Consensus Management

I just found out about consensus management and as much as I believe it to be a complete myth and not worthy of my time and space on NIT Trichy Inc., here I am, writing about it because lets face it-its fascinating.

Consensus management, from what I understand , is a form of management practiced in which everyone , and literally everyone, has a say in company policies and decision making. It can be practiced from NGOs to corporate, from clubs and teams to professional organizations. When everyone has a say in decision making here are the not-so-obvious benefits

1. Outfit looks more democratic
2. Organization moves smoothly towards a common goal
3. Members have a sense of responsibility

The obvious impending disasters can be

1. Utter chaos and mass disagreements
2. Difficulty in organization
3. Organizational structure loses its meaning

Lets just move away from these nitty-gritties.Just think for a moment its not feasible or cost-effective to have everyone in an organization having a say in decision making. No one could be held accountable for wrong decisions, CEOs would lose their chair value and there is potential for massive chaos. The credentials of all the people having equal say is also a debatable point of view. Hence for good reason virtually very few organizations practice consensus management.

But here’s why some actually do , only in part , maybe , but they do follow the principles.Here are the reasons why they do follow consensus management

1. Loyalty to its employees- If you can have a say in the decisions the company takes the company in a way involves you and is a way of saying “Listen, We care for your opinion, It’s important to us”
2. Attaching a certain snippet of responsibility by saying that we shall hold you accountable and responsible if certain things go wrong

When I said, consensus management is practiced only in snippets, I meant this : The real decisions are taken by the CEOs and the directors themselves but this is a good technique of keeping employees involved in the company and also being transparent about how the company functions at the upper echelons.

East India Company All Over Again

The other day, we were discussing placements in NIT Trichy, just like jobless third year guys with lots of time to kill and contemplating salaries and recession. The subject veered to one MNC called John Deere which pays a miserly four point something to us lesser mortals despite being the largest tractor-producing company in the world.
On the assumption that you agree with me that we do figure among the brightest minds in this country and on the fact that JD, an extremely high worth company, is fully capable of paying us numbers many times the one being paid, we started speculating on the reasons why such a thing happens in a top institution in India whereas our counterparts in luckier parts of the world get paid far more.
Then I realized, Its East India Company all over again !!
The British decided and did actually come to India because of a very good reason. They wanted to buy cheap products in India and sell them at premium rates across the world. Things eventually went from trading to settling to establishing colonies to monopolizing and exploitation and everything else. The rest as they say is history and like your middle school classes you can forget it now.
Fast forward a couple of centuries, Western companies like John Deere and Harvey Brothers ,the Lehmann Sisters , the Microhard and Ooogle are doing what we dint – Learn History in junior high and apply it to business. They selected India of all second and third world nations since they know it is the land of resources. In the 1800s it was the spices and the silk and the gold , now it’s the cash hungry intellect and brains of the great Indian middle class. Mental labour is cheap and they know we have written articles in newspapers about brain-drain-so they did something even better. Create low paying jobs here in India only. Not only do they have to pay less here but they get their work done with minimum hassle and sell the product (like before) at premium rates all over the world. And the sad part is , we would not see the consumerism that is driving India Inc. and with it all the India Shining drama and theatrics without these MNCs.
Like I said , its East India Company all over again !!

NIT Trichy Lingo

Before Exam

“GK ka notes hai kya ?”

“Kal kaun sa exam hai ?”

“Mechanics afternoon ko hai to abhi kyun pad raha hai ?”

“Dota khelega ?”

“Main frust ho gaya ! Pondy ghusa mere hard disk mein !”

“Pencil lena hai kya ?”

“Kitna chits banaya ?”

“Kahan chupayega ?”

“Xerox abhi khula rahega kya ?”

[classic] ” Exam kal hai na, abhi kyu padna ?”

After Exam

“Sriram ne mujhe galat syllabus bataya tha !”

“JD yaar , syllabus to bataya kar “

[Conversation]
Jackass 1: Paper lodu tha …. mera ek ghante mein khatam ho gaya !!
Jackass 2: To bathroom nahi aa sakta tha , main missed call de raha tha !
J1: Kyun be , paper to easy tha !
J2: Circuit diagram ban gaya tha kya , tere se ?
J1: Kaun sa circuit diagram ? ….. $%#%#$…MKL…… Maine to paper ultaya hi nahin tha !!

“Yes stuctural ka question ADSOM mein kaise aa gaya ?”

Very Sad Guy :”Maine formulaes galat rate the !”
Smart Ass : “Isi liye bolta hun , chits banaya kar “

[classic]“Maine Calculator mein pura table save kar liya tha …. lekin hang ho gaya, reset karna pada !!”

During Class

“Attendance mein bula dena , soo raha hun”

“Nayi game install ki hai kya mobile pe ?”

“Numerical solve kar jaldi , prof idhar aa raha hai ! “

“Kitna time baki hain ?”

“Apna system hi kharab hai “

“Tere ko bola tha Chetan Bhagat wala book lane ke liye !”

“CAT ki preparation mein calculator kyun use kar raha hai ?”

“10:10 toh ho gaya , kab chodega ? maine breakfast nahi ki hain !!”

Stud : “Extra Pen hai kya ?”
Another Stud : “Haan, hai naa !”
Stud: “Aur ek notebook bhi dena ?
Another Stud : “Mera All-in-one hain !!”
Stud : ” Toh middle page phaad ke de “
Another Stud : “Middle page se Mechanics chaalu ho raha hai !”
Stud : “Chod de , main so jata hun “

The Entrepreneurship Post 2

In my second post I will concentrate on issues which surround entrepreneurs in the present age rather than the past.

Why should I think about entrepreneurship right now? I am in college and there is plenty of time in life to gain experience and maybe then think about opening a company ?

No , it’s the wrong way to think. Now that you are in a college you are surrounded by able and like-minded people and if you are in a top college you have superb opportunities for networking and finding out about the industry that you wish to target.
1. The initiative will die down with due time and the idea will fizzle out with the course of monotony. And at the age of 40 even if you become a successful investment banker you will look at these very years and say “What if”. Like Mr Satya Prabhakar,our college alumni who went on to open Crosswords a retail book store chain, said “Entrepreneurship will remain in your heart like a girl you never asked out in college”
2. Nobody is asking you to open a company right out of college, like Mr Gates or Mr. Brin did. But you should use these college years to gain exposure to this industry and be able to network with people , an opportunity you may never have again in your life.

I don’t think I need an MBA for being an entrepreneur, right ?

Yes you are right , you don’t ! But then you do not need a Phd to be a scientist do you ? After all what is there in a degree. If you can set your heart to do something there is nothing that can stop you. But this is how an MBA from a top institute or a specific degree in entrepreneurial studies might help you.
1. Networking – If you get an admission to a top college you will be mixing and working with top professionals and faculty who have acres of more experience than you and will be an ample opportunity to get mentored under them or just plain learn from them. Plus with a vast repertoire of contacts you will have gained they will come I very handy at every step of converting your idea to a venture.
2. Holistic Learning – There is no substitute to learning the basic tenets of a business/company. Experience can teach a lot but you will be in a better position to tackle problems if you have studied all aspects, HR, marketing and finance . Plus case study models and internships in companies will help acquire healthy experience so it will not be missing out on much.
3. If you gain admission to a top college , you will be exposed to an excellent peer which will bring out the best in you and who knows you might just bump into someone looking for the same thing in life as you –entrepreneurship. After all Mr. Brin did meet Mr. Page in the same university !
4. Most colleges themselves have excellent support for budding entrepreneurs and NSRCEL of IIMB is such an example. So there will be no lack of resources or guidance as such.

The Entrepreneurship Post 1

Whenever I have tried to talk to someone about entrpreneurship , ive always had the same reaction – the same “Too Fundu for me” face followed of course by utter disinterest. So this time around when I am writing in a blog , I’ll keep a question answer format. The questions are the most common ones which revolve around entrepreneurship in india. Please read the question , look away and think about it in your own terms and then read my opinion, I repeat, just my opinion. And I would be glad if you could add yours.
Why is that companies keep springing up in the West and not in India ? Why is entrepreneurship culture so highly developed there but not in India ?

At the outset I would like to say that it is not entirely true in the very modern age. Entreprenuership is catching is catching up fast in india and startups are sprouting up everywhere. There is a buzz about incubators and venture capitalists that is hard to miss.
So now we get back to why did we miss the bus during the dotcom revolution or the IT revolution etc.
1. West has always provided fantastic infrastructure and has always been ahead of us in “growth” and pure growth. For entrepreneurship to be a culture in a country, having access to the latest technology and knowhow is a must. An innovation will not remain so in a business venture unless it is sustained by state-of-the-art infrastructure.
2. We were not rich enough ! Simply put we did not have a flurry of venture capitalists and incubators or even the Government to fund us until the economic reforms of the early 90s came into place. Without the money an idea always remains just an idea.
3. The environment was not at all conducive. We had the License Raj and red-tapism that existed at every level. Just “opening a business” meant greasing the palms of politicians to bureaucrats(for permissions) to policemen to local ganglords( for operation). Very few businesses survived such harsh conditions with declining profit margins and if you had to open a company, with the import-export limits and taxes that we had, only the best of the best survived and became known as the Tatas and the Birlas.
4. The west had one of the best education centres of the world . With top colleges sprinkled like raisins on cupcakes, everyone had access to every kind of information which was pivotal to survival.
That’s it for now. More in my next post.

Why did The Chicken cross the Road ?

You must must must and must have already come across a chicken joke on the web .
It’s a joke a bit like “Knock, Knock …. Who’s there?” and its usually a witty answer to the question “Why did the chicken cross the road ?”
So yours truly did some research and came up with some witty answers found across the web and added some NITT fundaes to it as well. Ok, you do need to relate to the personality answering , only then you will get the humour. So here goes …….
“Why did the chicken cross the road ?”
Bob Dylan : How many roads must one chicken cross?

Bill Gates : I have just released the new Chicken 2000, which will both cross roads AND balance your checkbook, although dividing 3 by 2 will get you 1.4999999999.

Robert Frost : To reach the sidewalk less travelled by.

William Shakespeare : I don’t know why, but methinks I could rattle off a hundred-line soliloquy without much ado

Albert Einstein : Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends upon your point of view. The chicken did not cross the road – it transcended it.

A Square: To get to the other side

Sir Isaac Newton: Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest. Chickens in motion tend to cross the road.

Quantum Logic Chicken: The chicken is distributed probabalistically on all sides of the road until you observe it on the side of your course.

President Clinton : I did not, and I repeat, I did not have sexual relations with that chicken.

Karl Marx : It was a historical inevitability.

Saddam Hussein : This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

Julius Caesar : To come, to see, to conquer

Martin Luther King, Jr. : I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

Martin Luther King : It had a dream.

Neil Armstrong : One small step for chickenkind, one giant leap for poultry.

The Bible : And God came down from the heavens, and He said unto the chicken, “Thou shalt cross the road.” And the Chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

Moses : Know ye that it is unclean to eat the chicken that has crossed the road and that the chicken that crosseth the road doth so for its own preservation.

Buddha : If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken nature.

Fox Mulder (The X-Files dude): You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many more chickens have to cross the road before you believe it?

Scully (Mulder’s sidekick): It was a simple bio-mechanical reflex that is commonly found in chickens.

Jerry Seinfeld : Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why anyone doesn’t ever think to ask, ‘What the heck was this chicken doing walking all over the place anyway?

GRANDPA:
In my day we didn’t ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

JOHN KERRY:
Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken’s intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

JOHN LENNON:
Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

OPRAH:
Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I’m going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

PAT BUCHANAN:
To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

I went around asking the clubs for their official answer and unearthed the following.
Official NIT Trichy Clubs Reply :
E-Cell
Isn’t it good ? At least the chicken shows entrepreneurship,which NITT students doesnt !!

Aayam Club :
Hindi mein Bol !!!

Rotaract Club,Rock City :
We will call a meeting in front of SJB to address the issue

Rotaract Club,NITT:
What did the other Rotaract say ?

Pragyan Core Team :
Ask the Marketing Team.

Marketing Team,Pragyan:
Ask the Guest Lectures committee

GL , Pragyan:
Ask the food Committee

Food Committe :
We shall see that all chicken stalls are banned this time.

Admin :
There are chickens in our college ?

Delta Club:
All chicken videos on the net will be banned by Dans Guardian !

Leo Club :
Look man, we are already busy doing nothing here, so please stop making fun of us in your stupid blog.

The Jade Junta :
There was no water supply on this side of the road.
(Echoed in recent years by Garnet)

NIT Trichy : The Past

Its been 2 years for me here at NIT Trichy and I guess I am in a position to reflect about what makes NIT Trichy NIT Trichy, both the good and the bad. So here I am , I’ll make a list of things that has made my college what it is today, the most influential factors that went behind the creation of brand NITT
The Great Indian American Dream
Yes we had a huge number of students migrating to the United States fulfilling what was once the great American Dream(That was when we still heard of the Lehmann Brothers’ and the Northern Rocks). They went to US became professors,entrepreneurs,software wizards and there was no stopping NITT being known all over US. Which makes it a little bit easier for us the current generation to get foreign internships and GRE-scholarships a bit not-the-hard way and bring in guest lectures for Pragyan as well.
The TnP
It is and has always been the best department of our college.Season after season , through IT booms and IT recessions, through pinkslip era and salary boom era , it has always managed placements which is way better than other NITs.We were the first to attract Lehmann Brothers, Schlumberger, General Electric and Goldman Sachs out of the IITs into the NITs which left offered packages skyrocketing. Even now the choice of companies is just amazing even though the salaries might not be comparable to IITs.Like they say in campus “It can get anyone placed.”
Miscellaneous
There are also a bunch of other factors worth mentioning. Its location is pivotal to its placements being located not so far from Chennai , plus being in an industrial area and having an international airport. There is also Pragyan, which has made a niche for itself among top international tech-fests in India. Also worth mentioning is the top quality of students we have been getting . Top rankers in AIEEE has always been coming to the campus year after year and this Is what drives NITT, after all students are the most important resource of any campus.

Google According to Srinjoy

I am going through one those phases in life when I’m kinda totally googlised , hence this post.

Before I start , I’m not going to write about the following aspects of Google which everyone seems to know ; or if you don’t , you can always ‘google’ it out yourself. I may however comment and opine about these, and yours would be great too !!

1. That Google is a billion billion dollar corporation and if you invested in it in 2004 you are one lucky jackass . Lucky, you know why , Jackass because no one predicted what is now history and you certainly dint.
2. That Google has a famous 20% rule where employees get to spend time working on their personal projects for Google or for greater good. (Guess what they end up doing !)
3. The SB and LP duo were once again Ivy League dropouts who got into Silicon Valley and got loaded.
4. That Google is the best search engine and a lot more.

I’ll start with the last one. Yes we know , Google rules you. No it doesn’t? Think about life without Orkut, Picasa ,Youtube ,Gmail and of course no Google. Your web life ends there doesn’t it ? (Chrome addicts are you listening ?, if you are so anti-Microsoft stick to Mozilla). But what you don’t know is that google offers a host of cute little features and prospects that are frighteningly luxurious. There’s Google News, Google Finance, Google Shopping, Google Videos, Google Music, Google Blogsearch, Google Image Search, Google Reader, Google Scholar, Google Blogs and as I am writing this, some geek in GooglePlex might be developing Google Dinosaurs or Google Psychiatry.

See the thing is with such a range of services it can come up with concepts like telling you what movie to watch at what theatre with reviews,cast and every detail going one step forward to even tell you IMAX or Adlabs whichever is cheaper(or more popular !), based on your location and movie name. It can expand to buying vegetables or booking air tickets , with full comparison of rates,quality and relevance. See the power of information ?? It can put everyone from travel agents to real-estate agents out of business. And who’s the big Daddy of all information ? Already Google Maps and Google Earth enables you to locate places and things around your locality with spectacular ease. With GPS in cars, who knows where it might lead to ?? (Well they also have Google Mars in case you are thinking of migrating in recent future!!)

Now Google is Fun !! To work in and to surf in !!

We all know why to work in, its got amazing open environment , fun place with informal attires and fun-like work-culture so that when you leave your home at 9 its like “ Honey , I’m leaving for vacation”…. and blah blah blah …….

But its surfing google that even you will know why they have a misspelled word as a brand and a logo that looks like lego alphabets. Instead of the drab service unavialables and 404s and network problems what google has come up with is “Bad Bad user , No Donut for you” , “Oops we are having a problem connecting” and so on. So you see how they are bulding their brand projecting a fun image , that’s what’s awesome about google. How about the famous “I’m feeling lucky “ ….. Would Microsoft or AOL ever come up with something like that ? On a side note go to www.google.com and type Chuck Norris and press “I’m feeling lucky”. Funny Eh ? Not to Google’s credit(fault/easter egg ??) though. Speaking of easter eggs who can forget the amazing logos Google surprises us with from time to time ??

See its not possible for Microsoft or any other company to copy google’s corporate model , because you know why, they just CANNOT. Because its not a model, it’s a culture that roots back to LP and SB themselves. To change it , you’ll have to change to the fun recruiting process, to the cool project managers, to the fun environment. You just cannot do it all. Google after all was built in a decade not a day.I mean let’s just face it , half the world is surfing Google.com in Internet Explorer, but SB and LP were much cooler geeks than Mr.Gates.

Happy Googling

Oh and while you’re at it, try r_earth in Google.com

Life’s Lighter Moments

I am pretty jobless these days and what with clear lack of company I did what all-self respecting laptop-addicts eventually do- Get into social networking.

I was browsing through a lot of communities till I happened to stumble into this one. Now the following piece has been shamelessly copy-pasted from various posts without any sort of consent from anyone. Anyways it relates to things people used to do when they were kids, I liked most of them, since I could relate to a lot of them, as well. Read On.
“I’d asked my bro. to play a game with me in which he’d b the servant and I’d b the house mistress…I wore my mum’s shawl in a manner she wears!
“I’d asked him to clean the washroom and kept on asking him to clean properly “
“I used to feel whenever a villain dies in a movie he is dead forever and will never act in any other movie.”
“Whenever I used to see the movie of a particular hero I used to connect that story to his previous movie.
As a kid I never knew how do actually convert a currency into changes….u tear it and make it half or what?
Thank God I never had a 100/- note as a kid. I would have splitted it up to make it two 50/-s.
I used think everybody’s birthday is on my birthday!!! … Anything more stupid???
I used 2 think data every bus is a school bus!!!I did sit in a bus all by myself (it was evening time) thinking data it was going 2 school!!!!
I used to think 100 is the biggest number ever to exist …. like the sky is 100 kms high…
My mamaji was in Police, so whenever I say a policeman I start shouting Mamaji Mamaji. Several times the policeman starts wondering what this kid is doing.
And I refused to take a $100 from my uncle coz I didn’t like the picture on it
I had heard when the water falls from height electricity is generated. So one day I was watching Indo-Pak cricket match on TV and the light went off, so I went on the roof, took one bucket of water and started throwing the water on the ground, one mug after another
Well…I thought that when I used to give a rupee to buy candies… (Actually worth 25ps) in school…I used to get money back as change…so I thought…oh that’s cool….I get more money back…he he….I believed so…till 5th!!More u give more you get back!!….but actually that’s true….if u think of it….the other way:)
As a kid I never understood the concept of playback singing, I thought the actors sung themselves. Someone at home told that playback singers sing it and they play the song while shooting the song sequence.
I always used to look for a tape recorder in the songs to find out where the songs come from…..man it took real long for me to understand the concept.
I used to sit in front of the things and in my own sense tried to focus on them, and used to believe that I’ll make them move, bend or even fly one day ( all that crap in those weird Chinese movies ,u know !!)
When I was a kid… my cousins were my heroes… anything they say I’d believe it n they really put this fact to the best use…. I always wanted to ride their bicycle and keep pestering them to allow me to but they’d never let me n they’d put me off by saying data I need to have a license to ride a bicycle otherwise the police would catch me…. n me.. I actually believed it for years!
I used to search my pics in ma parent’s wedding album…!!
I used to think ppl lived inside the television and radio….and I tried finding a door to let them out….
I used to believe for a very loon time data women get pregnant only after two years of their marriage….n data a kid comes out of ad mothers hand….coz in movies dye showed after giving birth ad baby lies at ad mom’s side..near her hand..
I thought moon always follow me where ever I go..
I THOUGHT THAT OLD DAYS WERE BLACK AND WHITE AFTER WATCHING OLD MOVIES……I CAME 2 KNOW I WAS WRONG WHEN ONCE MY MOM TOLD ME DAT SHE LOVED RED ROSES….AND I REMEMBER SHE LAUGHED OUT ALOUD WHN I TOLD HER WAT I THOUHT……LOLZ
Used 2 believe that the sun is as big as my room…I that nothing cud get bigger than my room
I used 2 think dat smooches r meant only 4 foreigners…
Well…once I ate mah granny’s sleeping pills kept in a bottle thinking it to be gems…
I used to believe that cotton candy was made from the clouds in the sky
I thought them to cotton candy factory
I also used to think how I will pass 16 classes
I thought India is the world and US is in some place within India
On my third standard, in an exam I was so urgent to pee. I asked my teacher but she didn’t allow me. Then I got an idea. If I pee less the cloth will absorb it and nobody will notice. After about half an hour I am still peeing in small drops. The teacher came and saw a river running down my bench. From that day onwards, I have a special permission to pee at any time I want.
I use 2 pickup everything like mattress n shoes n keep them in the sofa n cover them with blanket as I felt even thy need 2 sleep(I was in the 3rd grade)
i used to think people in tv sleep when it is turned off
I used to think actor Rajinikanth (tamil actor) is a real fighter, after seeing him fighting in films.. One boy gave me a rap with his knuckles on my head and I went to my father and cried to him to take me to Rajinikanth to hit that boy in return.
n movies those days, to show the speed of the car, the person who drives the car steers the steering this side and that side very fast, probably during some chasing scenes or during an emergency. From that day I believed that Faster u turn the steering, faster goes the car … Only when we got a car @ home, I knew about the accelerator..
When I was young (8yrs old) I asked my uncle “who adds fuel to the sun? how does it burn continuously?, My uncle replied me that scientists go near the sun in rocket and pour some Kerosene and come back every week… I believed this till 5th std…
I hated summer heat, I wished those scientists would drop the sun in an ocean and turn it off… And by this process the entire water in the sea would evaporate and
I can easily go to America, London and other countries in a bus…
I also wanted to tie earth and some other planet with a Huge Chain O—O (Like this), which stops earths rotation resulting in Zero Gravity, we can fly…
i use 2 think tht wenevr da movie gts old it turns in2 black n white;)
well…we,me n my big b(just 2 yrs elder) used eat close-up (tooth paste) with sugar….nd we used 2 ask our grandma 2 do d same ….hehehe

And yes, I got tired of quoting the quotes all of them so is simply stopped.
Until next time , bye.

2008 was the year..

2008 was the year I

-Made new friends
-Met new people
-Surprised a few people
-Got an unexpected roomie
-Got an awesome roomie
-Severed old ties
-Repaired some new ones
-Switched to Airtel
-Got internet in Room
-Got chucked out of class
-Reported for my first training
-Bunked the very next day itself
-Got sloshed
-Din’t miss the Great Calcutta Durga Puja
-Did miss the NIT Trichy one
-Saw Liverpool finish a heart-breaking 4th
-Saw Liverpool climb to top of EPL at half-season
-Attended my first Festember
-Coordinated my first Festember
-Attended my second Pragyan
-Got two certificates for managing one event
-Din’t bother to go for Dalal Street
-Officially got into Civil Engineering
-Flicked a broom from the department
-Made Mess B my alternative mess
-Made Buhari the regular one
-Gave fundaes to juniors
-Learnt basketball both on the ground and on EA Sports
-Watched thousands of sitcoms
-Watched millions of movies
-Escaped birthday bumps
-Completed my first real nightout (12-9AM)
-Sent my first proffing mail
-Expanded my Gmail list and got active on Okku
-Declared Messi as God’s own Winger
-Got up at 7 for survey classes