Archive for July, 2008

“Profits are a Signal to resources holders where resources are mostly highly values in society”

- Michael R Baye

I think, I was fascinated a lot about Economics before landing here at XL, because of  Tim Harford’s Under Cover Economist. This book was the eye opener for me. And Why I started to say all these, Profits are Signal, we always are in search of becoming a unique from one group and that is a never ending process. When we are in school we would like to go to college which is the best and that gives you an identity, so we would look for “Signals”, like which is the best college to join, based on the “Profits of others”, may be the advantages of the existing students of the college. Once we reach that college do our search stops. That again starts, we would like to make our self Individualize and would want to look for the best company. And the search continues there on…Now I had two question. Are we looking for excellence and perfection ? If So what is that will end this search?.

From Here on I would give my narration of how I ended up in this institute at Jamshedpur . I still remember the first time I read this name of the city during my Social Science class, when I read about the revolution of Jamshedji Tata and Tata Steel. I never thought I would land up in this city and would spend a couple of years in this place.

Doing an MBA was a major aspiration in my life, but I never had a plan to do it after my Graduation. So I ended up working with TCS for the last two years. As I loved Mumbai a lot after a visit during my college days for a South East Asian Rotaract conference at Daman. The packed train I boarded at Dadar was the biggest attraction for me to spend my initial two years of career in Mumbai. So I landed the same way in Mumbai working for TCS.

Joined a Domestic project of TCS, since technology interests me a lot, the big Implementation project for the domestic client was a Huge learning opportunity for me.The best part of it was that it happened so I was able to work with my best friend Pratheeba also in the same project. I had a good mentor, Arun, who taught me the skills required and that really helped me in delivering my work with a sustained high performance. I made some Friends here at TCS, the list I am giving is not exhaustive so I can name a few, Vivek, Charan, Karthi, Gokulan, Niraj, Ram, Prasanna, Rakesh, Chezhian, Archana, Vidya, Anu, Amol, Pulkit, Ashish & POS Team…and the list does not end there…. it goes on. So when I started to work I was not in any idea of doing my MBA in my near future. But it was my Pratheeba who nudged me on my head to remind me of doing it soon. I started my preparations for management entrance exam off late in 2006 in December.

As I never researched on this, I did not have any Idea of what all B schools exist. I was aware of only 2 exams one was the CAT and other was GMAT. I was planning of GMAT. The first day I saw the astronomical fee I need to spend stumped me and that was the end of GMAT story. The next Best option was CAT. So I started my preparations aiming at CAT 2007 from December 2006 by joining TIME  Mumbai.

(Will be Contd… # 2….)

www.gehariharan.com

Today I had some time to look into the new Google labs innovation Lively. The idea looks the same old chat rooms of the past with a only new thing seems to be lot of efforts have been put in the look and feel. 

Lively, the efforts spent on the interface is good but as you can see the time consumption in loading is horrible as they are 3D models. The avatar concepts are not an innovation. So as such I expected quite very new from Google and they have also started to give some look and feel bloated applications usually done by Microsoft. I still love Gmail for its simplicity and Google.com for its elegance and minimalist approach. This lively I feel, at least for now is a waste of time for me. May be for kids its a big time entertainment. But one warning already there are so many Adult only rooms opened. So you need to keep watch if you children are into it.

I am still thinking, whether the match I saw today was the real match and the player was Don of the All England Club. But its a reality. Roger Federer after fighting till the last moment showed me who he could have been. Down with 4-6, 4-6 in first two sets and taking the next two sets in 7-6, 7-6 is not an easy thing against the No.2 player. The most important thing to note here is the mental strength he showed at the third and fourth set says " I am Roger."

But Federer did not give away easily his sixth title, fought till the end of the fifth set to 9-7. He really would have won the hearts of many who lose their mental strength when we are down and out after the initial struggle.

In fact this is a great lesson for me, Roger you are still my Favorite not because you have won 12 Slams but you are a Real Character in my Life.

"Its not out of the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the banker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regards to their own interest"

-Adam Smith

These lines make me write again after a short break in posts in this log. I could state multiple reasons for not posting but still it could not be replaced for the act of not doing. There has been a lot change in the environment when I started this blog to this day. People changed , places changed even my self has gone through a lot of changes to adapt to the external environment. Now I sleep and eat at weird timings, because that is the culture here. Should I adapt to that is the biggest question. When I read the above quoted lines today in Baye’s book on "Managerial Economics and Business Strategy", this showed it is not that bad to be a self-interested person and after all the whole world is full of them.

That will be my ice-breaking post as a new B School student, after a stint as a software engineer ( I am not sure, can I call myself like this, may be my colleagues can really say). So what made me come here is all I would be briefing more as it would make myself clear and also could be of great help for others who may have Self-Interests in my similar lines.