I am talking about not actual ghosts but just about this wonderful tradition in ISB of ‘dunking’ the students in the pool, on their Birthday. I do not know when and who in ISB started this tradition. Whoever it were or was deserve a big, big THANK YOU from us all. We would have missed out some amazing amount of fun in the absence of this tradition of dunking. It is great fun not only for those who have their birthday on the designated day but also for those who come just to dunk or just to view the dunk. It is all the more fun for photo enthusiasts like me for it is a time for some really memorable photo ops!

Dunking is enjoyed by all in ISB but the guys who seem to enjoy it most are the guys from the Section E. And the credit for this goes primarily to the two ‘office bearers’ of the ‘Section E - Birthday Club,’ Swati and Bikhyat. These two are the ones mainly responsible for remembering each one’s Birthday, organizing the parties, cakes, booze and for rallying the ‘big gang of ghosts’ to devour the Birthday Boy/Girl in the dead of the night. It is really surprising to find, in ISB, students who take up an initiative that will not give them any ‘spike’ or a ‘bullet-point’ on their resume. It is even more surprising to find them take this initiative forward with the sincerity and dedication that Swati and Bikhyat do. Great work guys! Keep it up!

I should also not forget to give credit to our section junta which turns up in huge numbers for dunking and for anything else related to the section or ISB. Some amazing spirit of camaraderie we have in the section. Hope we all keep it that way.

May be I should think of a way of putting up ‘Kaala – Tika’ on our section to ward of any possible ‘Buri – Nazar!.’

A few photos from today's dunk...(rest at flickr)

Affects of ISB on Normal life.

I went to a restaurant called ‘Basil’ the other day and was about to leave after a happy meal when the feedback form of the restaurant, lying unfilled on my table, screamed for my attention. There was a certain strange quality to this scream. I could not believe my ears when I heard our Statistics Professor Bob Stine screaming out from the feedback form! I’m not kidding guys, I’m serious!

Bob was shouting that this unfilled form would go as a ‘no-response’ in the statistical estimations of the level of customer satisfaction at the hotel. He asked me how, after all that he had taught us, could I make life more difficult for a statistician. Bob had drilled deep into us, in his classes, the adverse effect that ‘no-response(s)’ could have on such statistical estimations. And for the love of Bob and for his subject – Statistics – I could not help but sit back again and fill up the form.

My family who were waiting at the gate while I filled the form really wondered what had come of me. When they asked me I said, “Nothing, I just met my Professor of stats from ISB - Bob Stine!” They found nothing normal in my reply but then they have hardly found anything normal in me ever since I took this ‘abnormal’ decision (for person with his own business) of joining ISB.

P.S. Well guys, I ‘m baack! And as promised earlier, this post is about ISB or rather about the ways in which the learning(s) from ISB have already started ‘affecting’ our lives. I actually had couple of other interesting (oh yeah?) tales too. However, I shall let them be for some other post. For now, I’ve got to finish my Economics assignment and also upload photos of a dunking session.