highly recommended read(or listen?)

I highly recommend reading this article to anyone interested in effective public speaking. To be a leader, talk like one focuses on 5 main points which are really good.

w.r.t. presentations, I love the way Steve Jobs and his team make it - those are awesome - simple yet effective and impactful. A lot to learn from his speeches.

Looted!

Yes, I feel swindled!

I saw the price of the Macbook and its lesser than my Thinkpad. I was forced to buy this high-end Thinkpad when other Thinkpad's were cheaper. The T60 Thinkpad from IBM.

Moreover, IBM hasn't yet recalled its batteries. Wait till there is an explosion in the battery and when somebody sues them.

More than IBM, I am upset with the Heinz school's admission staff who forced me into this. I didn't want to buy this notebook and since I was going to put in 2k anyways, I always wanted to buy a Macbook.

Now, since I have put in 2100 bucks in this, I will have to keep this piece of junk with me for 3 years....what a shame!

Thank you - visitors

My metrics for the blog show me fan-club throughout the world and I am glad to see that.
I want to thank you all for the same.

Except for Africa and Antartica, everyone other continent has a representation. Check out the picture below for a visual picture of the visitors to this blog.


Once again, thank you everyone!

P2P copyright infringers: Beware

Check out this link to see the court ruling in Amsterdam for P2p filesharing. Interesting part is the last part of the article which makes it mandatory for the copyright owner to prove beyond reasonable doubt!

Big Blue on the move...

IBMs latest acquisition of Internet Security Systems Inc. has sent some signals in the market. Here's the news.

By far...largest in this domain, this acquisition shows how deep pockets can help bring consolidation. IBM is now hoping that being big will help ISS too. What if its assets become less useful due to the acquisition and the merger with IBM? What I mean is ...what if the employees leave due to dislike to the Big Blue's culture and loss of identity?

IBM is big and fat and many times, acquisitions do not unlock the value due to cultural differences in the companies. IBM will do the same set of activities to ISS as it did to Lotus Notes. Try to integrate its products with its own product range. Was that a success.... your guess is as good as mine.

IBM also bought MRO software and Filenet in recent past. Is IBM good at acquisitions?

Let us see what IBM buys next and what will the rivals do....any guesses ?

The future is Apple !

Apple - not as in the dominant position ...but as a multimedia firm. They are going to be this ubiquitous player.

Jobs learnt his share of lessons after he was fired from Apple as their CEO. He bailed them out when he returned almost after 12 years.

Primary goal for ppl to switch from PC to Apple based systems will be its differentiation factors to force ppl to bear the switching costs.

Apple will try to reduce the switching costs by:

Making hardware Intel-based !
If you can't beat'em then join'em. Apple realised that very well.
Check out this presentation in World Wide Developer Conference in which Jobs and Schiller emphasize on Intel processors.

Making OS switchable !
So, while you can keep your Windows with you for the games and other applications. All you have to do is buy their OS + hardware. Apple calls this initiative as Bootcamp.

While all this is going on, Bill leaves the boat (to step back?) and gives Ray Ozzie and Steve Balmer the charge.


Apple will woo the public by:

Multimedia applications
iPod user base is huge. Adoption of iPod has given a foot in the door to Apple in the low-end market segment. Also, it has tested the waters by knowing that ppl will pay a 100-200$ extra for owning their products but not very large gaps (as was case with Macintoshes before).

Main point is that the proprietary nature of iTunes makes it easier to be manipulatable on MacOSs since they will have those type of applications.

This is one of the reasons why Microsoft decided to launch its own portable multimedia product. They will not copy the concept of iPod. However, they will provide the same set of features which Apple will try to provide.

Essentially, Jobs has seen a new market in multimedia and he is making every effort to have the knife fall in his favor this time. That will ensure that any competitor will find it heavy to go against Apple in that segment at least.

Sleek product designs
This will continue to remain their forte.

Technology is a girl's best friend.. !

Reuters Technology EOB report surprised me with this article. At first, I didn't believe what I read in the abstract of the article and discounted it as being one of the headline-gimmicks.

However, on reading the article I find out that: Diamonds are no longer a girl's best friend. Girls gone Wired survey has some good news and some bad news !

Good news since buying a 2+carat rock for your honey wouldn't be essential anymore(if she belongs to this breed of ladies).

Bad news for those who have already bought it and their darlings are now asking for the techno-stuff.

btw, 46% women doing their own computer trouble-shooting - is that true or what ? I am not trying to be condescending here - but this was not what I practically saw - at least at my previous workplace. At my current place, I am doing my Masters in a tech-field and hence, those ladies cannot be considered as a representative set (since they are techies anyways).

Campus: University Center

Starting today, I am going to post some campus pictures along with my experiences at the same.

Today we shall discuss the University Center !


Outside the university center there is this weird post(left) - which was an idea someone in the management bought ! Steep path of success - I need to go ahead and take a campus tour in order to understand the theory behind this post.

I go to this place for quite a few functions....

Letsee - I go here for study (room facing the football ground is an awesome place to study), exercise (gym, yoga center, swimming, etc), food (!- Indian food - Taste of India is located here 4.75 bucks - 3 entrees and rice and a bread leaf),

• books - only in case of urgency (bookstore),

• coffee and snacks (Entropy)

• Police

• banking (PNC Bank has an office here along with the ATM)

basketball

















We would turn towards directions



















Then, later, on the back side which is the portion between UC and Tepper - tennis courts!

Inside UC - we have this huge open area which is the round part of the first picture -

Google gets maps to your cellphones !

This is a news expected since a while - ppl would pay for it too !

Sharp and suave !
They first created a market for online maps and increased ppl's dependency by giving Google maps on non-mobile platforms for free and now selling the live maps on mobile .

Need to ask Dr. J. Lamar Strategy professor) about this. They didn't pay-to-play on this one. Google is creating new ways in the game of strategy. Of course, it creates value and then extracts it - which is the basic principle for any Strategy - however, there are some other strategies it is adopting which is changing the way technology strategists would have to think.

...projects !

Well, weekend was packed with projects and extra lecture.

Telecom Management had one lecture short due to the Memorial day holiday - it was compensated by Sat evening lecture from 4:30 pm to 8 pm. Crazy, but true !

Earlier in the day, we were working towards the Telecom Management group term paper - IPTV.

Later, till 9 pm we were busy with the same - so Saturday was pretty much about Telecom Management.

Sunday - I woke up - not so fresh and got ready for the Strategic Corporate Mangement's group project meeting. We have chosen the topic of "Should Infosys be a dominant player in China and how ? (organically or inorganically - buying companies like Neusoft of Hisoft can give them huge advantage and step in the Korean and Japanese markets). We have provided a few alternative topics to the professor just in case he does not like this topic as much interesting. Mellon financial's strategy, Mobile gaming strategy for European service providers, and Google's China strategy are the alternatives we have provided.

Post lunch, at around 2:30 pm we had another back to back meeting for Sourcing IT systems with case study's Risk assessment and Feasibility analysis for FBI's VCF (Virtual Case File) study. It was interesting to see how such a largely touted investigation organization can have such miserable project management and IT infrastructure. 9/11 caught them off-guard and they were badly hit !

Anyways, overall, an eventful week.

Writing and speaking

Professional Writing for managers
Professional Speaking for managers

Well, when I joined these courses - I thought that my course load would be relatively lighter this mini. Guess what? - I was wrong !

I took this as an opportunity to get back to a passion I developed last year - writing.
Last year, I read GMAT material to develop my command for writing. In the process, I read books such as Grouchy Grammarian. I opened my box of books and found couple of other books - they were partially read at that time - The dictionary of Concise writing and Between You and I.

Both are books I need to finish by last week of this month. Also, there are 3 projects to be finished - Telecom management project (IPTV), Strategic Corporate Management project, and Sourcing Systems project.

btw, writing classes are wonderful due to the way Prof Ed Barr has designed it. Today, he gave us a highly convoluted piece of notice someone had put up from Italy - it was supposed to be an invitation for students. However, it was so complicated that anyone reading it would run away than attend it. Anyways, me and Nomita worked on it - to make it simple-yet-effective.

Also, he has given a fairly challenging assignment - that of writing a layoff notice to an employee and media release piece. Meanwhile, one assignment is due tonight and one is due Tuesday night and this layoff assignment is due on next Thursday night - quite a demanding course !

Speaking class discussed about Job interviews - yeah and we could clarify some doubts - next class- we have practicals for the same since we would be having mock-interviews. I have to inform the TA about which company and what profile I would like to be interviewed about.

This mini is not as relaxing as I thought it would have been...well, I gotta run - another class in 30 mins.

Saturday plans

Planning to go to here on Saturday with the Telecom Management study-group !

The study group concept is real cool - Valerie had made great flash cards - which helped a lot for a structured and systematic revision. That way, I also got to know about Service Management details and I am back on track....

Wine club

Saw this club at Tepper - wine club.
They've listed a few resources:

Check out some of our favorite links:

• Wine Lovers Page: Everything you need to know about wine.
• Wine Spectator: The definitive wine magazine.
• Wine & Spirits: A club favorite.

Seems interesting - but I dont see much activity happening there. May be it is due to the summer factor. Letsee how it goes - if in fall, it is back in action - I shall join it !
Can ask Ernie and Andy about it - they are the co-presidents for the club.

Belated bday party !

Last evening - devoid of all the tensions of Telecom Management course's midterm - we had a party - o boy and it was best we could make out of it. We decided not to go out in a restaurant and hence, we had it at the bday boy's place.

Well, it was a bit crampd in his bedrooom and hence, some ppl were sitting in his television room along with his housemates.

We made Abhishek (bday boy) play guitar and I must say he plays better than anyone else who was at the party - he has an electric guitar set.


So, joined in Arun - Arun, with 2 combs (instead of drum sticks) started playing the trembe. btw, Arun is a good drummer. He had a band or something. I guess he even joined some on-campus band of some ppl.

They played a couple of numbers after initial warming up and getting in sync with each other a bit.


Some of the guys loved the Blade action while we were having pizza. I was facing opposite direction of the television set and hence, couldn't see much - but what I could witness was a mild bantering by a lady in the group to stop the grose movie. Anyways, movie continued - due to democracy characteristics !


The bday boy took some snaps with the girls of our batch. Ray - as desperate as he was - in order to get a picture with the girls, we gave him some room too !
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juzz kidding - btw, the story was something different !








waise - ye hai - humari batch ke kisen kanhaiya - Raymundo Segovia !




btw, some ppl were dressed up - and I mean - really dressed up. I didn't know we had to dress up for this event - so I was pretty casual -

waise - hum Bhabhiji se bhi mile - Mrs. Sudong. I never had a Chinese sis-in-law ...so humne unhe bhabhiji keh diya and bhaiya aur bhabhiji ko uska matlab samjhaya !





Chalo - gotta get back to Telecom Management - shall keep posted :)

...domain knowledge sessions @Infy and Telecom Management course

I used to be upset about the mandatory Telecom domain training at Infosys since I was on Fleet Management project or Real Estate project and they were not even closely related to Telecom business of the firm .

Also, I wanted to desperately shift to Financial domain and they didn't let me.

Today, I would like to thank all of those ppl who tried to push me towards it.
My course Telecom Management (a core course I could not exempt) has huge overlap with what I learnt in SBC/AT&T account at Infosys as extra-domain related knowledge.

This also leaves me with the RoI question again - for the course.
Letsee...that can be worked out.


I shall try to present a NPV analysis of the money spent on this program.
Retiring to bed on this note.

Course: Strategic Corporate Management...contd

Engaging and Enthralling !

That's all I can say about the lecture. It lasted 3.5 hours and I never felt as if I was feeling bored.
[I was distracted in last 10 mins once since Bee came online and we exchanged a few IMs.] But, this class was absolutely mind-blowinG !

Well, to start with the faculty is Dr. J. Lamar Pierce.
Intelligent, extremely good spokesperson with fantastic eye-contact and clear communication.
He has done his PhD from Haas School of Business in California and is in Pittsburgh as VP of a smaller firm. Set expectations clear.

My dilemma whether to do the course due to the course company was resolved since class had an overwhelming majority of flex-time MBA students. btw, Da Lady had already paired up for a team and politely turned down my offer for the Research project team (yeah ! we are going to have a Research project).

Surprisingly, course package had name of Infosys somewhere - "Should Infosys get into BOTS?" ...prollie a topic due to some earlier Infoscion who might have done it successfully here.
More recent topics include Netflix downloadable DVD, Alcoa outsourcing, etc.

We are going to miss one class and hence, some adjustment to be done with a Friday class.
Telecom assignment's to be completed by tomm.

Dr. J. gives ample amount of examples to substantiate his slides which makes it more practical. 10/10 for the lecture. Rapid-fire pace since such a huge research-oriented subject is to be completed in just 6-7 weeks. Whoa !

Course: Strategic Corporate Management

The first question that runs at the back of my mind is whether I should take this course?
Why am I asking this question ? - almost everyone I know from MISM class is going to attend this course. Flex-time students - I have no idea if they are going to attend. Value-addition to me from their experience - no gurantee. I may land up in similar situation as in Org Management.

Would it make sense to take it in the next sem when the Tepper guys are back from their internship. Would it be too much competition then since they are habituated to handling such stuff ? Learning would be more but grading - no gurantee.

So, there is a trade-off: grading v/s learning. Letsee - I shall attend it today to see the class-composition in order to determine whether I take it this time or no.

Frustrated soul ?

Is he frustrated ,...or somebody played upon him ??

On one of the windows... in the bldg opposite UC..

Course: Professional Intelligence for Enterprise Leadership

Bang !... starts the next mini - as if the previous mini ended just a couple of days ago.
I was tired and still in a lethargic mood - a mood to party and be laid back. However, that cannot continue since we have Telecom assignment (huge one) and Telecom midterms coming up in the next week. Hence, focus would be on Telecom Management for rest of the week.

This course on Professional Intelligence for Enterprise Leadership focuses on EI (Emotional Intelligence) and book recommended for reading is:
Linking EI and performance at work

The grading appeared to be vague since we have grading based on Journal entries (I think I will make a blog for it) and some Results project which we have to do for Bill Strickland's (he is an icon) firm. We would be helping him with several aspects such as documenting his processes etc (in doing so, learning the same).

btw, this course seemed to be interesting with the EI dimension to it and does address one of the parts I had mentioned to Andy at the fall party last year. Let us see how it goes from here. Second installation of this week's Leadership is due on Wednesday and some CXO of Bill's company is going to come to CMU to explain us the role we shall be playing. That should be neat !

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 !