Teaching is done... now waiting for an official close

Well teaching part... capstone is around the corner, just 30 minutes from now.  Capstone is a academic-year-completing event which, like many events in the MBA is completely organised by students.  A few of our colleagues have completely burnt out a lot of their time to get this in order.

Last week, we had our "final" MBA cricket match, which unfortunately we lost, we did not have some of the key bowlers playing this match, but then its a game and we lost it.

We had a great session of Key account management from one of our emeritus professors, Prof. Malcolm McDonald, who was simply great in condensing an entire course into one hour.  Someone considering key account management as a career choice would have really made a lot of pointers for interviews and for future work during that session.

We also had a presentation from another Entrepreneurial Alumni, Robert Wright, who had, during his career founded or co-founded three companies in the airline industry.  It is overwhelmingly encouraging to see such people, especially when they are so down to earth in their presentations and approach.  I was personally impressed with the way in which he explained the various aspects of entrepreneurship and leadership which made him what he is today, certainly someone to get inspired from.

We continued our efforts on our venture, which is progressing along very well, next week will also witness another milestone with the name and other such "formation" decision to be taken on Friday this week.  I am so happy that this happened to me as this future venture has changed the direction of not just my post-MBA career, but my entire life.  Let us hope that things get better in the coming few weeks.

An edit : I think its extremely important to add the leadership exercise that we did last week not just the task and the learning but also the feedback session, after an year in the MBA that was the best feedback I got very succinct and clear it really helped me modify my actions in the future

The Final Week of Lectures

Well, if you are one among the students not taking leadership elective, your MBA teaching is already over, leadership has one more week to go.

Last week had been filled with Innovation lectures (12 of them in total) we had a great simulation which was fun and filled with learning.  I personally learnt a lot once again about my personality and how it should work in a new product development environment.  These simulations, they seem meaningless if you think of their academic purpose, but in real life when you are in a situation similar to the simulation itself, one can go back to "experiences" rather than "theories", so I think its an excellent method of teaching.

We also had the last exam for Risk Management course and I think that was a cakewalk for most of us.  The syllabus was narrow and the teaching was clear, so no negative surprises in them.  We are also coming to a stage where we know what to expect in an open book exam, and people are very well prepared for that.

From the other side of Cranfield, I got the "Best Table Topic" award in Toastmasters, like they say "Success is counted the sweetest by those who have never succeeded", I personally felt this format is something I had been uncomfortable with in the beginning and now I am getting around it and starting to perform.  This behaviour itself is kind of a pattern that repeats itself again and again with me not just in the MBA but anywhere in life and identifying such patterns is important as well.

We have many things to look forward to, but specifically next week is full of leadership final sessions and then the capstone event.  We may get some sports in between, which is something to look forward to.  Lets hope for the best.

The Regatta

From the previous post header, you could have easily guessed as to what this post is all about.  Yes, the Cranfield Regatta, the thing that makes me feel a bit shaky even now after the race.  Last 48 hours of our life was spent in a boat, well not any ordinary boat in a F40 (http://www.sunsail.co.uk/files/SS_NW_F40_043_0.jpg).  

It was really great fun, especially on the day 2 when we started finishing races very consistently.  We came 7,10,8,2 in four races making us the sixth team in the overall regatta and second in Cranfield.  The team that came first from Cranfield was an unexpected winner, finishing with 10 points, just 2 short of the first.

Its all about racing, and getting your hands rough with all the rope. I personally cut it in two places with the entire 10 fingers completely sore now.  I think I have developed a taste for sailing now, but this being such a costly sport I might not do it in the future.

The interesting lessons we learnt from the sailing are... leadership is really important... one can fail inspite of good leadership, but generally that does not happen, and in case if the leaders are bad, then there is no chance of winning.  I am not sure if I can apply this entirely to the business world, but I guess it would not be unfair to say that the situation is not very different.  Many of the Cranfield boats came really low in the ranking, and most of them had to say that this was because of the leader lacking a vision to win.

We had an excellent team,and the skipper was a superb guy (Paul) and we had a second sailer (Mark) assisting us with the sail.  He loved sailing and he put in his 100% effort but then he has not been sailing for the past few years and so we were happy with the sixth position.  I guess with a little bit of luck in the first race in which we came 19th (and actually dropped that from our score due to 1 race elimination rule).  As with many things in the MBA, I guess I and my team once again learnt to perfect this game at the end of the game.

Really tiring weekend though, I am writing this off just to make sure I complete each and every detail.  Will never forget this weekend in my life.

The week before Regatta

Well, a better description might be the well before the penultimate week... :) with this entire chapter coming to an end very very soon.

To focus on the period that just went by (just over a week), we were engaged completely in our independent project to create a business.  The plan came along very well, we presented it to the third partner from outside our program and he was happy.  We have now worked out how to go about implementing the plan, the next bit is to find an investor, which we are working hard now.

Other interesting things in this week were the last sessions of Advanced Negotiation, the feedback session with the school and a dinner with the Toastmasters club with our club chartering today.  Advanced negotiation is a very interesting subject recently introduced in Cranfield and attracts the most number of sessions among electives, this has really equipped us with all the necessary tools to be better at commercial negotiations.

The feedback session was interesting to say the least.  There were multiple positive and negative feedback given about the program, and as usual it ended with a promise that we will get back to you with specific actions taken in response to the feedback.  I specifically prepared to give a feedback about the way there is a very hard communication barrier between the batches here at Cranfield, being a one year program, there is little chance to interact with other years, and sometimes learning few things in Cranfield becomes similar to reinventing the wheel.  I proposed a digital forum internal to Cranfield which can act as a bridge between years.  Even if there is no action taken from the School on this, I think there will be some progress in this direction in forums like linkedin.

Toastmasters is a club that I recently joined to become a better communicator and since joining the club, I have picked up many positive points about communication and leadership.  I hope to continue this far beyond the MBA program itself.

Looking forward to a weekend filled with fun over the Regatta event.  

The Busy Term 4

Well, I have been so engrossed with my Independent Project these days that writing this entry has been skipped once.  Everyone in the school is in a different mood, some searching for a job, some already found one.  Some feeling that this whole episode is going to end and feeling not so happy about that and many other types.

The unique thing about our project is that there is a chance of this getting converted into a venture and that would mean no job search :).  We have a meeting to finalise this on the 15th of this month (that Is 4 days from now) and needless to say we are looking forward to it.  If that meeting is successful my dream of starting a business straight after MBA would come true.  We are trying hard, and making relevant connections to live this dream already.  We also had a trip to CUBIC (Cranfield University Business Incubation Centre), a facility where we students at Cranfield could locate our office for free (initially) and run a business immediately after the course or any time in the future.

We had a nice trip to London from the school as part of "Blue Stream Goes to London", well this was a long overdue trip, but as it happened it was fun.  We went to the Greenwich meridian, where time starts :).  A different feeling came about when I realised I had crossed 0 degree latitude (equator) and longitude (Greenwich) in a space of about 3 months.

We had lot of fun activities during last week including "Cranstock" which was a music night where our director of the school and director of the full time MBA played their songs.  These people were good and we enjoyed the night out together to the full.

Term 4 Begins

This week, after all our IBEs marked the beginning of the last lap of our MBA.  The very feeling that this whole thing is going to be over in about 1-2 months brings various emotions including sadness about the thing coming to an end, scare about jobs and careers after MBA etc. 

The week began with introduction to various subjects that I am attending, due to various reasons, I had to take classes other than the one I was scheduled to take this week.  We will have to form teams in the next week for leadership elective. 

The subjects in this term are not just interesting, but are designed to be a great addition to our skills.  Advanced Negotiation, Leadership are generic courses attracting many students and Managing Innovation is a bit on the side where I would be interested in going.

My feelings are mixed about the end, I used to carry a feeling that I have missed a lot in terms of learning, but as introduced during our negotiation classes, the peer learning (learning from co-students) and Process Learning (Learning from the process of learning the MBA :) ) are high on my side, even though I might have something to say about my content learning (learning from the course itself).  Thinking back, I guess the main aim of doing an MBA itself was not towards getting to be an expert so I guess this pattern is ok.

I have to work hard on assignments which are all going to come on our priority shortly.  I am also happy that I am completing this blog entry on a Sunday morning.

The International Business Experience

Ten (or even eleven) of the fourteen days in between the previous blog entry and this were spent on the International Business Week (IBE - #IBE2011 on twitter), so this entry is going to be about that.

IBE as it is shortly called is about a week long (excluding travel and setlling down) trip to a country other than UK and your own to learn about how business is done there.  There are many countries that Cranfield takes its full time and part time students to in groups like China, USA, Japan, Brazil, South Africa, Chile, Cuba, Ghana and a few others.  There are two themes, the first being a formal trip to a country of your choice, including educational institutions, Companies of interest and other cultural activities that might help in understanding the country better.  The second theme is the field trip, where an NGO works with Cranfield to take a few students in an activity of interest to the society, this trip is supposedly less comfortable and involves working closely with a social objective.

This year, fortunately we had the addition of Challenges Worldwide to the list of Field Trips.  Challenges worldwide requested students to go to five different companies in a space of five days and get information about the operations of the company in detail, so as to measure if there is a need and opportunity to help them prosper and serve the society better.

My personal choice of destination was Uganda, being a country in Africa, and a relatively unknown culture, it attracted me a lot.  I did not realise the many connections that I might develop with the country by the end of the trip.

Our trip was the longest planned (even though the South African group was delayed due to a flight cancellation and could have become the longest) trip amongst the IBE, starting with the Friday and ending on the next Monday.  

The trip itself was exciting and interesting, we learnt a lot about how business is done in Uganda.  Travelling to the North, East and West of the country, we found the country to be filled with lush green forests and vegetation.  Our primary stay was in the Southern Capital city of Kampala, and our only southern travel was to Entebbe, where the airport lies just metres away from the Victoria Lake.

Agriculture is the primary industry and there is a lot of room towards improvement of productivity.  We were treated to green everywhere, remarkably I did not witness a single dry patch of land, that is typical in India (My home country).  This was one of the unknown feelings I had about Africa as a dry land (which obviously is not based on facts but just talk about dry Sahara and Poverty) which were completely erased from my mind.  I now feel and see a possibility of Africa being the Food Capital of the world some day in the future.

The one strange commonality in most of the Ugandan businesses that we met is that there is a Foreign element to the leadership, even though we did meet a few businesses completely owned and operated by Ugandans, most of the businesses had a foreign ownership.  Indians are the biggest number of Expats in Uganda, and Ugandan businesses are more than fairly represented by Indian Ownership.  In fact history says that this Indian domination of businesses actually led to Idi Amin chasing all Asians out of Uganda, but a few chose to return and do business in Uganda.  The presence of Indians all around made me feel as if this is just another Indian state.  Personally for me, doing business in Uganda has become one of the options of livelihood :), I know this might sound untrue for the very near future, but a very real option that I might explore again in a few  years.

We travelled to Jinja, where we saw the source of river Nile (the longest river in the world at the time of writing).  It was a great experience, seeing the calm and a bit more violent form of Nile in various places in Jinja.

We also travelled to a place near Hoima district, close to the DRC border.  We also travelled to the Equator, where we saw a demonstration of how magnetic forces work in different hemispheres of earth (even though later I learnt that it was FAKE).  Regardless of the experiment, this was the only time I had ever been to Southern Hemisphere till date, and so I was happy.

We were treated extremely well by our host, from African Agricultural Capital, an NGO working in Uganda and East Africa for reasons obvious from its name.  We visited five organisations working in various sectors like Seeds, Honey, Travel and an NGO trying to help various projects in Uganda.  We got treated to delicious Indian food throughout the trip and we also did not miss the opportunity to taste the local Matoke (which is Boiled Banana in various forms).  The travel company that arranged for a great driver to accompany us throughout our travel, I would say were excellent in service at the least.  The hotel that we were accommodated was called City Royal Resort Hotel, Bugolobi, Kampala.  I would say its a decent place to stay, but then we found during our stay that there are cheaper places closer to the city.

We also got introduced to an Indian Entrepreneur with whom we could connect through my only other travel partner to the country.  He treated us with utmost respect and friendliness, a level of friendliness which made us feel completely overwhelmed.  We also visited his hospital and pharmacy and I personally felt inspired by the simplicity, soft spoken nature and the astonishing success that he has had.  I think he is a man of his own making and so his statement "Dont Cheat Others and leave the rest to god, he will take you to success" seems very relevant to me.

While I am very happy that I chose Uganda, being such a different experience, I still wonder why this country has not yet prospered.  This also makes me think if the IMD research into why countries are successful (more because of systems than resources) is being proved out there in Uganda.  I feel that there are far too many Casinos, Bars and Evidences of free sex for my liking.  I also feel that the positive effect that Indian laws, restricting or prohibiting these, have had on Indian society are immense.  

Term Three ends

This week we had the official close of term 3 lectures, atleast for me it was a real close too, with only entrepreneurship presentation remaining.  The next week would be spent in Uganda, the most exciting week of MBA I guess with a completely different experience from whatever I have had till today.

Progress, even though informal was made in both my entrepreneurship projects, and after a really long time I played cricket with me opening the bowling for our MBA team, even though I would not boast of the performance, I was happy that I played, in some unknown way it was a very satisfying event.

People have just started talking about the next batch, life after Cranfield and such things more than the MBA itself, many of my classmates have started getting jobs that is a happy news and an encouraging sign for many including me, even though I am not planning to compete for a job, having the group placed at the earliest is always good.  By end of June things on both entrepreneurship initiatives would look more clear.

Another important event that happened during the past week is the European Business Plan of the year contest, which included teams from all over Europe and Hurrah... Cranfield team won, this is the first time that a Cranfield team is winning this competition and I am happy to have seen that fully.  I also observed their presentation and found their commitment and passion winning over many other technologically advanced and probably even more commercially sensible teams.  I learnt a lot about how VCs filter the requests that they receive.  We also had an informal video chat with a VC who threw in his practical views about this.

Already looking forward to term 4 after the IBE. 

Aspiring Entrepreneurship and Cricket

I did not even realise that I had missed the last week's post, this is how busy it is turning out to be... ironical when compared with many of my friends as they are saying its getting easier, probably its because its coming to the practical end where we need to find jobs and so the courses are becoming light and since I am pursuing my independent project with utmost importance its going tighter for me.

To summarise, we had our presentation with Gary during this gap - to which this post belongs ;) and he was very impressed with our presentation.  We had put in great effort in the presentation and so we were happy that its given fruits.  Now the hard work is to make a solid business plan and second presentation to impress Gary again and this time the VCs and Angels as well.

The aspiring entrepreneurs day in between at the Shrivenham campus also was a good experience in terms of what VCs expect etc.  Our ENT project on a chicken shop also went well with most of our audience giving a good feedback about the event and the food.

MCL has just got over, Cranfield lost :( due to rain... well... the story is a bit longer than that... we were one of the best teams of MCL and everyone knew it.  However since we had to play indoor due to rain, luck came into picture and none of us were really prepared for softball cricket whereas the other team that we played had really prepared well for that.

Entrepreneurship looks very attractive now, I am really realising many weaknesses in me and trying to find people who can complement such strengths, whenever those are weaknesses that I cannot change in the short term.  I think from the way it is going, that things are working out fine.  God willing things will get better and we will have a successful Enterprise by the end of next year.

Venture Day and the MBAT that did not happen

With my previous posts, one would not be very wrong in assuming that I would have travelled to the MBAT to participate in the tournament, however as fate would have it, it proved both physically and economically non-viable to attend the MBAT, I did not travel to the tournament a very sad thing but then life is always unfair :).

What I did attend as a result was venture day, which is an annual entrepreneurship event.  This was in some ways an eye opener for me.  Two opposition party MPs sitting next to each other and addressing a crowd about a common social issue with dignity and respect for each other was a surprise, but thats how it is done in the UK. Something  politicians from my country can learn from.  The events were arranged with an young entrepreneur in mind and not a student, so initially I had difficulties in understanding the event and making the most of it, but later on, the idea set in and I began to make complete sense of the event and enjoyed it.

I and a few of my classmates were volunteers for this event which meant we also got the credit :) for organising it, even though most of the work was done by two ladies from the Bethany Centre for Entrepreneurship.  Looking forward to working with the same team for EBPYC (European Business Plan of the Year Competition).  This is the last year that EBPYC would be hosted by Cranfield and so its a nice chance to see it being hosted here.

Our lessons moved along slowly, but on the sports side our team (MBA cricket team in which I am a part of) defeated the Cranfield University cricket team in an event last Sunday, this was a great starter before the MCL (MBA Cricket League) tournament, which would happen towards the end of this month.  We also finalised the presentation for the first stage of our independent project and would present it to the project sponsor by next week.

Life is getting busier, clearer and calmer I should say day by day.

Inaction - Productivity Loss - Calm before Storm Phase

This seems to be a common trend in Cranfield, there would be two or three weeks of no activity, then two or three weeks of tension, to complete the assignments and then two or three weeks of exams, now that makes a term.

Last week was a truly boring week with two classes and one of them being an audit for me.

Significant activities are our progress towards entrepreneurship project.  We are also progressing very well along our independent project.  My computer crashed mid way during the week and that put a lot of plans to the side, being busy with data recovery.

Challenges Worldwide, the field trip for our IBE conducted their training and a related CMCE training this weekend, the training was truly useful not only for the assignment but as a very good learning towards a social entrepreneurship career.  

The Sandwich Holiday Week

Well, the topic just came to my mind when I though about something unique for this week, we had the Easter weekend to begin with and the royal wedding weekend at the end, leaving just 3 working days and 2 days of classes, next week would be the same as well, so its all going sluggishly at the moment.

Cricket practices, an outing to ISKCON temple, a weekend potluck party all were memorable events of this week, but there is nothing academic about it.  The implementing change and entrepreneurship lectures that we had were interesting, but I guess the holiday mood continued during the week too.

This is somehow a trend, a slowish few weeks and then suddenly things pick up, this term especially would be much busier with lot of subjects primarily concentrating on assignments rather than exams.

Next weekend would be really busy as I have two days training for the IBE (International Business Experience). Challenges worldwide is conducting a training on this, we also have to make some preparations for the training, as it nears the trip to Uganda is looking really exciting. 


Next week is also expected to be significant as I am expecting to take an important interview, I am sure a reject would not be the end of the road, but certainly a success would keep the mood good.  I also need to assess if the role would actually fit my expectations, lets see.

Our project is taking off slowly but steadily, we are collecting data pertaining to the market and the demographics of the industry from databases, contacts and all sources we know, there would be an interim meeting in this month end, we hope to make an impressive presentation there too.

The changes the MBA program would make in me are slightly visible these days, with a bit of modulation in my behavior and thought processes, I hope that the process ends well by the end of the year.

Lots of hopes :) in this post, but hopes make life interesting isnt it?

Second Week of Term 3

There were some significant events last week, I should not have left it till Tuesday, but here we are, late but since the next week has not yet started due to a really long weekend, I guess its fine.

The first event of importance last week was the meeting with an entrepreneur about my independent project.  This alumni has been running a traditional cardboard based games company for some time (20 years) and wants to start off a tech version, i.e. mobile apps for the same games.  The idea is so exciting that I can see a real possibility of a career in this area soon after my MBA.  Me and my colleague working on this idea have been wanting to work on a project together for some time now and the entrepreneur selected us both, so things seem to be falling in place.

The SOAR report completion deadline was also on Thursday, I completed it on Thursday, this report was very useful in terms of re-focussing on why we came here and taking on some specific goals for the rest of the MBA and beyond.  Even though I personally felt that the need to refer back to OBPPD learning aids like Qoits to be a bit restrictive, I think these are needed to provide some guidelines regarding the structure of the report.

We have formed our teams for Entrepreneurship, I am still looking to form a team for my Implementing change elective, may be next week this would be finalised as well.  Forming teams informally does not seem to be as good an idea as it seemed, being popular is important :).

Another development last week was my involvement in the cricket team, even though I initially thought the chances of me playing to be slim, I have just decided to give it a try, put in my best efforts and play in the team if I am performing well by the time MCL (MBA cricket league - a tournament organised by Cranfield MBAs every year of MBA teams around UK) happens.

Third Term Begins

Well, if you consider the midpoint of the MBA in terms of calendar, it is certainly behind us. 

Classes for the first week were very busy with all the electives (almost all, but certainly all that I attend) having a session, I have chosen Entrepreneurship and Implementing Change, which are really both to do with soft skills.  International Strategy is something I have chosen to Audit (a term used to just sit in class and not take the exam in Cranfield), however if my project plans go normally, then I will take exams in IST and do an audit of Leadership in term 4, these are plans. 

This week we had a very interesting lecture on Politics as part of Implementing change, this lecture I think is one of the best that I have had in this course, an orchestration of the opinions in the class in such fine fashion that we never realised that it was a taught lecture.  I am looking forward to more of these.

We also got a rank list :) even with a dismal second term performance, I am still in the top 1/3rd (at the bottom of the top 1/3 list though), which somehow made me happy, even though I am not chasing any top ranks.  I think with my commitment for term 3 and 4, this rank can only go higher.  

We also had Entrepreneurship which has started in a fine fashion and International strategy kicking off this week on a fine note.  The next few weeks would be a bit more free, looking forward to spending that time usefully as well. 

The Second Term Break

This is the first post that I am delaying by a week, in fact this is the first post that covers two weeks.

The gist of this post is a trip to Turkey.  It was a wonderful experience of a mixed culture, a perfect (or is it) mixture of Arabic and European culture.  I also discovered a few key parts of my personality, which some may say is very late.  I enjoyed visiting natural beauty much much more than architectural grandeur.  At-least this gave me a theme for future trips if not anything else.  However earlier, when I had visited Paris, I also enjoyed the Eiffel tower and Louvre Museum, so may be the fact that Turkish beauty has largely been damaged...

Other than that the trip had its own share of issues and problems, which taught me a few facts about my personality and team work.  I also feel that my personal mental capability is no longer as good as it was in the past.  I need to factor in this when I take up any new activities, starting may be with the term 3, when I will be much more attentive in class, not believing on my mental ability and also in future learning and entrepreneurial activities.

Played cricket in Cranfield after a long time and again felt the same about my physical abilities.  I have to restart my yoga practises to get some lost confidence back.

I think this post would be filled with personal thoughts if I keep writing, so let me finish by saying, all these would lead to a hard-working term 3.

Term 2 Exams and Challenges

This week we had term 2 exams, the common feeling was that people were less prepared than term 1, with the exception of PMAN, every other subject had some twists that the students did not expect.  As far me, I did pretty well, considering the amount of preparation that I had prior to the exam.  I think I might score near average (still a pinch below though) in all the subjects.

The lesson learnt from this week's exams and the marks that I have obtained is that, they are not completely random, it has some correlation with the amount of effort put in during a term.  I think my efforts in term 1 were higher than my own effort in term 2, and that I think is the only reliable way of measuring this relationship.

We are flying to turkey during next week, and may be I might miss a weekly update for the first time, in case if I am not able to make a weekly entry, I will try and make it on the 7th, when we return as the week is going to be filled with fun activities.

Now comes the challenge, this week for the first time, I had a serious challenge in my MBA, we had some confusion over travel to MBAT and since I had arranged for a Flight travel and a reimbursement, many students, although not in a very mature manner, pointed fingers at me as to why I decided to be different, even though I was thrown off for a few moments, a few clarifying words and encouraging words from friends made me feel better.  I did reply, though not very strongly, with my responses, I think its arrogance to say the least to not accept the fact that there is a difficulty and all this argument is for 20£ per head (max) of additional inconvenience to avoid more than half of us spending 100£ extra.  Let us see how things shape up.  I am going to deal with this pro-actively, even if it means taking some hard decisions.  As long as there is no personal finger-pointing (which did happen last week in some cases), I am happy with the results.

The Approach towards MBA

This is an interim post, this is not associated with any week, and I think as a "Diary" for myself this post is important to myself and any student that might take the Cranfield MBA who has an outlook like me.

Throughout term 1, I had a feeling that the subjects were necessarily a repetition of what I had learnt in may of the courses that I had taken earlier and also term 2, was half prepared... in the sense that I had read about 5 forces and about NPVs and IRRs, this post however is slightly pessimistic about taking that approach, I think this is a mistake that I have done in this MBA, this not only denied me an opportunity to learn these stuff from top-of the world faculty but also denied me an opportunity to learn stuff that was built around it, I mean areas that were not part of any academic program that I had attended, I know it sounds irresponsible, but thats the way it is, sitting here preparing for term 2 exams I feel that I missed a lot of academic content.

Another point of view about this missing "action" is that in teams that I participated, my role was just muted, and in term 2 many of our team members had a similar thought process and I think we shaped the team work very individualistically to say the least.

I think term 3 and 4 provide me an opportunity to make up, but for me, if I were to do the MBA back again, I will do it much more seriously if not for the learning, just for the sake of it.  I think recording this is important now to reconcile where I stand at the end of this year.  I hope I will make myself proud by saying that I put in 100% into each of the subjects that I learnt.  Be competitive, it does not hurt... and make sure it does not hurt others... that I think is the other extreme... of being self learning focussed and damage others' learning... 

Review week, Exam Preparation and Charity Auction

This week proved to be a busy week.  All the subjects which had exams had a review session and two other subjects, the IT and Business Law kept us busy in their reports.

There was another important event that happened, the charity auction to support Marathon runners.  This is a special event that is held every year to auction dinner with faculties and other such items, some of them tangible like the directors' tie set.  It was an interesting evening with prices of dinners reaching over 1000 pounds (for six people) in some cases.

The review sessions made me feel a bit low, I realised how under-prepared for the exams and how much I have missed the subjects in Term 2, basically because I took them too light.  I also realised its part due to my arrogance towards studying.  I think this is a big learning, and one of my stated objectives of my MBA was to become a better student, I think I am half way there (quite literally too in the MBA).   The next half will have to be spent implementing the learning.

We, a group of four including my wife, also booked up a trip to Turkey during the term 2-3 break.  Given the fact that we are visiting Paris for MBAT and then the next month I will be visiting Uganda for an educational trip, I will now be seeing a mid-point culture, between Asia, Africa and Europe.  I think these three trips (two of them for the first time), would certainly add to my overall learning in the MBA.

This post has to be short :) I have to start implementing my plans for studies... 

Busy week ahead of Term close, SOAR introduction

Yes, the title is not without its intentions, the only way I can summarise the previous week was that it was really busy.  We had to submit the Strategy Presentation, People Management presentation and also our Business Law assignment which is due on Monday (tomorrow, well today as I am writing this entry late).

So much of activity as the term is coming to an end, a term, which I think I took too lightly, which in itself has been a lesson too.  I think taking the subjects seriously is absolutely crucial for a good MBA experience, and I am going to do that in term 3, in fact I have even set a personal target to put in 100% effort and try to top the IRM paper, which is part of Term 4.  At the face of it this goal seems to be far away from other goals of the MBA, however since I want to pull myself up to a harsh next few months, to get into my own business, this might be a good time to start off.

We also had an introduction to the SOAR 1 report, which is part of term 3, and is considered part of the OBPPD subject that we have.  We had a looooong introduction to the subject and the report, in which we were told the importance of the report and its usefulness, we were also given a short glimpse as to how one can go about preparing that report.

Term 2 exams are nearing, and as I havent done as good as term 1 in the reports, I have to spend more time on the exams.  I think this is important from a clean record perspective, as I dont want to fail in any of the subjects.  Term 2 has largely been dominated by work commitments that we had and even though I would take the commitments into term 3 & 4 and even after the MBA, I have to keep it to time limits to run with other parts of life.

Looks like we will go to Turkey for a term 2 break trip.  This is not a very good thing considering my original plans were to go to Italy, and could not happen due to VISA issues, I am not yet 100% sure of where I would go, but certainly I would like to go to some place outside the UK and concentrate on tourism, as European tourism is a good option. 

Last Core WAC, Preview Day, Recruitments and Midway through

Got this strange feeling that this MBA is 50% done, well... it did not feel as if it flew but when I think about it, I think I have lived it all, no regrets for it having gone so fast...

We had the last WAC of the Core course, the Global Macro Economics WAC.  This is a WAC on a country of your choice, basically the choice is made when we decide to go for the International Business Experience.  This is a nice way to get a good introduction of the country you want to visit.  Personally I got a good introduction to Uganda, I think now visiting the place would be much more useful and even fun.

I also had volunteered to talk about the MBA to some of the prospective admits into Cranfield next year.  I think I gave a fair view of the MBA, and even though I personally felt that the candidate (an Indian Married Female) was not serious about Cranfield, I gave a fair and true view of the course.  Felt good to have an outside view of the course mid way through.

We had an Amazon presenting at our college for recruitment and also KPMG, the positions are good for a slightly less experienced person than me, but I think when I attended those presentations, I could clearly see that while my perspective towards the job has changed, I still have a long way to go in terms of perceptions that I have created around me, the technical view of things..

I also missed a party, I think I will attend more parties just to have a change around perceptions and also my view of the world :).

I also changed my passport during this week, and it was a nice one day experience, even though it cost me £ 100 extra, I think India has come a long way from the time I applied for the passport first time, when the earliest you could get a passport even in Tatkal was about 30 days.   

MIT, Strategy... but... is it time to look back and relfect

This week, well we handed in the MIT presentation, did the interim Strategy presentation and that was a big chunk of the team work we are supposed to do this term.  Since the PMI and Fin WAC are also completed, most of the team work that is required is completed.  OSC results were out and they were poor as expected, the exams were conducted two weeks after the other exams and that shows in the results.

The MIT presentation and to an extent the strategy presentation is about making use of the tools that we have learnt with the specific case that we have taken in perspective, having different teams working on different companies allows us to have a complete understanding of these tools, and that is part of the learning.

Let me throw in my piece, we are doing Google adwords as the choice of MIT strategy presentation, and working with it, I see that the PUV matrix wont support an Auction based pricing model, where the firm does not set the price, if someone told me this, I would not have had the level of understanding as trying to do it and failing at it.  Its also easy to get the buyer and supplier confused in the case of five forces model, as in Google, the person making the Ads is the buyer and the Publisher is the supplier from the looks of it, but what role does the surfer play, they see the ads, and certainly they are customers as well.  Very interesting in our case and in many cases.  I now appreciate a model of MBA where there is one Classroom session, one Team working session, one Case Study session and one presentation, it makes it an all round learning exercise.  Cranfield I think does a good job at this mixture, every time.  Most of the improvements that I see can be done are around the course, not in the course itself, which I think is at a level higher than what the rankings or the brand name would suggest.

We also completed a couple of important milestones in terms of the course, we have to complete the selection of electives next week (tomorrow in fact).

There are two types of electives from the credits perspective

1. Full Electives (20 Credits)
2. Half Electives (10 credits :) obviously)

Then there is a subtler way of dividing them into hard subjects and touchy feely subjects, I am choosing almost all the touchy feely subjects, as it makes you think more, and nothing is black and white, black and white stuff can be learnt from anywhere in my eyes, not the touchy feely subjects for which you need the class' perspective to have a good learning.

I think Cranfield makes the selection of electives more of a secret, which is not something I consider as correct, there is nothing to be secretive about it.  I think overall given the constraints of arranging the course, an earlier decision regarding electives helps everyone, again this is one of those things that I think needs to change around the course.

In terms of academic learning, I think we are at the half way point, given the fact that most of the electives would be taught in smaller groups and is kind of light-weight.  I have learnt a lot till now, looking forward to the future as well, but largely what I have learnt is that knowing stuff can only get you till a point, knowing how people behave is important.  This is even more true to me because I always think differently and even though it seems fashionable, being different means many times you will be terribly wrong and people will think that you are a fool :).

Most of my life (in terms of time) now is revolving around the freelancing work that me and Shiny are doing, I think this is important to keep us going after the MBA and I feel it is a nice income now too.  My business plans are also taking shape, many plans around education and schools.  I think thats the way to go, let me see how things shape up.

Fun, WAC and Food

Its always fun to work as a group, especially if you win, this week we celebrated a victory over the other streams in an inter-stream fun competition.  Strange feeling as I have been in the winning team in both terms (red stream in first term and Blue stream in the second), we have to take a Sunday off to enjoy at London, which was the prize, looking forward to it.

We also had a small dinner, this time with a complete south Indian menu with the table tennis team, it was full fun that day too.  I also got my new bat for table tennis, which is suiting my game very well and I think I will make good progress in my game with that and the advices I am getting from people.

We also got the results of the Assessment centre, while the 360 degree feedback was almost along expected lines, I am happy to have improved on some team working skills.  Some of the feedback provided was also helpful to me, and I expect these skills to stay on and improve.

One activity I planned for this week, but never happened was the passport, I need to renew it soon the get a Schengen visa for the Easter break trip.  I hope I do it in the next week.

We had our first WAC of the term, the financial management, I enjoyed working on the numbers, even though  I was very rusty to start with.  Overall I am not very happy with my WAC, but then these are things you get over with and be happy rather than worrying about producing a masterpiece.

Sinchan, one of my close friends in the cohort is going through a tough time in his life with a broken leg and related hospitalisation issues, I felt like someone took me four years back when I initially thought that it was the worst time of my life, I think the progress I have made from that point is significant, in every direction.  I hope he comes out with even better positives.

The subjects in term 2, the general mood of students towards learning have all changed, results are flowing thick and I just passed Statistics, which is remarkably the only subject I scored below 60.  I think I am one of the students who has scored at about average, and since I am not aiming for any academic mastery, I am very happy with those results.  Operations and Project Management results would be out next week too.

People are also busy choosing electives, at this stage, I am not very clear but next week I have to decide on the electives, I am planning to go for touchy feely stuff, rather than hard subjects, the only expected exception would be Investment and Risk Management, which is one thing I want to consolidate my knowledge on.

A relatively free week coming up, term two is 50% done, even though friends say this one year would fly, I think I am enjoying every bit of it.  Hope my business plans are suitably supported by god and I come out with a solid business idea by the end of the year.

Assesment Centre, Presentation Skills and a Relaxed Week

This week has been primarily a week of relaxed activities, the lectures had been restricted to the first two days of the week, after which we had the assessment centre and Presentation Skills lecture, which basically was to prepare us for the Press Conference that we would have in the a few weeks.

One memorable event was that we had our Term 1 team dinner together with our learning team tutor, which is another important part of the Cranfield team development environment, in which the tutor hosts a dinner for us, we went to the Swan in Salford and had a nice dinner.  We also had an useful and enjoyable interaction with John Glenn.

The assessment centre itself was a good experience, and even though there are parts which one might feel as not very useful, the whole scheme of things are so close to reality that, it is a rare opportunity for students to get exposed to without the risk of either getting or not getting a job.

Another interesting event of the week (or more to come) was that we had a Venture capitalist presentation being done in Cambridge University, broadcast live and we benefited a lot from the practical insights of the VCs present there.

There are recruitment presentations and events happening, I am not very seriously participating in them, but I think I will make some job applications after this MBA, primarily to test my newfound skills and their practical use, and never know may work for some time if everything works...

!!!OXTLML!!!

Another busy week

Well, the topic says it all, even though this week was packed in terms of schedule, there is not one superstar event.  A couple of touching experiences and a few things moving forward.

First of all, we had a good presentation by an entrepreneur, who started and sold Coffee Nation come and talk to us about his experiences.  There is an interesting project that he offered to the students, even though I think its interesting, I am not sure if I will do that.  The VCIC results were announced after that, and as expected, we lost.

During the week, it was almost confirmed to us that we (me and Basheer) would be going to Uganda, for our field trip, I was initially a bit unhappy, but on a second thought, I think its better than many places and Africa was always something I wanted to see, so no regrets, I think we will have a great time there.

I spent a lot of time deciding on a new Table Tennis blade and set of rubbers, as I had broken my old one.  I bought a costly bat at the end, even though I did not enjoy the money outflow, I think I will enjoy the bat and have some fun with it, especially in the MBAT.

We also had a second meeting with a slightly larger group of people, about the MBA oath project, and I think we are steadily moving towards a larger group of people who are willing to sign the oath, personally and as a leader of the net-impact group, it will be a good success. Lets see how things go.

Then we had the best lecture of the week... well thats an understatement, it was the best lecture I have ever had in a subject called people management, not only the topic (SEMCO, Mexico) interesting, the lecturer made it like an orchestra, he had a framework to work with, but he got the ideas from us, it was like he brought in the class's experience and viewpoints out to the table so easily, I was a bit pessimistic about this lecture for no good reason about the subject, but I loved it and this is going to continue for one more day on Monday, everyone will surely enjoy it.

Then on the Sunday (today) we watched the movie Tuesday with Morrie, a wonderful movie, probably set very aptly for me.  It made me cry, and yes after a long long time I cried and did not want to hide the fact that I cried, the movie was wonderful, do watch it in case if you get a chance.  

The Busy Yet Fun Week

This week truly deserves more than one post, but then I will try and put it in one to keep some uniformity

There are many events in this week

1. The VCIC First Round

2. The CMA awards

3. The Burns Night 

4. International Week, Microfinance Talk and Ohters

VCIC (Venture Capitalist Investment Competition) is a competition held every year among MBAs to actually be the venture capitalist and evaluate investments in any firm.  We form teams of five members, and to start off I was very impressed with the entrepreneurship professor bringing a real business even for the internal competition at Cranfield.  As a team we did well in terms of preparation and answering questions, but we never know the criteria for winning in such competitions and so unless you win, you never know what you did right. 

The CMA awards was an evening at London, where last years award winners were honoured, we had a presentation from an alumni who is the CEO of ARMs holdings, it was a nice place to meet people who did the MBA 25 or 30 years before us in Cranfield, and then you get a feeling that you belong to a nice place.  The ceremony itself was arranged well, in the Royal Institution of London, an impressive place with lots of history.  

Burns Night is an event organised by Cranfield to welcome London Business School every year for some sports and a night of dinner, a primarily student organised event, where we get to play and also mix with some like minded people from the other side.  

Cranfield Rugby team really took this seriously, to the extent that they had Saracen to support them, which is a big achievement in itself, we did put up a great show in many games, but LBS won most of the games, the dinner was good and I met a few interesting people, with whom I believe I will continue to have some contact.

The Big story about burns night is that we won in Table Tennis !!! I cant moderate my emotions here, because I was the captain of the team, even though the team itself was a great team.  In some ways the feeling is of completing a good job because personally I was not the best player, but I am happy that the coordination and efforts paid off.  I am seeing the cup in front of me now and I think this is the first time in my life that I have been a winning sports captain, all through my life, I have been exceptional in games, but never a captain, a happy change and a huge reward to the hard working team.

On other events, it was the international week at Cranfield, personally the Indian day is tomorrow, so its all been observing others to me.  There have been some good stalls from whom I learnt about some countries.  There was a talk about micro finance with particular relevance to India, and I was pleasantly suprised that an ex Cranfield Professor is a board member in Basix.  He talked about the evils of microfinance in particular, which is an interesting inside perspective.  I got some insights, and I enjoyed talking to him after the conference, the one thing he said which I do not probably agree is that the social problems of India is related to the poverty, and without solving them solving poverty is not possible, which I think is not my view I think there is a solution to poverty (with many bright people in India) and there is vested interest not allowing them to progress.

The rest of the week has been normal, and term two is going a bit tighter in terms of schedule than term 1.  All results available till now indicate that I am about the 75th percentile in terms of scores and I am really happy about that, given the fact that I am not putting in a lot of efforts into learning as an activity.

The First Real Week of Second Term

The second term lectures have finally started, with the Operations (Term 1) exam on the first day, I did not do the exam particularly well, but was happy that I could actually talk about some of my previous experiences in the light of the theory that we have been taught.

I got some results, and as usual I am above the average and that is all that I want, basically this is not an academic challenge for me, the MBA is more of a life-changing experience, which in fact is happening in my life. We have the VCIC competition next week, and our team is preparing well towards that.  I am happy on that part.  I also had a good week with a few other things to do in terms of business after MBA.  All that I need to now do is focus on the opportunities at hand and select the path that I would take.

I attended the briefing on the field trip which was arranged by Challenges worldwide, and in fact I was very impressed at the opportunities, some saw it as a data collection exercise, some saw it as an audit, but to me, meeting five entrepreneurs in the social sector, with a reasonably successful (at-least they got to be examined by a multinational NGO, and found fit for further investigation) record in a space of five days and discussing with them their business to date and the future is simply too exciting to resist.  I hope nothing spoils my plans to do this IBE.

I learnt a few new things in Law, which I havent learnt before, primarily because all the law that I had learnt was in India.  I also learnt a few new things about strategy and economics, which are two exciting subjects for this term in addition to financial management, which might be sounding familiar to me, given my background.

Burns night is fast approaching and we did some shopping for the formal dinner dress at London.  My visit to London also allowed me to meet my friend from Mumbai, who was on a short term trip.  I also went around the National Gallery in London, which was very good in terms of richness of its pictures.

Gradually but surely I am moving towards many opportunities (outside being employed) to live after the MBA, which is very very exciting.  I think I am in the right direction, hope God brings me through it...

The Project Week (PMI)

Just one week... its the start of term 2 and then there is so much action, all thanks to PMI.  We had a lot of action in a project where we are supposed to build a warehouse within a given budget.  This is the sixth simulation (counting 4 during pre-MBA- The MiniMax, The Euronet, The Legobridge and The Planks) , 1 during Operations course and this project simulation, this is the most important one because its marked, and its shorter in terms of time in which we perform it, and this is more of a people and planning challenge than a complex project.

There are rules / constraints and probabilities for events, which makes it interesting, the learning should have been (I did not do this) to do this project completely without computers, even though there was some advice from the faculty not to use the computers, I started making something for the cash flow and then started thinking that sheet itself could be used for everything (The trap), which made it a shocker when half way through I find my 28-sheet, all-complex-formulae controlled-by-one-figure-change excel workbook, to be very weak when it came to the real complexities that were thrown in, in the form of change of scope mid-way.  Its not about excel, its just that the time available to you is so short that you cannot build something that can do the job for you.

A little bit on the project itself.  There is a building to be constructed, for which you plan using the tools that are taught in the course, I learnt about earned value management, which is intuitive but needs detailed calculations.  Basically randomness (delays, unexpected breaks, new activities etc) is thrown in to make the project subject to schedule and cost variances.  Its a game and everyone competes.  We ended up making a 4.5% return which was an above average performance.

Interesting to say the least, it occupied more time than any other activity did (in terms of % of daytime spent) on it.  Now its over and we have another exam, the operations exam which was moved from term 1.  Next week the real term 2 would start off.

I met and got to know a bit about my team mates, which was great.  I think as a team we would perform well given the overall composition, I am also happy that this time around I belong to a team representing a wider geography (Korea, India, Nigeria, UK and Russia).  I am now in the Blue stream, and yes it does seem different to be with different sets of people, each interesting in their own ways.

On the personal side, the freelancing journey is continuing at its own pace, I am spending a lot lesser time on it now than during the breaks, but there are a couple of interesting things going on, this is a nice way to develop an UK based network as well.

Shopping from tesco.com has also become an interesting activity once in a while.  Most of my purchases are from the tesco value range, or things that are even cheaper, finding some deals and updating them and optimizing the delivery cost, well... not worth in terms of money but its an interesting activity.

I am slowly but steadily progressing towards going back to India after the MBA for a business, convincing people around and also making solid plans which can be implemented.

The last week of Term 1 Holidays

There was no significance to this last week, no major events, no major changes, nothing week I would say.

This tells me one thing, all the changes that have happened to me in the last three months is actually because of the MBA and not a generic change that is happening in me during this period in my life, these are simple things to realise, but then when there is some solid "experimentation" period like the last week, I think things become very clear.

From now on, we have the classes, the challenges in term 2 are supposed to be tougher than term 1, I am hoping to continue my small freelance work, and largely concentrate on a model to outsource them to India, let me see, if I am successful in that, I already have a sustenance level business which can allow me to explore other business Ideas, I am very exited about that.

As far the freelancing is concerned last week was really busy, in fact had it not been freelancing I would have slept and wasted the week, I hope to balance and carry on with things in the next term.

The New Years Week

Oh well... this week has been very low key except the superb London trip on the new year's day.

The London trip was enjoyable, we went on the London Eye, a major tourist attraction, went to the London Bridge (the tower) and then we got a great view of the fireworks of London in the night.

I also met an interesting person in between the fireworks event.  I learnt a bit about how the transport system works and also a lot of facts about the places that we visited.  Overall an enjoyable week and the trip was great because it was planned in the last moment and executed as if it had been planned for ever.

I hope to make many more trips to london in the coming months, but this will always be remembered for it was on the new year's day.

My freelancing work is also becoming a bit more interesting with a few people wanting me to help them in some interesting work.  My wife is getting busy with completing these works too, which is a nice outcome.

One more week of holidays left before the mad rush begins once again, I hope to have a much better term this time around, in terms of learning.

On a personal note, I was a bit unhappy this week about how my friendship circle is reacting to me... its not their fault, but somewhere I have done something that I thought was right but many did not... anyways repenting of the past isnt the best use of time... so I move along...