'Book'ish - My 1-2 list!

One of the finest books that I have ever read on Management theories is this - 'It's your ship' by captain Michael Abrashoff. I have already written a blog post on this. Although I don't want to write about it again, I have fallen in love with this book and couldn't stop telling about it again - Particularly because whatever strategies I would have liked to follow if I happened to be a Management person, Captain has told each one of it in detail. I have been trying to get my own copy of this book and online shopping seems to have a high price on it :( But I've decided to get it anyhow :)

The next one on my list and the 2nd favourite is 'Catch me if you can!' I liked reading it as a book rather than watching it as a movie. It's an amazing story of the daring Frank Abnagale Jr who has been acclaimed as the most intellectual criminal, a con man, a forgerer and an imposter. I liked the strategies that he uses each time - From being a co-pilot in Pan Am Jet, as a supervisor in resident hospital, making forgery cheques, pracising law without license - his full expertise in all areas of life shows his master mind. When I read it (I watched the movie later), I could visualise every move of his masterplan. A sumptuous life on deceit and foul play - a great book to read which you'll never close until you finish reading! :) I am going to get this one too from Amazon to add to my book shelf.

ISB in Top 20!

Although I am no way related to ISB, it's always been in my wishlist for doing an MBA. I was glad to know that it has made into Global top 20 pushing some of the finest B-schools behind it.

University of Pennsylvania's Wharton topped the list, while London Business School and Columbia Business School took the second and third spot respectively.

Other B-schools in the top 20 list included Stanford University GSB (4), Harvard Business School (5), Insead (6), MIT Sloan (7), IE Business School (8), University of Chicago GSB (9), University of Cambridge: Judge (10), Ceibs (11), Iese Business School (11), New York University: Stern (13), IMD (14), Darmouth College: Tuck (15), Yale School of Management (16), Hong Konk UST Business School (17), HEC Paris (18) and University of Oxford: Said (19).

It's the first time an Indian B-school has marked its milestone in the top 20 global list. Whilst IIMs looks like the apple of one's eyes, ISB has showed its calibre and excellence adding a feather to it's cap! Great to see that ISB has made it within six years of its existence. Although partnerships with Kelloggs and Wharton's might have helped ISB to reach this point, I am sure this would not have been possible without commitment and dedication.

When I am writing this, I remember the speech by Dean Bala of GLIM quoting the success factor being augmented with Indian B-schools every year. This was few years back when I attended the GLIM Meet . I am happy that Indian B-schools are proving their worth.

Connecting the dots

I was going through the updates from friends column in orkut and happened to watch this: 'Steve Jobs commencement speech in Stanford 2005' - which was in the favourite videos list of one of my friend's. Being a fan of Mr.Jobs, I dint mind spending 15mins of my time to watch it, although I was feeling drowsy. To be precise, I liked these four points a lot which conveyed a great meaning. The four in the order that I like:

1. Follow your heart and intuition because they know what you want to become. Everything else is secondary.
2. Keep looking. Don't settle.
3. You gotta do what you love and love what you do.
4. The heaviness of Success and the lightness of beginning again should be experienced.

If any of you would like to watch it, check it out in youtube.

A savvy start...

Huh...I have been reading entrepreneur.com for quite some time and it has attracted me than I expected. It has a plethora of information and I was hopping here and there. Suddenly, I got reminded of Subrato bagchi's 'Measure of Success' - I was wondering why I got into this when grazing through Entrepreneurship pages? Well, there was an answer...an article on 'Entrepreneurship' by this MindTree COO.

Now, a circular motion of thoughts are evolving around my mind along these lines.

1. Is MBA necessary to be an Entrepreneur? - Studies say that it only requires attitude, passion and hard work to be an Entrepreneur. MBAs are crucial to certain paths but need not be a significant factor for Entrepreneurship. The things that matter are having a good business plan, finding a niche, being passionate about what you do and working hard and smart to achieve your business goals. On a recent poll on this, the votes went for: a person's drive and ambition (27.2 percent); a person's passion for a specific business venture (14.9 percent); and hands-on experience in the industry (13.5 percent). But I still feel that knowing the nuances of business would be an easy thing with an MBA.
2. What it takes to be an Entrepreneur? - Leave your ego and the past behind. First I did not understand when I read it. I thought 'What is ego to do with starting a business?' But, later I understood what was meant here. When you leave a good position that you are holding and dive into taking a risk, you should not think about the past. Because it will stop you from growing what you want to be.
3. Do you have it in you? - A person without self confidence cannot be a successful entrpreneur. Practically speaking, people around should atleast not discourage the person who would like to take the risk of being an Entrepreneur. Motivation and encouragement means a lot to most of those people.
4. E-streak - To determine your Entrpreneurial streak, you should be good at one important thing - taking decisions. Entrepreneurs should have their own sense of freedom and I believe taking important decisions in life is one's own attribute. Noone else should have an influence over it.

I know it's all easy said than done. But aligning yourself to think about these doesn't harm anyone/anything. That's what/where my savvy start is!!!

Thinking Cap!

I love colors, art, designs, templates, posters, wallpapers etc., I have been doing this for quite some time - Hmmm, wat??? I have been creating my own desktop wallpapers and changing it every month. Although it's easy to generate wallpapers from the tools that are available online, coming up with a design is not so easy. I used to think a lot before putting it on my desktop because I feel that's the one which is going to rejuvenate my day/mood whenever I log into my laptop. I usually look at three things - the design should be simple, the picture should convey a message and the theme should be impressive. It's quite simple na????

Here is the picture that impressed me to put it on my desktop this time. You can ask me 'What is in this so simple picture that impressed you?' Before I give an answer to this, I want you to find out the caption/phrase that you think will suit this picture. Jus give it a try!

People who know me well can easily find the caption as I used to talk about 'this' a lot. I guess this is the easiest clue that I can give.

What are you waiting for? Put your thinking caps on and find it out! And I will post the actual caption and the one that I gave for this picture, by end of this week.

"E-on"

E-on??? Are you trying to find the meaning of this in the mini lexicon that you have? That's what I did, when I saw the name and it shows 'an immeasurably long period of time' or 'supreme power emanating to operate the universe' as its meaning. But what's the relation between this and the title of my blog post? Read below...

Would you like to commute in an electric rickshaw revved by a joystick to steer, accelerate and brake, with no foul emissions and engine noise? At the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay, (IIT-B) in a crammed workshop where working hours keep the lights on past 4 am, a start-up of 20-something engineers led by an IIT professor think so. The world's best automakers are designing electric vehicles, and this campus start-up wants to be ready with its own technology too, for the day when India is finally ready for cheaper, non-polluting electric vehicles.

When people all over the world is talking about Ratan Tata's dream car 'Nano', now it is time for another revolution, an electric car. The electric car, developed by IIT Bombay, is named e-on. This is a proto-type of the car which does not require petrol and runs at the speed of 30 km per hour. The speed of the car is kept limited at 30 km, but can be increased. Initially the car will run in the campus of IIT-B, which plans to modify the car in future. Developers are still testing various options to make it better and commercially viable.

The car will have electric front wheel drive and a seating capacity of two. Also, it will not have regular steering but an attractive joystick with foot pedals. They call it 'e-on' after its electric ignition and are studying its intellectual property value to file a patent. It's a futuristic technology which will be driven by wire and it is maintenance free due to the lack of mechanical controls.

The e-on can hold two passengers and run for 50 km on one charge, but at a humble top speed of 30 km per hour for campus roads. Electronic digital controls can turn the vehicle 360 degrees by maintaining a different speed for each of the two front wheels.

On what colors will e-on be launched? Red or blue? Will these run on Indian roads soon? Let's wait and see!

Source: Hindustan Times

Elementeo - The Chemical Battlefield!

So far, I have been thinking that Suhaas Gopinath is the youngest Entrepreneur. But he has been pushed down by this middle school lad Anshul Samar who is only 13 years old. Do you know what he has done to be the youngest entrepreneur? Well, part of the title says that.

He's the CEO of a start up gaming company called Elementeo. His company is aiming to inject fun into Education - A way of learning chemistry in a fantasy board game. So, how does Elemento work? Let's see.

Elementeo is a game of chemistry based on Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. Two strong wills fighting against each other in a midst of an epic chemical battle, constantly trying to reduce their opponent's IQ to zero, is the strategy of the game. You do that by harnessing the strength and moving properties of the elements and compounds, and by using their reactionary powers. For example, Oxygen can rust any neighboring metal, or Copper Conductor can shock any metals and send them back to the lab. Each player starts off with 180 IQ points. IQ is about how much "brain power" you have. Einstein's IQ was supposed to be just over 160. The games starts by taking turns to place your army of elements on the battleground (ok, a 5 x 5 grid game mat), and then moving them based upon their properties. When your cards are face-to-face with your opponent's cards, you can attack them, and move to its place if your attack wins. When you reach the last row of the battleground (mat), you can directly attack the opponent's IQ. After attacking, that card disintegrates and goes to the toxic waste pile. The game is over when one side brings down the IQ of the other side to ZERO, or manages to push all the cards to the toxic waste pile.

Anshul's goal is to reach a revenue of $1 million by the end of summer 2008. Sources say that he has been attending Entrepreneurship conferences to gain some visibility. He has put together a team of 11 with his sister being the VP of Sales. Even young people like him inspires the aspiring Entrepreneurs nowadays. Hats off to this young digital geek and the Entrepreneur!

Want to get back to Chemistry and recollect what you know? Then you can get this board game after it is launched.

The 'Perfect' Launch!

Is this about a satellite? No.....This is a new column that am introducing here. It's nothing but, like the 'Pick of the week'. What do I mean by that? I meant that I would choose one person who has made the top position in my charts. The person can be anyone whom I felt that he/she has done his/her job with utmost perfection in the respective field/area. That's why it's called 'Perfect Launch' :)

I should have introduced this column last week itself. Well, better late than never! If it has been included last week, the pick of the week would have been this amazing kid who has power in his eyes, who has shown that noone can do the job better than him. Who am I talking about? Yeah, it's Darsheel Safary - the 'hero' of the movie Taare Zameen Par. He has not only moved me into tears but also big shots like Advani. I know that there are lot more people in this list.

Coming to this week, I am going to talk about this guy - M.K.Balaji. Having a passion for music and not missing any such episodes on TV, I'm wondering how did I miss watching this guy's performance? I had a chance to watch him singing 'Veyilodu Velayadi' in Vijay TV's Paadum Office. Although he rendered only the pallavi, I liked the way he started 'Iyyahi yaahi yaahi ye...' If you know the song, you should be able to recollect it with the way it was sung. I don't want to talk more about this bcoz I really want to quote on his other performance on SS Music's Launch Pad.

There are few reasons for MKB to the perfect launcher in my column.
1. He sang not for himself but for the crowd to enjoy - This is called the performing attitude. Be it dance or singing, the ultimate aim should be to enjoy and make others enjoy it. You'll get the real satisfaction when you do this even though you don't win the title in this case
2. He sings with an open voice. I have seen people having good voice but fails in clarity because of not singing with open voice
3. His confidence and the way he renders the notes casually on stage
4. If you see the video, a small child dances when he sings. I am dubious whether the kid knows the song but she enjoys it
5. Anuradha Sriram and Srinivas have smiles on their faces and at one point, when MKB sings with a rough voice continously, Anuradha Sriram has a 'What will happen to his voice?' look.
6. Perfection comes only when you make people feel the way it is - And I think he has done a great job!
7. MKB rocked and everyone enjoyed including the judges

MKB might have missed 'Airtel Super Singer' and 'Launch Pad' title but I guess people are looking forward to his performance in 'Paadum office' and so do I.

Overall, I enjoyed watching his performance and I am sure you all will.
Watch it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9hoqTPdMfc

MT - A Lingo delite!

It happened yesterday...When I was casually talking to my roomie, she specified that she had a chance to look at the dialects of 'Madras Bashai' in wikipedia and it was real fun to read. It triggered me to come up with a blog post...Hmm...Not on 'Madras Bashai' as I am not a Madarasi :) and I won't claim this as a fun post though. I was surprised to see huge volume of blogs on 'Madras Bashai' but not even one on 'Madurai bashai'. Madurai being my native, I thought I should write one for Maduraikaranunga...:) And, the effect is this....

When I write this, I remember my friends in college used to tease us (Madurai people) with the Tamil that we speak. The most popular one is 'angey' in prefix of the words like 'vandhutanga' where we pronounce it as 'Vandhutangey'. Some of my friends who are from Coimbatore, Namakkal, Karur side used to tell me that I don't speak tamil lines ending with 'nga' (with due respect). For example, I used to say 'aama' when some elderly people ask me a question for which my answer would be 'Yes'. For the same question, the above mentioned friends would have ended up saying 'Aamanga' or 'Aamango'. I would say each language has its own structure and it's noone's fault of speaking like that unless it's bad or vulgar. Another good example is: to ask 'what are they doing?' The related Madurai tamil line would be 'Enna panrangey aveenga?' It may sound funny for people who are from other tamil regions but it's how Madurai tamil gains its popularity.. :)

A few words to add to this list:
Anney (Anna - Brother)
Angittu (Anga - There)
Avingya (Avanga - They)
Aataya podu (Thirudu - Steal)
Yekka or Yakkov (Akka - Sister) - I know what people think of, when they read this :)
Ambuttuthan (Avlothan - That's it!)
Adi aathi (Ammadi - Oh!!! an exclamation)
Varuvomla (Varuvenla - I'll come..Will I not?)
Vandhuttomla (Vandhuttenla - See, i've come)

Although I am not well versed with all these words except for phrases ending 'ngey', I should agree that these are the words of the common population in the city.

Speciality of Madurai (other than what all the websites quote) - It's Jill...Jill...Jigardhanda...The cool drink (kulir banam) that you get one and only in Madurai....There's no meaning for this word. If you get a chance to go to Madurai, please stop by and drink it! I want to confess one thing here, 'I have never tasted JJJ' :(

I guess I have covered most of the 'special' Madurai lingusitics :) Eppudi namma 'Madurai Tamil' blog postu??? My madurai tamil is (S)pe(a)eking out - Is it not? ;)

Source: Wikipedia
Images: Google

Every child is special!!!

The title says it all. I lllllllllllllllloooooooooooooovvvvvvvvveeeeee this Kid. Becoming emotional when watching movies is not a new thing to me. I have been emotional when watching certain scenes in movies. But this kid has made me to cry for 2hrs 30 mins at a stretch. This is the only movie that has made me emotional even after it ended and all that is because of this small wonder. I would say n number of times that I like this kid a lot. Darsheel Safary - you proved the worth of the title, kiddo!!! No more words to describe.

Note: Don't miss watching 'Taare Zameen Par' - another magnum opus by Aamir Khan. Be sure to take something to wipe off your tears.
Warning: You'll be greatly influenced by this kid's acting

The 'Defect' Game

I was taken back when I read the news today about India losing the 2nd Test against Australia. The match was equally poised and was heading for a draw before the final day of the match but a series of twists and turns had left everything in a melancholy state. I couldn't believe it! :( Although the inept batting by the Indians stay one side, the main thing to be noticed is the series of wrong decisions by the umpires. Steve Bucknor who is considered to be an umpiring veteran as well as the best in Cricketing arena, made himself a spoilsport in the recent match. As there is widespread news about sledging and non-sportsmanship of the Kangaroos on field, it's worth mentioning these four players (apart from the umpires) for being on the headlines - Punter (Ponting), Wickie Gilchrist, Clarke and Symonds.

I'll start in the reverse order - Symonds has filed a case against Bhaji for the clash of words between the two and he has claimed a racial abuse which has led to a hearing for Bhaji for his verbal dispute. Although we are not sure what both the players conveyed on field, we will have to see what the hearing reports have to say tomorrow.
Clarke - He is considered to be the forerunner for captaincy. Although he has the spirits to lift Aussies to record a straight 16th win in Tests, it's bad to see him claiming a wicket against Saurav after taking a catch when the ball touched the ground. I would say it was not Ponting's mistake when he asked Clarke to confirm whether he actually took the catch and Clarke nodded positively. Who knows? If it was not claimed and given out, Saurav would have taken India to an edge spoiling Aussies dream of making a record.
Gilchrist - He is called a Gentleman in the cricketing history for playing a Gentleman's game and walking away from the field when he felt he was out even before the umpire raised his fingers. This was few years back but he is no more into the 'Gentleman' category. It's because of his claim for a catch (and so did the bowler Clarke) against 'The Wall' Dravid when Dravid did not hit the ball with his bat. And eventually Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson gave out. People who know the nuances of cricket will know this - Only the wicketkeeper and the batsman knows better than anyone else whether the batsman hit the ball or not. When Gilli was claiming against Dravid and Dravid was seriously shaking his head saying 'No man, I didn't hit it!' and TV replays too show that Dravid did not hit the ball, it's bad to see Gilli erasing his 'Gentlemanship' name by making Dravid walking out with sigh :(
Ponting - Although I am a great fan of Punter for his skills and captaincy, I am disappointed to see Punter taking advantage of all the umpiring decisions and mainly on the agreement between Jumbo (Kumble) and him before the commencement of the game. The agreement was to go by the captain's decision (after the confirmation of player's claim for a wicket) before calling for a Third Umpire. Based on past history, I could see Jumbo had faith on players of both sides rather than on technology and came to such a consent with Punter. And he would have regretted later for doing so after seeing Ponting and his man taking that as an advantage. And Punter too joined the club of Gilli and Clarke when he had no hesitation claiming Dhoni against a catch when the ball had hit the ground.

Emotional outbursts are seen in the Indian Team when they could not take this series of 'defects'. As like any other cricket fanatic, am greatly disappointed for three reasons.
1. To see the umpires favoring one team and the lack of sportsmanship in the so called aggressive top team, the Australians
2. Jumbo standing in the ground with an unbeaten 45 looking for a partner on the other side to fight hard against the Aussies to prove them they are wrong but left behind without anyone helping him
3. Sachin hitting a ton in the first innings and dreaming of a great finish on SCG since it's his farewell game on his favourite ground but sitting out seeing a great devastation

It's a game of agressiveness, shame and hmm...what not? That's what these smileys in the above picture portray.

Although these things are hard to digest, I wish Indian team to come back with ease and destroy the Aussie attack atleast in the third test at Perth. It's good to know that the two umpires have been taken out of this whole Indie Aussie series. But I am sure there's gonna be a lot of hoopla around this. Let's wait and watch!

Scintillating Starz...

When you finish reading this blog post, you will make out the meaning of the title. Here, I am going to talk about two young protagonists with diverse interests. One of them is Isha Jain and the other one is Tara Venkatesan. Who are these people? Well, that's what this post is all about!

Isha Jain - She has figured in the 'Young People who rock' column in CNN. What did she do to be in this most prestigious column? She has created a paradigm to explain the molecular structure of a candy. I would say this is a fascinating idea which noone would have thought about. The journal 'Developmental Dynamics' has published her work whereas Siemens gave her scholarship. Schools are using her methods in the classroom. To her, Maths and Science are cool. Sources have quoted that 'Before she was old enough to buy sweets at a PG-13 movie, her candy-making findings were featured at major scientific summits'. Kewl!!!

Tara Venkatesan - She is the former preseident R.Venkatraman's grand daughter. Although this Soprano's passion is Western Music & Operas, she is an aspiring singing paleontologist in space. She has created a concept of 'Music 4 kids by kids' - charity shows to make kids perform for kids. This seventh grader is not only tied up with Music but also busy in discovering the first dinosaur in India. She would be calling it 'Tarasauras', if she discovers it! :) She is indeed eloquent and confident about her future plan of helping children in the society. What a noble thought? Great!!!

Don't you think they are scintillating young stars???

Tidbits

This is my kick-off blog post for this year 2008! While skimming through the news today, these chunks of information caught my eyes.

Carazoo - For all car lovers in India, here is a great news! Car portals in US is a very common thing but in India, this is the first ever car portal with interactive animations. This website is very cool with lotsa features like buying a car, selling a car, choosing an old car, getting loans and interests, making your own model and of course, browsing through a lot of categories comes handy. When I checked this site and hit the column called 'My carazoo', Ratan Tata's dream of launching the cheapest car came to my mind. Although sources say that the cheapest car will have some energy consumption problems, I am waiting to see the new model. Don't forget to check out www.carazoo.com, if you are fast and furious (a car fanatic :))

Two in a tango! - Being a cricket fan, I cannot miss out the two young heroes (whom I like) making the news. First one is Daniel Vettori - This guy is calm and composed but can break records without any hitch. In the recent NZ-BAN series, NZ has won the last match by hitting 90 runs in 6 overs. Can you believe it? The run rate is 15 and I was amazed to listen to commentary online when Brendan Mccullum hit 6 sixes and scored 80 runs in just 28 balls. Although Bangladesh are termed as 'minnows', record is a record. Daniel Vettori being the captain and winning the Man of the Series award, there is another feather added to his cap which he would be cherishing for years - Yeah, he is the leading wicket taker in 2007. When there are fast paced Lees, Akthars, Orams, Khans, Vasss' are out there, spinning the balls and making the record in one day series is not an easy one. Hats off Vettori!
Second one is about the upcoming pacer in India - RP Singh. Although RPS is not the usual face in the Indian team, I can see him coming out well. His recent 4 wicket haul yesterday against the Aussies is worth mentioning. Way to go RP!

Why do you work? - Being an avid reader of the columns 'Musings', 'Do it right', 'Career Clues' and 'View Point' in 'The Hindu' opportunities, I did not miss this one. This may not be an interview question or a behavioural question to many, but has anyone been questioned like this before? Well, this is for those who would like to know the answer for this redundant question. It's definitely for money that we work. But for few of us (including me), there is something in addition to that, which make us work. Earning fat pay checks may provide monetary benefits and luxuries and act as a prime motivator, but a sense of fulfillment is what it counts for, at the end of the day. Want to read more about this? Visit http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/jobs/0712/2007122650020400.htm

An Ode to Ennui - There are two categories of book lovers - A Bibliophile and A Book worm - A bibliophile collects books and loves books for its quality and format whereas a book worm reads book in general for its content. I fall into the first category most of the times and here is a book that I would love to read. 'An ode to Ennui' is the first chapter on the book by Mainak Dhar (an IIM graduate) 'The funda of mix-ology'. Anyone might think that it's a book about fundoos of IIM life, but it's not. It's about 'What bartending teaches which IIM doesn't'. I had a chance to read the first chapter which was in the author's website and that has provoked me to read the whole book. Author has a rich vocabulary which is well noticed in his first chapter itself. If you are a bibliophile or a book worm and like to read the chapter 'An ode to Ennui', you can click http://www.getthefunda.com/

That's all about it for today! Will catch you all soon...