Really late on writing this post. The only major event that happened during this week was our Macclesfield visit. We visited an English relative (yeah, a maternal uncle of my wife who is british) for Christmas. Was blown over by their hospitality and the beauty of English countryside covered in snow.
We went to a Church Mass, that too a Christmas Mass, which was a first in life for me. Felt very good, in fact I liked the calm songs and the speeches in between, with valuable messages given in simple words. I just had a small glitch in one of the procedures, which I could not do properly :( ended up irritating the lady who was volunteering. I was carrying a cold throughout the journey and the trip, I ended up with a load of gifts from their house and a lot of memories. We had some good walk around the countrysides, which will stay in my memory. Uncle also gave me some tips for successful career and life, which were invaluable.
Other than that, there was no major event in the week. Just kept moving ahead with my freelancing venture :), I think this holidays is going to be productive to say the least. I am enjoying it. Another lazy week ahead (in fact well into it) and another before the school springs to life again.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Sunday, December 19, 2010
The Exam Week
Habits Die hard... in spite of my Statistics exam being open book, I did not carry the notes, just plain and not-so-smart overconfidence, and I got stuck in the mid of the exam remembering a few formulae.
Well, you can catch my mood now, actually the mood during the few hours after exam.
This week as you can make out by now, we had exams and I did well in every exam other than statistics, I will still pass the statistics paper, but would have been happier if I had done well. Exams got over, I got some freelancing work on peopleperhour.com and got stuck in traffic in a snowy evening. That is the summary for this week.
Otherwise this week was not so eventful, I got a small start to a probable project and will work on it. Holidays have begun and so I think the coming weeks would be more fun, at least now we have all sad people around me with so many flight cancellations and friends who planned to travel to India having their plans go for a toss.
I got China as the travel destination, for the IBE, but still have to wait for my field trip to be confirmed. We had a small party after the term Friday night. The traffic jam was interesting, as this was the first time (and probably last) I got stuck in a traffic with snow falling all over the place, we had some funny discussions and spent the three hours sitting there in the car.
Well, you can catch my mood now, actually the mood during the few hours after exam.
This week as you can make out by now, we had exams and I did well in every exam other than statistics, I will still pass the statistics paper, but would have been happier if I had done well. Exams got over, I got some freelancing work on peopleperhour.com and got stuck in traffic in a snowy evening. That is the summary for this week.
Otherwise this week was not so eventful, I got a small start to a probable project and will work on it. Holidays have begun and so I think the coming weeks would be more fun, at least now we have all sad people around me with so many flight cancellations and friends who planned to travel to India having their plans go for a toss.
I got China as the travel destination, for the IBE, but still have to wait for my field trip to be confirmed. We had a small party after the term Friday night. The traffic jam was interesting, as this was the first time (and probably last) I got stuck in a traffic with snow falling all over the place, we had some funny discussions and spent the three hours sitting there in the car.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
The Week Before Exams - Revisions, Submissions and Recollections
Finally, the term 1 of our course is over. This week was primarily a revision week in terms of academic activity. This means that the lecturers review the entire learning and explain the important points that students should remember from their teaching.
In terms of non-academic activity, I got a small start to a proposed project on "Peace Index". More importantly we started a small initiative called MBA Oath in Cranfield, and even though the schools expectation is to get about 10 people to sign the oath, we took the initiative to take it beyond that and get over 30% of the cohort to sign it. At 30% level, Cranfield gets to be recognized as a chapter school in the project and I think personally this will be a significant achievement for NetImpact Club this year (incidentally I am leading the NetImpact effort in Cranfield). We formed a leadership team for this effort and I am quite happy about the progress so far.
As a team we completed the Operations Presentation and Report, OB Report and the Statistics Project and overall we are very happy about the output, we also got some of the results for our group projects and we were at about average, I am not very unhappy but some members of my team were unhappy, but the common lesson from all the projects till now is that we just missed the question, and kept on answering (or responding to) what we thought was the question, this is a significant learning that we need to carry forward.
During the OB session I got 9 positive feedback from members, I am very happy about this because it was time constrained and only 5 of the 9 was compulsory :).
I also attended a "Graduation day" event conducted by the Executive MBA batch and learnt a few things from experienced entrepreneurs and CEOs about leadership. The common theme for me was Leadership is all about forming a strategy, finding the right people to execute the strategy and motivating them, executing the strategy. Looking inward, I am probably walking my hard journey in the second point (people). Having my business model as a framework to understand these concepts is helping me a lot.
I found a lot of interesting articles on entrepreneurship and one article (from twitter) (http://www.businessinsider.com/the-25-best-startup-fail-stories-of-all-time-2010-10#) gave a lot of insights into typical failures in entrepreneurship. Since most of them are narrated by the founder or co-founder themselves, I think this is a very interesting and thought provoking topic.
I also read the book "Outliers", a very interesting observation into success and how people succeed. Another interesting observation from the book is that the author argues that 10000 hours of effort into anything makes you an expert in it. I somehow agree with him that 10000 hours of proper (with an expert, and a structure) training makes you an expert, but I have personal examples of 10000 wasted hours :) .
Everyone around me is focussed on exams (except a very few). I think examination is just a test of your understanding and if you havent understood the course, you ought to fail, but I think overall I have learnt a lot from this course and as far as using these concepts to decision making is concerned I would do a decent job if not a perfect job at it. This approach makes me take exams in a cool manner. I just dont want to take it too easily.
Many times during the table tennis play sessions, I lost my temper and I think this is a bad trend, I need to take some actions to stop this outburst as for any onlooker it looks as if I cannot keep cool, whereas it is just a venting exercise from my side. I need to work on other means of venting out feelings in any team setting (informal, formal, sport anything).
A major development in my foreseeable future happened during this week, the UK abolished Tier 1 as a category of visa and have also planned to scrap the post study work visa system. This way my chances of staying on in the UK after the education are getting slimmer and slimmer. Even though I am not very keen on staying here for a long time, it would have been a better scenario if the option were to be available and then not take it rather than the chance itself being denied.
Personally, my home loan got repaid this week, a major change in my expense pattern - I dont have to pay mortgage and I also have enough cash now to repay all my educational loan commitments in the bank. This feels good, even though I have decided to sell off the house that I owned (the only real estate that I bought), I am not too worried as we have another "home" in Trivandrum.
Overall a week of mixed feelings, some good news, some bad news, let me hope that the next week is good (after all exams have to be good :) )
Sunday, December 5, 2010
The last lecture week of Term 1
Finally, term 1 lectures were all done, we have completed 1/4th of the course, its a mixed feeling, as if we have just completed 1/4th of all the transition that was supposed to happen :)
In terms of events, the table tennis tournament should be the first one. Day 1 had some players irritated because we did not have a fixed schedule, but overall even day 1 was a neat success because we had most of the people attending the matches and we had some solid results. Day 2 was even better, finally Manish and Tatiana won the events in their categories. As an organiser of the tournament I am happy that it went so well. Personally I won against the Champion (Manish), but lost two matches consecutively to Kinjal and Prabhav, both the players played well, but overall I think I got too defensive in the first match and did the exact opposite (kept attacking) in the next match. The lesson from this is that being natural in a pressure situation (not really easy) is worth more than technical skill (the game playing ability, because Manish lost to me because of the same reason that I would quote for the loss against Kinjal)
I contacted Manchester Business School for two purposes this week, the first being for the proposed Table tennis tournament with them and secondly for cooperation in the Net Impact club. I am happy that both are going along nicely and I will extend this cooperation to other schools too.
On the lectures side, I learnt my Belbin scores, and unlike many other results, I could relate to this reult much more, or in a sense I agreed with most of the inferences. I turned out to be a Plant, Resource Investigator and Shaper in that order, naturally finisher, implementer etc turned out to be least preferred, I think that is a big learning I need to carry to my next step in career.
We had a feedback session in our team about what had changed in you till today in the MBA and my frank opinion was to appreciate other's intelligence more (Over the years my arrogance in not appreciating someone else's intelligence has been growing and now it has started to decrease). Second most important realisation is that the more you are lacking in something you see the lacking in others (the more lazy you are you see everyone else as lazy), and the more you posses something (knowledge) you start seeing it everywhere else. This is a big realisation for me, because at any given point of time, what I see everywhere else is probably what I possess at that point and this realisation can be used effectively as a self-monitoring tool.
The first learning can be succinctly put as
The more stupidity you find in yourself, the more you listen and the more intelligent you become
The more intelligent you think you are, the less you listen and the more stupid you become
I also think back to my own "purpose" of this MBA, the statement I used to think back again and again. The purpose of this MBA is to become a better student of life, i.e. life is always teaching you lessons, I had been a good student and used to learn a lot, but this learning capability has decreased in the past few years and I want to regain that ability to learn from each day. I think one step in the right direction has already been achieved, provided I use these two thoughts in my life.
I also learnt a few things about my dream organisation, there were positive and negative feedback about the idea, some of them were (not just identified during this week)
1. You need to deliver the end to end piece of identifying the problem till suggesting them a solution (Finding the problem to putting them in touch with a solution)
2. You need to also have solutions for other major problems that the parents might have (may be like the student not studying well)
3. You need to contact employers who might be needing a specific skill and provide them an opportunity to recruit from your place.
4. You need to be flexible with your business model and allow others to change it constantly, keep evolving.
I think this list will in itself keep growing
On a personal note, I did many things for the first time in my life this week, walking in an inch (or may be more) thick snow, walking in a snowfall, witnessing a heavy snowfall all happened during this week. I tried to get a job during Christmas break, which may or may not materialise. I kept talking with Arun, regarding the contacts for business and developing our idea.
Exams are nearing, and finally I need to study for some time, I have been largely neglecting studies till today :). There were two marks given out during the week and I got an average of 66 in them, which I am quite happy with.
In terms of events, the table tennis tournament should be the first one. Day 1 had some players irritated because we did not have a fixed schedule, but overall even day 1 was a neat success because we had most of the people attending the matches and we had some solid results. Day 2 was even better, finally Manish and Tatiana won the events in their categories. As an organiser of the tournament I am happy that it went so well. Personally I won against the Champion (Manish), but lost two matches consecutively to Kinjal and Prabhav, both the players played well, but overall I think I got too defensive in the first match and did the exact opposite (kept attacking) in the next match. The lesson from this is that being natural in a pressure situation (not really easy) is worth more than technical skill (the game playing ability, because Manish lost to me because of the same reason that I would quote for the loss against Kinjal)
I contacted Manchester Business School for two purposes this week, the first being for the proposed Table tennis tournament with them and secondly for cooperation in the Net Impact club. I am happy that both are going along nicely and I will extend this cooperation to other schools too.
On the lectures side, I learnt my Belbin scores, and unlike many other results, I could relate to this reult much more, or in a sense I agreed with most of the inferences. I turned out to be a Plant, Resource Investigator and Shaper in that order, naturally finisher, implementer etc turned out to be least preferred, I think that is a big learning I need to carry to my next step in career.
We had a feedback session in our team about what had changed in you till today in the MBA and my frank opinion was to appreciate other's intelligence more (Over the years my arrogance in not appreciating someone else's intelligence has been growing and now it has started to decrease). Second most important realisation is that the more you are lacking in something you see the lacking in others (the more lazy you are you see everyone else as lazy), and the more you posses something (knowledge) you start seeing it everywhere else. This is a big realisation for me, because at any given point of time, what I see everywhere else is probably what I possess at that point and this realisation can be used effectively as a self-monitoring tool.
The first learning can be succinctly put as
The more stupidity you find in yourself, the more you listen and the more intelligent you become
The more intelligent you think you are, the less you listen and the more stupid you become
I also think back to my own "purpose" of this MBA, the statement I used to think back again and again. The purpose of this MBA is to become a better student of life, i.e. life is always teaching you lessons, I had been a good student and used to learn a lot, but this learning capability has decreased in the past few years and I want to regain that ability to learn from each day. I think one step in the right direction has already been achieved, provided I use these two thoughts in my life.
I also learnt a few things about my dream organisation, there were positive and negative feedback about the idea, some of them were (not just identified during this week)
1. You need to deliver the end to end piece of identifying the problem till suggesting them a solution (Finding the problem to putting them in touch with a solution)
2. You need to also have solutions for other major problems that the parents might have (may be like the student not studying well)
3. You need to contact employers who might be needing a specific skill and provide them an opportunity to recruit from your place.
4. You need to be flexible with your business model and allow others to change it constantly, keep evolving.
I think this list will in itself keep growing
On a personal note, I did many things for the first time in my life this week, walking in an inch (or may be more) thick snow, walking in a snowfall, witnessing a heavy snowfall all happened during this week. I tried to get a job during Christmas break, which may or may not materialise. I kept talking with Arun, regarding the contacts for business and developing our idea.
Exams are nearing, and finally I need to study for some time, I have been largely neglecting studies till today :). There were two marks given out during the week and I got an average of 66 in them, which I am quite happy with.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
The Week to Remember
Description of the week
This week had so many events that I am going to note them one by one and explain it
First of all we had the SMS presentation (Strategic Marketing Success) which I could not attend because of my CIMA exam. The presentation was well prepared with videos and youtube clips, we all enjoyed both the creation and presentation of the event.
The CIMA exam in Northampton was the first event that took me out of Cranfield alone. I enjoyed both the trip and the exam. Many questions were based on things that I had either learnt during the MBA or earlier, that way I consider myself lucky. Another point on which I am happy is that I completed the paper and hence hope to pass.
During the week, I also put across my preferences for the International Business Experience, I preferred the field trip and the Challenges worldwide at that. In case I am not so lucky to get through to the field trip, I would be travelling to China (which is my most preferred choice).
In terms of Organisational Behaviour evaluations, I found my team playing capabilities, overall this seems to be the best evaluation of my real self till date among all the evaluations that we have had. I turned out to be a Plant, Resource Investigator and Shaper, all of which are a clear indication that I need to recruit or work with other Implementers.
The biggest event of the week, which also resulted in this post being delayed happened over the weekend. I would say this is one of the most significant events that I have participated in. We (a group of about 25 people) from cranfield went over to Oxford for a social enterprise conference which had eminent speakers from many parts of social business. Successful entrepreneurs, influencers, investors and mentors attended the same.
Mr. Sanjit 'Bunker' Roy was the most influential among the speakers. I really got inspired by his spirit and force. He is running the Barefoot College (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_College), the idea and the implementation simply blew me off. I really felt happy for having met him, I hope to meet him again in the future and also get some inspiration from him on my future life.
Other speakers of influence also had significant achievements in their life, and were exceptionally talented. The people I was specifically happy for having met are
1. Alastair Wilson, the Chief Executive of Social Entrepreneurs School in london
2. The three speakers in the investing event - Suzanne Biegel, Caroline Tulloch, Jonathan Jenkins (from investors' circle, unltd and Bridges Ventures
3. Tim Smit
4. Anya Navidski (whom I will probably contact in the near future with our business plan)
5. Tim Hartley (who again, we might meet in Cranfield)
Another interesting thing is that I saw a snowfall for the first time in my life. Even though it was short, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Its no justice to have one post for the entire week of such importance, but lack of time :) (the next week seems interesting too)
This week had so many events that I am going to note them one by one and explain it
First of all we had the SMS presentation (Strategic Marketing Success) which I could not attend because of my CIMA exam. The presentation was well prepared with videos and youtube clips, we all enjoyed both the creation and presentation of the event.
The CIMA exam in Northampton was the first event that took me out of Cranfield alone. I enjoyed both the trip and the exam. Many questions were based on things that I had either learnt during the MBA or earlier, that way I consider myself lucky. Another point on which I am happy is that I completed the paper and hence hope to pass.
During the week, I also put across my preferences for the International Business Experience, I preferred the field trip and the Challenges worldwide at that. In case I am not so lucky to get through to the field trip, I would be travelling to China (which is my most preferred choice).
In terms of Organisational Behaviour evaluations, I found my team playing capabilities, overall this seems to be the best evaluation of my real self till date among all the evaluations that we have had. I turned out to be a Plant, Resource Investigator and Shaper, all of which are a clear indication that I need to recruit or work with other Implementers.
The biggest event of the week, which also resulted in this post being delayed happened over the weekend. I would say this is one of the most significant events that I have participated in. We (a group of about 25 people) from cranfield went over to Oxford for a social enterprise conference which had eminent speakers from many parts of social business. Successful entrepreneurs, influencers, investors and mentors attended the same.
Mr. Sanjit 'Bunker' Roy was the most influential among the speakers. I really got inspired by his spirit and force. He is running the Barefoot College (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_College), the idea and the implementation simply blew me off. I really felt happy for having met him, I hope to meet him again in the future and also get some inspiration from him on my future life.
Other speakers of influence also had significant achievements in their life, and were exceptionally talented. The people I was specifically happy for having met are
1. Alastair Wilson, the Chief Executive of Social Entrepreneurs School in london
2. The three speakers in the investing event - Suzanne Biegel, Caroline Tulloch, Jonathan Jenkins (from investors' circle, unltd and Bridges Ventures
3. Tim Smit
4. Anya Navidski (whom I will probably contact in the near future with our business plan)
5. Tim Hartley (who again, we might meet in Cranfield)
Another interesting thing is that I saw a snowfall for the first time in my life. Even though it was short, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Its no justice to have one post for the entire week of such importance, but lack of time :) (the next week seems interesting too)
Sunday, November 21, 2010
The Most Eventful Week
Oh... this week.... I can probably write different posts for each of the items, but since this blog is anyways going to be long over the year, I want to avoid making it even longer by expanding on details.
Let me start with non events, even though they were expected to be big events
SMS Report - Strategic Marketing Success report was supposed to be handed in during this week, for teams which took it up in the last minute, it was a rush hour thing, but our team has been almost ready with the report and hence we did not have a big problem with that.
IBE International Business Experience introduction was given to us, this is supposed to be a week long trip to an international destination with a specific business and academic agenda and have exposure to a different culture, I at this point in time have chosen to go for the challengers field trip which involves analysing social businesses, which always interests me.
PWC Presentation - There was a presentation during one of the evenings from a Senior Partner in PWC (Mr. Andrew Miskin), I was stunned by the level of clarity he possessed on the service and especially consulting business. He broke down many of the common business problems with such simplicity that I can remember a few of them without noting anything down for a long long time, I think that meeting was a key value add and a major learning exercise during the full MBA.
Litmus Test - There is this new event where budding entrepreneurs might have ideas that they want to present to a group of entrepreneurship club members to get their perspectives and views, I presented one of my plans (in fact the basic idea comes from my friend Arun Sharma, who could not attend the meeting because he had a baby) and the crowd was very receptive to this idea. I also had positive feedback on the presentation from many people.
Accounting WAC (Written Analysis of a Case) was another easier event which was hyped as a major event, may be because I am an accountant by qualification. I learnt a few things though, and in the end I handed in my report 5 hours earlier than the set target to take a trip to Cambridge.
The Cambridge trip was enjoyable and memorable. There are 31 colleges and we went around a few of them and also a boat ride. We (Me, My Wife and a friend of her) had a good time trying to punt the boat on our own too. The university, being an academic institution and a tourist attraction is probably a rare combination (which is shared by Oxford too) and was good.
Then we had the real learning experience of the week, in which I had a different view on the way we needed to analyse the OSC simulation and in the end it got communicated wrongly and created a lot of uncomfortable moments for me. There were a few dark sides of my personality which got exposed and I think I will remember these for a long long time. There is a learning available from this event, but I am not 100% sure if I will be able to capitalise on this, if I need a successful career then I should.
OSC (Operations) Simulation - We had a simulation of a process flow during the week, we designed an excellent process after significant discussions and made the best process (by about 5% better results), however we were not the winning team, because the process was more skewed towards rewarding better inventory management (have the same level of stock at the beginning and the end) than the process throughput (which incidentally is the Lean measurement mechanism). We were right in pointing out that inventory management should not be given such high importance in a process flow demonstration, however the fact that I was communicating a correct message made me feel that I am right in talking about it in a forceful manner, twice during the week makes me wonder why I do this again and again.
The learning for the week then would be (This is a nice section to have)
Just because you are right (or you think you are) you cant be forceful in expressing your opinion, just learn it and talk about it, if people are not receptive, just let it go
The Learning from the Pre-MBA till date have been (the list does not mean I am perfect on these now, but just a list of learnings I have had)
1. Just because you are right (or you think you are) you cant be forceful in expressing your opinion, just learn it and talk about it, if people are not receptive, just let it go (Pre-MBA Simulation, WAC in Pre-MBA, Twice in OSC simulation).
2. Be committed to your ideas (Just thinking that since you are better at idea forming, you cant be successful)
3. Take leadership through actions, dont expect anyone to tell you that
Let me start with non events, even though they were expected to be big events
SMS Report - Strategic Marketing Success report was supposed to be handed in during this week, for teams which took it up in the last minute, it was a rush hour thing, but our team has been almost ready with the report and hence we did not have a big problem with that.
IBE International Business Experience introduction was given to us, this is supposed to be a week long trip to an international destination with a specific business and academic agenda and have exposure to a different culture, I at this point in time have chosen to go for the challengers field trip which involves analysing social businesses, which always interests me.
PWC Presentation - There was a presentation during one of the evenings from a Senior Partner in PWC (Mr. Andrew Miskin), I was stunned by the level of clarity he possessed on the service and especially consulting business. He broke down many of the common business problems with such simplicity that I can remember a few of them without noting anything down for a long long time, I think that meeting was a key value add and a major learning exercise during the full MBA.
Litmus Test - There is this new event where budding entrepreneurs might have ideas that they want to present to a group of entrepreneurship club members to get their perspectives and views, I presented one of my plans (in fact the basic idea comes from my friend Arun Sharma, who could not attend the meeting because he had a baby) and the crowd was very receptive to this idea. I also had positive feedback on the presentation from many people.
Accounting WAC (Written Analysis of a Case) was another easier event which was hyped as a major event, may be because I am an accountant by qualification. I learnt a few things though, and in the end I handed in my report 5 hours earlier than the set target to take a trip to Cambridge.
The Cambridge trip was enjoyable and memorable. There are 31 colleges and we went around a few of them and also a boat ride. We (Me, My Wife and a friend of her) had a good time trying to punt the boat on our own too. The university, being an academic institution and a tourist attraction is probably a rare combination (which is shared by Oxford too) and was good.
Then we had the real learning experience of the week, in which I had a different view on the way we needed to analyse the OSC simulation and in the end it got communicated wrongly and created a lot of uncomfortable moments for me. There were a few dark sides of my personality which got exposed and I think I will remember these for a long long time. There is a learning available from this event, but I am not 100% sure if I will be able to capitalise on this, if I need a successful career then I should.
OSC (Operations) Simulation - We had a simulation of a process flow during the week, we designed an excellent process after significant discussions and made the best process (by about 5% better results), however we were not the winning team, because the process was more skewed towards rewarding better inventory management (have the same level of stock at the beginning and the end) than the process throughput (which incidentally is the Lean measurement mechanism). We were right in pointing out that inventory management should not be given such high importance in a process flow demonstration, however the fact that I was communicating a correct message made me feel that I am right in talking about it in a forceful manner, twice during the week makes me wonder why I do this again and again.
The learning for the week then would be (This is a nice section to have)
Just because you are right (or you think you are) you cant be forceful in expressing your opinion, just learn it and talk about it, if people are not receptive, just let it go
The Learning from the Pre-MBA till date have been (the list does not mean I am perfect on these now, but just a list of learnings I have had)
1. Just because you are right (or you think you are) you cant be forceful in expressing your opinion, just learn it and talk about it, if people are not receptive, just let it go (Pre-MBA Simulation, WAC in Pre-MBA, Twice in OSC simulation).
2. Be committed to your ideas (Just thinking that since you are better at idea forming, you cant be successful)
3. Take leadership through actions, dont expect anyone to tell you that
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Another week passes by
This week was not as eventful as the previous one, but I still think it was fairly a busy week, with many personal events. I progressed along nicely on my business plan, I had some views from a few of my friends and they were positive about the plan. I am presenting the career counselling plan to my friends tomorrow.
We had the Deepavali party last Sunday, it was nice and enjoyable, largely a successful party which was appreciated by many co-students. I was very happy that it went along very well after the initial confusions around the idea.
In terms of learning, we had a great author of "Pitch Yourself" Mr. Bill Faust talk to us on how to create a winning self-marketing proposal. This was good to know, not very useful to me, but a nice idea of forming a Career DNA based on which you can keep writing CV after CV which could be differentiated, true and attractive.
This week we also had the third family party that we hosted at our house. This time we had a lot of my pre-mba friends and the group coming along. We had previously hosted the Bangalore group and then my learning team.
This week also marked the first anniversary of my marriage with Shiny, we went around to Milton Keynes and friends made it really special by making us cut a cake and pouring lots of gifts.
I played cricket after a long long time and also progressed well along my routine Table Tennis. The winter has started to show its initial warnings, a few days we had 0 degree temperatures, a first-in-lifetime experience for me. I think it will only get worse, but I am looking forward to it, probably because this might be the first (and last???) time I live in a country which experiences such extreme climates.
We had the Deepavali party last Sunday, it was nice and enjoyable, largely a successful party which was appreciated by many co-students. I was very happy that it went along very well after the initial confusions around the idea.
In terms of learning, we had a great author of "Pitch Yourself" Mr. Bill Faust talk to us on how to create a winning self-marketing proposal. This was good to know, not very useful to me, but a nice idea of forming a Career DNA based on which you can keep writing CV after CV which could be differentiated, true and attractive.
This week we also had the third family party that we hosted at our house. This time we had a lot of my pre-mba friends and the group coming along. We had previously hosted the Bangalore group and then my learning team.
This week also marked the first anniversary of my marriage with Shiny, we went around to Milton Keynes and friends made it really special by making us cut a cake and pouring lots of gifts.
I played cricket after a long long time and also progressed well along my routine Table Tennis. The winter has started to show its initial warnings, a few days we had 0 degree temperatures, a first-in-lifetime experience for me. I think it will only get worse, but I am looking forward to it, probably because this might be the first (and last???) time I live in a country which experiences such extreme climates.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
The Wac (k) week
This week many things happened, it is becoming difficult to remember one whole week and I think its necessary for me to create a post line every day and publish it on a weekly basis.
First up during this week, I was selected as the Leader for the Cranfield SOM Chapter of NetImpact Club, now I have a good reason to focus on activities, I think I will put in a lot of time in this Club during the next few months.
Next day we had a meeting with Mr. Steve Killelea (from www.visionofhumanity.org, a Priyadarshini award winner) who spoke to us on the need for peace and his attempt to measure peace objectively. I was keen on this topic and he spoke to me about a State-wise peace index in India. I think this would be a nice piece of work to do.
Later during the week I had discussions with multiple people about my budding business idea to run a career counselling service for teens. In India a large part of the population gets into engineering or other education that they really do not want to do, but are forced by the social system to do so. I think if an organisation can focus on this population and try to move them away from taking such an important career decision based on social pressure to making a career plan, it would do good business and good to the society. This model attracts me because it does not require a lot of capital, there are no or very few players in the market and this can easily be converted into a brand on which I can build other businesses like a school.
On the MBA part, we had a presentation by Stephen Carver, on Presentation Skills, and man... does he know how to present, he is the most energetic teacher I have ever met, he drives his point with such practical context that no one can miss a point. His key skill in presenting is to taking the attention span of the attendee into consideration and keeping the audience engaged.
We also had a career counselling on what careers would fit me (The idea above was formed before attending this :) ). It was very useful for many people because they were unclear of their goals, however since I was clear that Social Entrepreneurship is my focus, I was a bit closed to the meeting. The one clarity that emerged from the meeting was that I am a good idea generator, but a bad implementer, which is very true. Mr. Peter Bernard, who was my team's facilitator, turned out to be brilliant at coaching and he was very helpful in providing some key material that can be used in my business model.
Then came the biggest event of the week, the WAC (Written Analysis of a Case), this is a Cranfield special, a case given to students at say... 4 PM and then we need to analyse the case and present a written paper with analysis at about 3 PM on the next day, approximately 24 hours is provided. There is a team discussion (5-6 members in our own learning team), a stream discussion (our class) and then we work individually to create a 1500 word report. It was fun, and a good learning exercise because even those who did not understand what economics is about in the class would have understood the facts by now. I was surprised that people lost their sleep over it, given my focus on non-academics or so to say the personality side of it, I took it easy, I just hope to pass, which I am confident I will.
We have Deepavali celebration today, I think the next account will start with explaining that.
First up during this week, I was selected as the Leader for the Cranfield SOM Chapter of NetImpact Club, now I have a good reason to focus on activities, I think I will put in a lot of time in this Club during the next few months.
Next day we had a meeting with Mr. Steve Killelea (from www.visionofhumanity.org, a Priyadarshini award winner) who spoke to us on the need for peace and his attempt to measure peace objectively. I was keen on this topic and he spoke to me about a State-wise peace index in India. I think this would be a nice piece of work to do.
Later during the week I had discussions with multiple people about my budding business idea to run a career counselling service for teens. In India a large part of the population gets into engineering or other education that they really do not want to do, but are forced by the social system to do so. I think if an organisation can focus on this population and try to move them away from taking such an important career decision based on social pressure to making a career plan, it would do good business and good to the society. This model attracts me because it does not require a lot of capital, there are no or very few players in the market and this can easily be converted into a brand on which I can build other businesses like a school.
On the MBA part, we had a presentation by Stephen Carver, on Presentation Skills, and man... does he know how to present, he is the most energetic teacher I have ever met, he drives his point with such practical context that no one can miss a point. His key skill in presenting is to taking the attention span of the attendee into consideration and keeping the audience engaged.
We also had a career counselling on what careers would fit me (The idea above was formed before attending this :) ). It was very useful for many people because they were unclear of their goals, however since I was clear that Social Entrepreneurship is my focus, I was a bit closed to the meeting. The one clarity that emerged from the meeting was that I am a good idea generator, but a bad implementer, which is very true. Mr. Peter Bernard, who was my team's facilitator, turned out to be brilliant at coaching and he was very helpful in providing some key material that can be used in my business model.
Then came the biggest event of the week, the WAC (Written Analysis of a Case), this is a Cranfield special, a case given to students at say... 4 PM and then we need to analyse the case and present a written paper with analysis at about 3 PM on the next day, approximately 24 hours is provided. There is a team discussion (5-6 members in our own learning team), a stream discussion (our class) and then we work individually to create a 1500 word report. It was fun, and a good learning exercise because even those who did not understand what economics is about in the class would have understood the facts by now. I was surprised that people lost their sleep over it, given my focus on non-academics or so to say the personality side of it, I took it easy, I just hope to pass, which I am confident I will.
We have Deepavali celebration today, I think the next account will start with explaining that.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
The week of change
Well, I think its a week of change, if I have to put it in the shortest form. I can only hope that this change is a major change and long lasting.
In terms of what happened in the week, we had an OBPPD Session on how one should pursue a career and what brings success (and what is success too). We also had an open feedback session about each other by the end of the week. In terms of OBPPD and the course we also had an individual report submitted during the week. We also had Halloween party which was really enjoyable.
We had the entrepreneurship club meeting started off and we are trying something new from this year (I hope this is not just this year) wherein entrepreneurs can pitch their ideas and ask for feedback from others in the group. Other than these I think everything else was routine.
Now about the change, when I was supposed to talk about the OBPPD session in my team, I started preparing and I was dumbstruck by the level of impact this session could have not only in my life but anyone's life. It dealt with what is success, how to attain success and how to reach your fullest potential in a level of detail that can fit almost everyone, since its generic it does become a bit high level, but I have started thinking in these lines now. I will have to work hard on this, however I think its worth a try at the least.
As many on campus would say, I am going to experiment here, to change my character, to consciously try and reduce my weakness (which is being direct and rude) and focus on my strengths, one statistic says people who focus on their strength succeeded more, but I think being rude puts me out of the game and hence I dont have an option not to work on it. The second thing that I have already started moving out of my priorities is to be the best in what I do (in terms of academics), I think changing from the inside would be needed to be a better leader than learning more stuff.
I need to evaluate ALL the options available in front of me, as to what I can do after the MBA. At this moment I feel that if I allow another few years to roll on before I start chasing my dreams, I will probably end up not chasing it at all. I have started exploring Entrepreneurship and Social Entrepreneurship as real career options immediately after MBA. The various career related sessions arranged in the next week should help me in this regard.
This week I experienced the first change of time (DST) of my life so now officially we are in GMT or UTC. Next weekend we would have our first WAC in EOS. I guess its just about being focussed, let me see, I am looking forward to it.
In terms of what happened in the week, we had an OBPPD Session on how one should pursue a career and what brings success (and what is success too). We also had an open feedback session about each other by the end of the week. In terms of OBPPD and the course we also had an individual report submitted during the week. We also had Halloween party which was really enjoyable.
We had the entrepreneurship club meeting started off and we are trying something new from this year (I hope this is not just this year) wherein entrepreneurs can pitch their ideas and ask for feedback from others in the group. Other than these I think everything else was routine.
Now about the change, when I was supposed to talk about the OBPPD session in my team, I started preparing and I was dumbstruck by the level of impact this session could have not only in my life but anyone's life. It dealt with what is success, how to attain success and how to reach your fullest potential in a level of detail that can fit almost everyone, since its generic it does become a bit high level, but I have started thinking in these lines now. I will have to work hard on this, however I think its worth a try at the least.
As many on campus would say, I am going to experiment here, to change my character, to consciously try and reduce my weakness (which is being direct and rude) and focus on my strengths, one statistic says people who focus on their strength succeeded more, but I think being rude puts me out of the game and hence I dont have an option not to work on it. The second thing that I have already started moving out of my priorities is to be the best in what I do (in terms of academics), I think changing from the inside would be needed to be a better leader than learning more stuff.
I need to evaluate ALL the options available in front of me, as to what I can do after the MBA. At this moment I feel that if I allow another few years to roll on before I start chasing my dreams, I will probably end up not chasing it at all. I have started exploring Entrepreneurship and Social Entrepreneurship as real career options immediately after MBA. The various career related sessions arranged in the next week should help me in this regard.
This week I experienced the first change of time (DST) of my life so now officially we are in GMT or UTC. Next weekend we would have our first WAC in EOS. I guess its just about being focussed, let me see, I am looking forward to it.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
The third week
The workload has just started hitting me, in fact many other co-students are a lot more worried than me. I rely primarily on hearing people and not reading everything. I know its going to be difficult, and my character is, when I read I forget, so I prefer to read just before the exams (Whatever I can read).
One good thing about coming with an Accounting and Economics background is that you have only 4 subjects which are entirely new, in fact a lot of marketing stuff had also been taught to me in the final stages of my Management Accounting course, Statistics was a part of it too, which drills down to Operations and Organisational Behaviour. I like operations very much and the faculty is very passionate about the subject, being an operations manager for most of his life (not as academic but as a manager), he teaches in a way which helps us understand things a lot easier than reading any texts.
This week in terms of personal relationships, I went underprepared and late to one of the team meetings and I apologized right in front, however one of the team members was unhappy and he threw it out at a time when I started contributing, the thing that I liked was, one hour later, we did a small analysis of what had happened and he accepted the fact that the anger towards my non-compliance to our basic rules had made him angry and not the point I was trying to make.
We have to submit our individual reports on organisational behaviour this week, and this would be the first exercise that is going to be marked (50% of OBPPD), so I have to take it really seriously. The tools and techniques taught in OB are really good and are influencing me in many ways, however the influence has not completely changed me in the period I am here, this report might want me to stress on the current period and I am more than willing to do that (who in his right mind can ignore the 50 marks).
My wife went to attend an interview, we are eagerly (atleast she is) waiting for the results, for me its more of an achievement that she went to an unknown place in UK without my company, and she can only improve with this confidence. Coming weeks are going to get a lot more busy, with recruitment, assignments and the course getting more intense, I hope to keep up with this blog all through, but lets hope.
One good thing about coming with an Accounting and Economics background is that you have only 4 subjects which are entirely new, in fact a lot of marketing stuff had also been taught to me in the final stages of my Management Accounting course, Statistics was a part of it too, which drills down to Operations and Organisational Behaviour. I like operations very much and the faculty is very passionate about the subject, being an operations manager for most of his life (not as academic but as a manager), he teaches in a way which helps us understand things a lot easier than reading any texts.
This week in terms of personal relationships, I went underprepared and late to one of the team meetings and I apologized right in front, however one of the team members was unhappy and he threw it out at a time when I started contributing, the thing that I liked was, one hour later, we did a small analysis of what had happened and he accepted the fact that the anger towards my non-compliance to our basic rules had made him angry and not the point I was trying to make.
We have to submit our individual reports on organisational behaviour this week, and this would be the first exercise that is going to be marked (50% of OBPPD), so I have to take it really seriously. The tools and techniques taught in OB are really good and are influencing me in many ways, however the influence has not completely changed me in the period I am here, this report might want me to stress on the current period and I am more than willing to do that (who in his right mind can ignore the 50 marks).
My wife went to attend an interview, we are eagerly (atleast she is) waiting for the results, for me its more of an achievement that she went to an unknown place in UK without my company, and she can only improve with this confidence. Coming weeks are going to get a lot more busy, with recruitment, assignments and the course getting more intense, I hope to keep up with this blog all through, but lets hope.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
The Second Week
I now have another practical use for this blog. This would serve me as a tool to summarise my term experience in Cranfield. We need to submit a report on this and the report is part of our exam marks in OBPPD, so I would add a personal touch to this blog from now on.
The second week, it was not very different from the first week from the learning or the lectures perspective. We had a briefing on the SMS (Strategic Marketing Success), which is supposed to be a demonstration of any marketing success in the world. We as a team will have to find one such story, and present it, I am looking forward to this challenge. Our team selected BMW MINI as the product of choice, and I am happy with that, as it provides enough room to apply many of the theories that we learnt. I was a bit unhappy with one of my team member jumping the gun with a structure, whereas I would have preferred everyone working on their own structures and then we choosing the best of all.
Personally I did an accounting problem after a long long time and felt good, imagine I forgot to bring up the inventory into the income statement, but I was happy that none of the other points went wrong, and I had a tallied balance sheet except for the above error. I think I will have to be a bit more methodical to avoid last minute problems.
In economics I found that the second part is something entirely new for me. I thought the entire paper is a renamed managerial economics course, however I now find it to be much more practical and usable. Many of my co-students feel the other way, but I think the value of this learning would be realised only when the start using it.
We did an MBTI survey of all of our members and I came out to be a ENTJ, that would mean an Extrovert, Intuitive, Thinking and Judging personality. I dont know much about this survey, may be this could come in handy later on.
Personal life, my wife got an interview call for a Nursery Assistant position next week, and we are happy about it. At the least, she will atleast get some experience in taking an interview in this part of the world.
The second week, it was not very different from the first week from the learning or the lectures perspective. We had a briefing on the SMS (Strategic Marketing Success), which is supposed to be a demonstration of any marketing success in the world. We as a team will have to find one such story, and present it, I am looking forward to this challenge. Our team selected BMW MINI as the product of choice, and I am happy with that, as it provides enough room to apply many of the theories that we learnt. I was a bit unhappy with one of my team member jumping the gun with a structure, whereas I would have preferred everyone working on their own structures and then we choosing the best of all.
Personally I did an accounting problem after a long long time and felt good, imagine I forgot to bring up the inventory into the income statement, but I was happy that none of the other points went wrong, and I had a tallied balance sheet except for the above error. I think I will have to be a bit more methodical to avoid last minute problems.
In economics I found that the second part is something entirely new for me. I thought the entire paper is a renamed managerial economics course, however I now find it to be much more practical and usable. Many of my co-students feel the other way, but I think the value of this learning would be realised only when the start using it.
We did an MBTI survey of all of our members and I came out to be a ENTJ, that would mean an Extrovert, Intuitive, Thinking and Judging personality. I dont know much about this survey, may be this could come in handy later on.
Personal life, my wife got an interview call for a Nursery Assistant position next week, and we are happy about it. At the least, she will atleast get some experience in taking an interview in this part of the world.
Monday, October 11, 2010
The First Real Week of the MBA
This first week has been full of ups and downs, I had my own moments of feeling bad in the team (My learning team) and then I recovered and started cooperating, others also had difficulties but I guess everyone comes on board after some time.
Few people have started attending interviews, and its like you are on a training and you keep looking for jobs all the while.
The learning does not seem to be too tough. I find OBPPD (Organisational Behaviour and Personal and Professional Development) to be particularly different, even though the subject is interesting, I think I haven't yet got a feel of the course. I have started loving Operations and I hope to keep up with the marketing course. I have had a few difficulties in Statistics, but thanks to my learning team especially Aditya, I am floating for the moment.
I got the feedback for my Pre MBA WAC (Written Assessment of a Case), got good feedback, I was happy. Got my rejection for the AT Kearney case competition, it was a team effort and we did do a good job, but then I guess in a tough scenario, the selection team is also under pressure and we cant blame them for doing a bad job at the selection.
Played Basketball after a long time this week, did not have a great time but I did feel that I am still ok with the game. Table tennis continues to be my favourite, I hope I keep getting time for that.
Few people have started attending interviews, and its like you are on a training and you keep looking for jobs all the while.
The learning does not seem to be too tough. I find OBPPD (Organisational Behaviour and Personal and Professional Development) to be particularly different, even though the subject is interesting, I think I haven't yet got a feel of the course. I have started loving Operations and I hope to keep up with the marketing course. I have had a few difficulties in Statistics, but thanks to my learning team especially Aditya, I am floating for the moment.
I got the feedback for my Pre MBA WAC (Written Assessment of a Case), got good feedback, I was happy. Got my rejection for the AT Kearney case competition, it was a team effort and we did do a good job, but then I guess in a tough scenario, the selection team is also under pressure and we cant blame them for doing a bad job at the selection.
Played Basketball after a long time this week, did not have a great time but I did feel that I am still ok with the game. Table tennis continues to be my favourite, I hope I keep getting time for that.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
The O Week
Ok ok, I am not a big fan of such acronyms, so lets get the real thing, its the Orientation week for the newer batch of MBAs done by the previous batch.
There were 133 (or atleast around that number) students in the previous batch and 17 of them vouched for the greatness of the Cranfield experience, in such detail that it could not be a lie or an enactment, they were frank about the realities in that few of the 17 were unemployed as of now, but I guess thats part of the game, a few will be left out and the world does not come down if you are not employed within a few days of graduating.
Now to the program itself. The program went on like this
1. Introduction to Team working and the Cranfield style of learning (Which is new to many of us)
2. Introduction to case studies (even though for me Pre-MBA had a test WAC - Written Analysis of a Case) and WACs
3. A lot of partying in the evenings and partner activities.
4. We had our first team interactions and I am really happy about my team in many ways including the maturity shown in the group and the commitment.
5. We were all asked to come out of our comfort zone, challenge ourself and let go, I guess this will only happen with time and not just through reading.
I will keep editing as and when I remember more important stuff.
There were 133 (or atleast around that number) students in the previous batch and 17 of them vouched for the greatness of the Cranfield experience, in such detail that it could not be a lie or an enactment, they were frank about the realities in that few of the 17 were unemployed as of now, but I guess thats part of the game, a few will be left out and the world does not come down if you are not employed within a few days of graduating.
Now to the program itself. The program went on like this
1. Introduction to Team working and the Cranfield style of learning (Which is new to many of us)
2. Introduction to case studies (even though for me Pre-MBA had a test WAC - Written Analysis of a Case) and WACs
3. A lot of partying in the evenings and partner activities.
4. We had our first team interactions and I am really happy about my team in many ways including the maturity shown in the group and the commitment.
5. We were all asked to come out of our comfort zone, challenge ourself and let go, I guess this will only happen with time and not just through reading.
I will keep editing as and when I remember more important stuff.
The Pre-MBA
This pre-mba course was supposedly a course which would allow people to get accustomed to the culture and learning style of Europe and particularly the UK. From day one since I registered, I was more interested in coming here quicker and getting settled by the time the real MBA started. I think my logic to start early did prove fruitful with me and my wife becoming comfortable with the campus, facilities here and many other things which are important (like bank account etc).
The highlights of the pre-mba are
1. A great project management session, which we enjoyed as much as we learnt
2. A superb experience in a simulation, which actually allowed all of us to become teams and execute a strategy, our team came fourth (among six teams) in the first game (minimax) but that was more of getting used to the format than anything else. In the second game our team came first in terms of end-term share prices and second in terms of accumulated profits. I was really happy not about the position, but the admirable level of consistency that we showed in our strategy, although I am a bit worried that I tried and imposed myself too much on the group (in sticking with the strategy). Everyone including the staff who conducted and fellow participants were very appreciative of our efforts and that made my day (atleast for that day)
3. A good introduction to Bank accounts, NHS, Library (MIRC as it is called here) and the campus
4. A good session with Séan Rickard which was a good eye opener to the way cranfield mba is conducted
5. A few other starter sessions which we all learnt a lot from.
Overall it was fun, I did try and make the most of it. I learnt a lot about myself when I tried something and the team said "NO", looking back I can say I behaved like a kid in getting upset with it, but then there are always weaknesses in every person, and I guess that would be the biggest learning experience I will carry forward.
I will keep editing this post as and when I remember things
The highlights of the pre-mba are
1. A great project management session, which we enjoyed as much as we learnt
2. A superb experience in a simulation, which actually allowed all of us to become teams and execute a strategy, our team came fourth (among six teams) in the first game (minimax) but that was more of getting used to the format than anything else. In the second game our team came first in terms of end-term share prices and second in terms of accumulated profits. I was really happy not about the position, but the admirable level of consistency that we showed in our strategy, although I am a bit worried that I tried and imposed myself too much on the group (in sticking with the strategy). Everyone including the staff who conducted and fellow participants were very appreciative of our efforts and that made my day (atleast for that day)
3. A good introduction to Bank accounts, NHS, Library (MIRC as it is called here) and the campus
4. A good session with Séan Rickard which was a good eye opener to the way cranfield mba is conducted
5. A few other starter sessions which we all learnt a lot from.
Overall it was fun, I did try and make the most of it. I learnt a lot about myself when I tried something and the team said "NO", looking back I can say I behaved like a kid in getting upset with it, but then there are always weaknesses in every person, and I guess that would be the biggest learning experience I will carry forward.
I will keep editing this post as and when I remember things
The Intention
I have finally joined the Cranfield MBA, gone through the Pre-MBA process and would now like to share some of my experiences. Although the primary motive of this blog is to keep a diary for myself, I would be more than happy to help anyone wanting to know information during my mba (2010-11) or beyond.
Thanks for Reading, the next post will summarise my pre-mba experience and then on to the orientation week. At the moment I think I will make this a weekly exercise so that there is enough information for a post and also I will have time on a Saturday/Sunday to do this without affecting any of the schedules for the class
I chose this design because this looks very close to a blurred photo of what cranfield actually looks like, lot of apple trees (with tasty apples too), lush green fields all around the place and a calm countryside. The road in the middle also looks a close resemblance to the runway that we have here.
Thanks for Reading, the next post will summarise my pre-mba experience and then on to the orientation week. At the moment I think I will make this a weekly exercise so that there is enough information for a post and also I will have time on a Saturday/Sunday to do this without affecting any of the schedules for the class
I chose this design because this looks very close to a blurred photo of what cranfield actually looks like, lot of apple trees (with tasty apples too), lush green fields all around the place and a calm countryside. The road in the middle also looks a close resemblance to the runway that we have here.
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