1 down ....6 to go

The countdown has begun.
Letsee.............

I am done with Strategic Cost Analysis
On Tuesday, I shall be done with Entrepreneurism - evening test
On Wed - its Consulting and Conflict Management
On Thursday, Financial Analysis and Stats for Biz Mgrs should be done
on Fri - I shall be done with
Last but not the least - Telecom midterms would be done by 10 July.
But, bang goes the bullet and from next Monday starts another Mini...mini 6 .


So, by 10 July - officialy 12.5% of my program would be done !

Software metrics

Now, that's a link from the Stats for IT Managers mini-project..however, might be useful for software engineers and managers for knowing different metrics

http://www.it.fht-esslingen.de/~rau/forschung/metrics.htm.

Podcasts for lectures from UC Berkeley !

Check this link out for podcasts from UC Berkeley for lectures.

This is a new growing trend. I had heard about this while once driving to work on NPR !

500 GHz?

Well, I saw this article and I still don't believe it !
Intel - 500 GHz chip ?!

India, Israel, and Ireland

Are multi-national firms doing knowledge spillover for local companies?

A study from software industry in India, Israel, and Ireland.

bill gates

Everybody was discussing soccer games and it was surprising for me to find out that ppl were not discussing about the sultan of software industry stepping down ! I was wondering what the hell is wrong with CMU MISM students ? Aren't they supposed to be technology ppl ? CNN
Gates gifted a 20 million $ centre to CMU after all !

Critics have been harsh on him throughout his industry leadership(aka domination) reign. Competitors made weird comments to gain psychological domination and playing politics with vast majority of fools believing in them.

He is the guy who said: We can't rest for a second.

Awesome !
True capitalist...knows the reality - if you don't improve the products - somebody else will.
Once he grasped that... he utilized it to his utmost advantage !

Gates and Buffet have been leaders in their own arenas and have known what they are doing. Time and time again they have proven their mettle. What makes ppl more jealous of Gates than Buffet is the fact that he achieved it too soon in his life vis-a-vis Buffet who achieved it at a later stage in life. Gates generation could not believe that some nerd can be so successful.

Triumph of the nerds is a nice movie to watch out the history of Silicon Valley (from early days of Microsoft to 1996 when a new version of Windows was launched).

To an extent what the Indian services companies are achieving are something similar to what Microsoft did...come out with an array of services (MS did products) and sell them to ppl to make their lives easier. Infosys has been documented to be one of those companies which are like Walmart - a disruptive innovator by Harvard professor Clayton Christensen ! Its framework for distributed project management, the ability to deploy multi-location, multi-time-zone teams to execute projects efficiently and at low cost.

Well, there are harsh critics for Infosys too. But then there are afficianodos of Infy ...ppl like ME ! Simply marvelous operations - noone could believe it would've happened. With a vision NRN had appealed for more IT grads and with limited success he could get more schools to have IT as a major !

Says Murthy, Infy's chief Mentor: We have to transform our people so that from reactive problem solvers, they become proactive problem definers. We want our people to go to a CEO and say: I have looked at your organisation. Things seem to be all right today, but you will run into this problem two years from now. Infosys can provide you a solution today."

Moving up the ladder has not only improved Infy's margins but it has also helped the company integrate more with its customers needs.

It's exactly the right strategy for Infosys to follow. It does have to move up the ladder, says Christensen.

For Infosys to become a global giant it will need to overcome at least three hurdles posed by its innovation strategy: Sustenance from sustaining innovations, limited to the low-end, and the trap of too little, too late.

Letsee what Gates has to say about Infy !

I would say - yes, Microsoft got fat and lazy - they adopted the easier path of using monopoly !
But after a while in business, Gates realised that prollie that was the way to go. Gates' exit leaves a lot of questions - was it an exit at the top (since he has a vision of MS going downhill) ? or was it for those true philanthropic needs !

I hope he cuts out all the inefficiencies in the non-profit space and gets an industry domination there too.

I hate to see ppl despising innovators or ppl despising individuals/organizations who want to cut down inefficiencies in the system and in the journey make money.

For them, money was never the goal - as Paul Fajerski (entrepreneurism prof) said - they were always in it for
- they wanted to see if they can do it
- they wanted that when they speak, others listen !

On this note, I shall get back to my assignments and projects.
I hate to see you go Bill - but may be that's what is right - for you - for everybody and noone would have a better vision of that than anyone else :)

YAT !

Well,

This is YAH now... Yet Another Thursday !
Oh man...this is the last class for the week and I am so exhausted. huffffffffffffff !

Strategic cost accounting is like the last nail in the coffin.
Also, I figured out a plan for this weekend..I have 27 hours worth of work to be done for the program.

That leaves me with 9 hours per day on Fri, Sat, and Sun....and if any of it goes non-productive..I am thoroughly packed and time management would be challenging.

OM assignment is due Monday. FA assignment is due Tuesday. Telecom project is due sometime (I dont remember anymore). SCA quiz is due Saturday. SCA assignment is due Wednesday.

Minis end this month end and hence, after the next week, we would be preparing for a battle...final exams ! (40% of it goes towards the GPA) !

When I took up 7 courses..I didn't feel the pinch...now, I do !

YASC !

YASC ?
wazzat ?


Yet Another Superb Class.


Well, the Consulting and Conflict Management class keeps on getting better and better.
The first one was a role play for my team v/s another team.

Roleplay was such that myself and Arun were investors and Gopi was the VP-Marketing.
VP wants to open a business in emerging markets where she would have to give corruption. I had to play the resistant part(blue team) since as an investor I didn't want my name at stake.

Red Team comprising of Ernie (snap on left) - an entrepreneur in real life - was playing the entrepreneur team of a startup who is trying to solve the conflict between VP Marketing and investor. One part I saw was he found giving away equity as a way to attract resources...be it ppl or be it money guys. (This is something which Paul had asked to avoid and I lost a mark in Entrepreneurism midterm on that...debt should be acquired before giving up equity)

Now, Ernie and his team was trying hard to resolve this conflict.

Conflict nature - used all the dirty tricks from "Getting to Yes". Prof complimented me for this roleplay.

For me, the Resistance meter hit - 90.
Mission accomplished ! After all, my role was to play the hardbargainer with dirty tricks....trying to crush out the adversarial party. The entrepreneurs were literally with me ...creating a win-lose situation in the conflict between investor and VP. anyways, it was all a case !

I wasn't as hard but I was rigged to 90 by a 40 on competition.
There was another team where they played cool and got a resistance meter reading of just 20. That was lack of roleplaying by their investors and VP marketing.

Ernie was the rational guy. Tony got emotional and Wilbur was the good guy.
They almost got us close to a win-win situation and hence, kudos to them.

btw, Amy and Allan played it well.




They had a fantastic strategy. Right at the outset Allan made positives clear to the conflicting parties (VP and investor). Ernie didn't agree that it would work in real life due to the apology which accompanied it. However, professor was happy to know a new technique ! It worked here...and he would try to research on where all it can work.




A superb deal was snatched by Yolanda (snap on right)!
Abhishek, herself and Amir were lined up for their team.
They got the deal snatched from the players (these were seasoned ppl with Tricia(she manages 21 men in GE) n other flex-time students with loadssa experience.
They offered them just 36k (substantially lower than 48k deal which they had to reach).

Yolanda spun a tale with "Fellowship" package for the new MBA hires who were to get a job at the startup for more money. Abhishek had offered them 19k ...he was trying to get them for free ! Ernie disclosed that he gets ppl free for his business at times by providing creative solutions as prof would put it "expanding the pie" !



Schedule is getting hectic day by day and time management has become key to survival.
My team (Arun and Gopi):
"bhai, stats assignment karna hai....jaane de !"


that reminds me of the terrible nervous pangs I got when I learnt that I had a quiz to be done by midnight and had just 1.5 hours to do it..of which 45 mins were for the test...hence, just 45 mins for preparation.


I was glad at the screen starting to work for me !
Finally, I could get it running for me !
btw, this is for displaying my name at the place I sit.

Entrepreneurism

Got my midterm test paper for Entrepreneurism.... an A-.
Well, the professor had questions which could be interpreted both ways.
Imagine a true/false question which reads.... "High risk/ high rewards" that's it. And just before that he explained how an entrepreneur should slowly steadily (during operations...) reduce risk so that it becomes a low risk...high reward scenario.

Darn it... things like these and more...objective part of the test wasn't as great.
Subjective part was good and I made a A on those.

However, this midterm would have a weightage of only 40% and next one...which is in 2 weeks, it is 60%. That's it ...course is done.

Professor is great...but at times digresses eventually mostly with the couple of memories he has. My expectations from the course were more of a formal coaching and practicals. However, I shuld've set those earlier. By now, it is pretty late. This is the 4th lecture of the 6 lecture series.

Anyways, chapter 10 is on today...on Deal Structure and first half of the lecture has not even touched it...because professor was discussing our test along with examples.

Break is up and I would have to wrap this up...
Given the fact that I didn't prepare for that midterm at all..I think I did good......
but it could've been better....

hrumph...would have to make another schedule for myself !

another week passes by...

Andy (Assoc. Dean) had arranged a lunch with the faculty today in order to make us aware about who is doing what research (I have suggested to make it a part of the orientation).

This gives a good insight into who is doing what research.
Mr. Debrawski's research and Data mining work has impressed me due to the media attn he and Auton lab gets. They conduct experiments which is directly put to work by the corporations (both govt and non govt). Auton lab has many projects funded by quite a few organizations. (if only ... the MISM program was subsidized more! )

btw, next week is lined up with too much work to be done.
I have to do my yday evening's class now for Strategic Cost Analysis. Prof had an interview today for some Director-like position (she is planning to shift to Harrisburg) and hence, could not take a class yday evening. We have a quiz lined up for the SCA next week.

Here's where it starts getting really exciting. The pressure is surmounting and I am playing Pool and TT with my roomies.

Will hit back to HBH (Hamburg Hall) to get my Stats and SCA work done.

btw, the Consulting and Conflict mgmt role-play went pretty smooth with one minor glitch and the prof commented on arriving at a win-win situation with the client. A was in the other group and they were really cool overall (she was looking cute !).

The previous group had a set of consultants who literally were "rude" to their potential client (entrepreneurs approaching mgmt consultants for getting an approval for their business plan) !

Wow...this was a great moment to bask in the glory....but...but...but.. I would have to be careful...usually it heads downhill once I am done with such things.


T was really good at her part...but she manages 21 men in real life and is a flex-time MBA student here. Now, that seems like a good option to me. btw, T reminds me of someone and I have fair degree to learn from her.

Course list

Full length course:
Telecom Management

Mini 5:
Organizational Management
Stats for IT managers
Entrepreneurism
Strategic Cost Analysis
Financial Statement Analysis
Consulting and Conflict Management


Mini 6:
Strategic Corporate Management
Planning IT start-up
Professional Speaking for managers
Professional Writing for managers

that's 72 units !

This semester...effective course load of 6 courses !
They asked to get an exception for this since 5 courses is the norm.

Another Monday goes....

A project partner didn't prepare and we had to postpone our discussion from yday to today and from today to Wednesday...something which I clearly didn't want - that's annoying !

btw, right now, I am in Telecom Mgmt class and the prof has just arrived. I hope I get to complete my blog.

Org Management class had Oxfam America case to be discussed and the Morgan Stanley case...which was bsaed on performance reviews. Prof told some of his personal experiences about how to be weary of sycophants, etc.

Telecom Management is a 12 unit core course and I wanted to be done with it this semester itself.

- Got everyone on Frappr today - sent out lotssa invitations.

Thursdays....

Another Thursday is done....and still more assignments and what-nots to be completed.

However, Thursdays are a real climax for me.
Mondays start with two 3-hour lectures.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are really exhausting with 3 lectures from 1:30 pm to 8:50 pm.
Wednesday is a meek one...with just one course in the evening.

So, alike regular Thursday, this one had more advanced concepts in all the three courses.... more feeling of things piling up and more stress.

One good part was that the Prof for Strategic Cost Analysis helped me out with the Pass Fail form. I ran upstairs to get a copy from outside my advisor's office...but that lobby was locked and I could not get in. However, Prof helped me since she had keys.

Well, she reminds me of someone due to certain aspects.
-She had done her undergrad in Biology
-Later, into Accouting about 12 years ago along with MBA and CPA.
-Then, she was in project management for CEOs and CFOs (in form of consulting).
-Right now, wants to move near her sister's place since the drive would be tremendously shorter.

btw, Strategic Cost analysis class covered :
-Costing for Products and Services
-Short-term decision making

Explained...
-how sunk costs should not be considered while making decisions(bazaar equivalent of stop-loss and move on or "never marry a stock" decision making),
-how unitized fixed costs should not be used for decision making purposes,
-whether new offers from customers be accepted or not,
-whether capacity expansions be done or not, etc .