Ginger & Cardamom

Two Days@ SIBM

A brand new day, though another manic Monday but also the start of another brand new semester, with brand new class (for me at least), and brand new classmates. You must be wondering why I am using the word brand so much, that's because we have been divided into three section according to our specialization so was trying to put some marketing in the daily life ;). The first day was good with our slooow stats professor, but the luck was on our side and we had an action packed class with pigeons flying around, driving some of our batchmates for an out-class run. The day was unusually short with two lectures after the lunch being cancelled and I had a nice time relaxing and catching up with friends and the stories about their holidays. The things are coming back to normal why??? I got to configure wi-fi on one of the laptops....but mind you WI-FI IS WORKING. I know I am a bit sentimental about it can't help it have spent lot of cribbing about this faulty!!!! I mean flaunty (that's what we do in all of presentations and website write ups- flaunt our wi-fi) little system.
The second day was even better, imagine a situation where you are on the operation table and a doctor stands with a huge knife in his hands and tells you that you can't be provided with anesthesia as it's not available in the hospital and since hospital has already taken the operation fee so you are going to have an operation right now without an anesthesia and you can shove all your pain wherever you want to... It was a similar situation when our prof for management control system entered our class and told us that he finds the idea of us doing the subject funny as we haven't done the pre-requisite subject before. To add more to the taste he tells us that we will complete the pre-requisite all by ourselves as the mcs thing is already in our syllabus. Quite a genuine reasons... god help us. So SIBM is rocking back and tomorrow the whole of our marketing class is waiting with their fingers crossed for Wednesday morning 10:30 a.m. for the macroeconomics class by Nikhil's (for those who don't know him visit http://nikmuse.blogspot.com/) favourite and loving Harinita Ma'am. Adieu!!!

The Tipping Point: How Little Things can make a big difference.

I completed tipping point yesterday night and I must say it is a fascinating experience to read this book. It talks about the epidemics, in general the mechanism by which a normal situation turn into epidemic. It talks about how very small things add together creating such a huge difference. Malcom Gladwell describes tipping point as the magical moment when an idea, trend or social behaviour crosses a threshold, tips and spreads like an epidemic. He says that there are three important laws which make an idea tip. The first one he calls as the law of few, in which he describes how important are the people who are part to spread the idea. He says that for an idea to spread it should be passed through some special kind of person in the society called connectors, mavens and salesman. These are the people with wide and influencing social contact. These are either people with large sphere of acquaintances and friends, those who are respected for their and the general people prefer following their opinions. The second law he calls as stickiness factor. The stickiness is the concept that if an idea is heard by a person then he or she should be able to remember it.. He talks about some TV show designed for kids called sesame street which tipped because its content stuck to the kids. Then finally he acknowledges the power of context where he says that the situation of the passing of the idea is also very important. He talks about the normal human attitude of attributing the characteristics as a whole without considering the situations. For ex we say a person X is honest, we mean that he is honest with friends, family etc. It's not necessary that he will be honest at work too. Then he talks about the group dynamics and the magical number 150. He talks about the fact that in any group if there are more that 150 people then they all won't be knowing each other individually. That's the capacity limit of the human brain, and he explains how this is being used in business for competitive advantage. Then finally with the help of two case studies he concludes that for an idea to tip and to become an epidemic it's required that all the small things discussed are the ones which make a major impact.
Overall the book was a very good read. Though it became a bit boring and monotonous at some instances but things were well explained. There were a few problems specially for an Indian like me to relate to the concepts which were duly explained with the help of the US TV show which is difficult to relate to any example in India. But the essence was clear. The cruise through the 259 pages of the book was really a very enriching experience. Adieu.

The Journey to Find Myself: Engg College to B-School

It was few months back when I sat on the terrace of Panchvati (for those who don't know it was my hostel in engg college) and was tellling my juniors that it's so good to see the stars and the open sky. Since then life has been such a roller coaster ride, IMI vs. SIBM the tough decision, then such an uncooperative faculty in the college who think that students are the people with most free time. You know they feel that we are the bugs who can be crushed because they hold some thing which are called our internal marks in the hand. They don't realise that we students are human being and due to their inefficiencies we are the people who suffer most. Anyways the crux of the matter is that my joining in the SIBM was delayed due to my faculty back at my engineering college. So I had this great I mean late start but finally I am here. With first semester over I am now a would be manager, the guy who would sit in those plush offices in those armanis and versaches, driving luxury sedans, sitting in the big board meetings. This is what most people assume MBA is all about including me some years back. Well all my high flying dreams meet the reality. All the things seem more like our real world. Now that one semester is over everyone back at my place wants to know what I have learned in these four months. The answer to this question is one word called FAF, the art of speaking or writing when you nothing about what you are talking about. Well I will talk about this art in some of my next post and how I have learnt it? How I am planning to master it? All these answers coming soon till then, Adieu!