First post from the Laptop!

yay,i got a laptop as a gift from my brother!!First post from the ubiquitous symbol of mobile computing.I was just browsing this site...
some really funny signatures here.I have always loved to read quotations at length but this site really has some funny ones from anything to everything.
Some good ones,
Give a jackass an education and you get a smartass.

Now that food has replaced my sex life, I can't even get into my own pants!

Happiness is like peeing yourself, everyone can see it but only u can feel its warmth!

On a scale between one to ten, you're an idiot!

"A new study shows that licking the sweat off a frog can cure depression. The down side is, the minute you stop licking, the frog gets depressed again." - Jay Leno

"AOL for Dummies" is kind of redundant, don't you think?

"I'm not normally a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me, Superman!" - Homer Simpson

"If these pills don't stop the kleptomania," said the psychiatrist, "try and get me a nice video camera."

"It's all coming back to me now", said the blind man as he peed into the wind.

"Nearly everything you read signed "from God" is just somebody putting their words in My mouth." - God

"Streakers *repant* your end is in sight."

"The game of catch has never been so fun!" - inventor of the hand grenade.

24 hours in a day. 24 beers in a case ... coincidence?

A woman drove me to drink and I didn't even have the decency to thank her. What contemptible scoundrel has stolen the cork to my lunch? - W.C. Fields

Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut. -Ernest Hemingway

American beer is like making love in a canoe. It's f*cking close to water. - Monty Python

And God said: Let there be vodka! And He saw that it was good. Then God said: Let there be light! And then He said: Whoa - too much light.

As a rule, I don't drink -- as a habit, I do!

Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder...

Beer - The reason I wake up every afternoon.

Beer contains Vitamin Pee.

Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

Beer: Helping ugly people have sex since 1862!

Beer: Now THERE'S a temporary solution.

Don't drink and drive. You might hit a bump and spill your beer.

Dough, the stuff, that buys my beer, Ray, the guy that tends the bar, Me, the guy, who drinks my beer, Far, the distance to the bar, So, I think I'll have a beer, La, Laa lAA lAh LaH LAA LAAAH! Tea, no thanks I want a beer, which brings us back to Dough Dough Dough!

Everyone needs to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer.

Give a man a beer, he'll waste an hour. Teach a man to brew, he'll waste a lifetime.

I don't drink anymore. Of course, I don't drink any less, either.

I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day. - Frank Sinatra

I have a drink to celebrate the little things. Like Tuesdays - we only have one of those a week!

I killed a six-pack just to watch it die.

I swear to drunk I'm not God!

I'd rather have a beer than win father of the year - Homer Simpson


Some of theselines really made me roll on the floor especially the ones on beer.
Do check it out, its a lot fun.

My first rendezvous with finance

Ola(well I ended a post with this word some days ago and my brother corrected me to tell me that this in fact means “Hi” in Spanish so the mistake now stands corrected)

So I have started gaining some momentum in my GD\PI prep and have joined a group being taught by an IIMA alumnus. I’ve had just one class till now but it was good and I learnt a few things that I will talk about here in just a moment. Apart from that, I just came to know that IIMB had come out with a new shortlist and it was a little jitter but I checked again and my name is still there, but my interview has been postponed quite a bit.

OK, back to the class I had. So this was my first tryst with finance and I have to say that what little that he taught yesterday was really interesting. He started to talk about “convertibility”. Now this term refers the conversion of a particular currency into another, say $ into Rs.Now any country has certain laws governing the freedom with which one can convert currency from one form to another. Several factors affect the path that a nation chooses to follow in its policies regarding convertibility.

Just a few terms first,

Full Convertibility
No Convertibility
Current Account Convertibility
Capital Account Convertibility

Now the first two terms are self explanatory, where one would have absolute or no freedom.

Current Account Convertibility: Say if person X produces some product in India, and sells it in the global market using some account. Now the payment he receives in the market is of foreign currency, he can then convert that money back to his own national currency and this freedom would refer to Current Account Convertibility.

The last term refers to the permission that one can keep money in an account and he can convert into any form using that account.

Now, coming back to the initial question, “How does a country decide on its level of convertibility”?

Any decision regarding this will be taken keeping an eye on the dependence of the country’s’ dependence on foreign exchange.

Now say if we look at India, We follow a regime of current account convertibility, so the exchange of currencies can take place freely as far as trade is concerned, but we cannot arbitrarily convert Rs. To dollars without answering to the RBI.This is done so that an investor does not put the country’s economy in a pickle.
For example, say an investor buys some $20 billion worth of Rupees. Now he can wait and watch for the rupee to appreciate and then he will sell the Rupees for dollars, as a result others will also start converting Rupees into dollars since rupee starts to fall due to excess supply, as a result this could trigger a chain reaction and you would have a crisis with the rupee in the doldrums. So, we choose a more conservative approach by opting for Current Account Convertibility., to avoid such situations. This is in fact what actually happened in the East Asian Financial Crisis where the Currencies devalued to almost 1\8th of their value in a span of 3-4 days.

So that was a little bit about what constituted the first lecture. There was also some other stuff like inflation, interest rates, FIIs but I will blog about that later.

Apart from the techie stuff, we also learnt a little about the “Charmed” life of an Investment banker. While any MBA aspirant prepping to got into an IIM would dream of a PPO from Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and the likes, it is a really tough job to be an investment fund manager. Your ass is on the line for every move you make. Since the stakes are so high, small mistakes cost big time and careers don’t take that much time to shatter. Anyway, that discussion is for another day at another place, at IIMA maybe :).

I have a 3 hour class tomorrow and I am really looking forward to it, I’ll blog about it when I get back. Plus I can’t wait for my brother to get back from Chicago tomorrow. He just bought a Dell laptop for me and I am almost jumping out of my shoes to see that. Ahhh, finally I’ll be able to blog while lying on the bed. May god bless the inventor of the Laptop!

Apart from the preparation, I also wanted to talk about another natural disaster that you all must be aware of, a few days ago an earthquake and then a following Tsunami wreaked havoc in the lives of lakhs of people. It is really sad to see that almost 30 thousand people have been fatal victims to this fury expressed by nature. I would urge all of you to donate what you can and do everything that you can do. It could be a monetary donation or maybe just a prayer, just does that little bit to make the lives of those ill –fated people a little easier. May the dead rest in peace.

Gracias
Rohit

IIM Vs IIM

Hi guyz,

Life is starting to get a lil organised after getting calls, seems like the new responsibility of converting the calls is going to change the way i handle my time.

Anywayz, after spending a loooooooot of time on PG(www.pagalguy.com for the uninitiated) i wondered about the concept of comparing different IIMs.When I am talking of this comparison I am talking about ABC only(no offence to LIK).

When people compare the IIMs, the discussion will often revolve around topics like Infra,Faculty,Placements, Industry Interface et al.But what my query is that how many of the students actually look at these when they decide b\w ABC.

The general rule is that u choose "A over B over C".Unless of course u were brainwashed by a senior of yours and u just have to go to B\C and u dun give a damn bout A or you just can't stay without daru and gujrat being a dry state , IIMA is simply ruled out for u.

Anywayz, what i am trying to come to,is that in the end the debate of IIMX Vs IIMY (where X,Y ={A,B,C}), ends up being an ego clash between people who are alredy studying in those particular IIMs.

A dood in IIMB will claim that IIMB=IIMA and IIMB>>IIMC, while an IIMA student will simply write off IIMB\IIMC as lesser colleges without giving it a second thought.

I have yet to meet a B-schooler who does not follow the "My daddy strongest" policy(Apart from mebbe Mike(IIML)...another dood at PG).
While their tirades against each others' college may seperate them, what bring them together is the concept of "I slept for only 4 hours"

For some reason each of them is out to prove that they are the busiest people in the friggin world.OK, I understand that these people worked hard to get thru but for god sakes stop pretending like u dun have "the time to sit down and breath" guyz.I know that the "fight" in an MBA is much greater than in BE but really if go from one extreme of lazyness(BE) to the other extreme(IIM) u r bound to feel it is out of the ordinary.

Only one guy(from IIML) who has told me the truth that while very B-schooler will proclaim to sleep on "4 hours" in a day none of them will care to add that they still do as much "bakchodi" as they did in their engineering days.

Its been about 7 months since i have been visiting PG and to tell you the truth I am rather sick of all the "My B-school rocks" threads.All being replete with incidents on how they partied so hard after studying so hard and how they cudnt keep their eyes open in class coz they slept for "4 hours" last night.

I am in an engineering college, in the sem that has jussed passed, we were in max masti mode. In the hostel there have been many times I have slept at 6 and woken up at 10 so please stop before u tell me that its hard to do, I am not buying it anymore!

ciao
Rohit

P.S:Just to add , this is not directed towards anyone in particular and this is what I feel, not necesarily true, just my thoughts.

Learn from the leaders

I just read one of the best articles i've ever come across.This is what really makes for inspiring stuff.By the way, i am sure all engineers will be delighted to find the mention of "Fairchild Semiconductors" in this article.Enjoy!

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From the Knowldege@Wharton Newsletter:


Becoming the Best: What You Can Learn from the 25 Most Influential Leaders of Our Times

When Andy Grove got his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1963, he was a corporate recruiter's dream candidate. He had a number of job options, perhaps the best of which was with Bell Labs, then the Mecca of research in solid-state physics. But Grove made a different choice. Rather than head for Bell Labs, he joined Fairchild Semiconductor, a West Coast upstart, where he worked under the legendary Gordon Moore, who led the company's research operation. That was an early example of out-of-the-box thinking from Grove, who five years later left Fairchild with Moore and others to co-found Intel.

After he succeeded Moore as Intel's CEO in 1987, Grove took other steps that shunned conventional logic -- perhaps most visibly during the "Intel Inside" campaign of the 1990s. Back then, the most recognized brands in the computer industry were hardware makers such as IBM or software firms like Microsoft. Intel, though it supplied more than 80% of the microprocessors to the world's computers, was hardly known outside a small band of industry insiders. Determined to change that narrow perception, Grove led Intel into an aggressive branding campaign that made the company a household name by the end of the decade. Today, as its products play an increasingly critical role in stitching together a globally networked economy, Intel has emerged as one of the world's top technology companies, with 2003 revenues of more than $30 billion.



Grove's leadership of Intel -- marked as it has been by unconventional thinking, imagination and integrity -- contributed this month to his being named the most influential business leader of the past 25 years by Wharton and Nightly Business Report (NBR), the most watched daily business program on U.S. television. “My life has been intertwined with Intel,” Grove told Nightly Business Report co-anchor Susie Gharib. “My proudest accomplishment has been to contribute to the creation of a company that has helped put a billion PCs into people’s hands.”

To celebrate NBR's 25th anniversary this month, Wharton and NBR worked to identify the 25 most influential business leaders of the past 25 years. NBR's viewers nominated more than 700 business people from around the world, and a panel of six Wharton judges selected the top 25. The winners are:

Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics; Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com; John Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Group; Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin Group; Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway; James Burke, former CEO of Johnson & Johnson; Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Computers; Peter Drucker, the educator and author; Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft; William George, former CEO of Medtronics; Louis Gerstner, former CEO of IBM; Alan Greenspan, Chairman, U.S. Federal Reserve; Andy Grove, chairman of Intel; Lee Iacocca, former CEO of Chrysler; Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computers; Herb Kelleher, CEO of Southwest Airlines; Peter Lynch, former manager of Fidelity's Magellan Fund; Charles Schwab, founder of Charles Schwab Inc.; Frederick Smith, CEO of Federal Express; George Soros, founder and chairman of Open Society Institute; Ted Turner, founder of CNN; Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart; Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric; Oprah Winfrey, chairman of the Harpo group of companies; and Mohammed Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank.

To arrive at this list from among hundreds of nominees, the Wharton panel employed five criteria. Their goal was to find business leaders who created new and profitable ideas; affected political, civic or social change through achievement in the business/economic world; created new business opportunities or more fully exploited existing ones; caused or influenced dramatic change in a company or industry; and/or inspired and transformed others. The judges included Michael Useem, director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management; Peter Cappelli, director of the Center for Human Resources; Raffi Amit, director of the Goergen Entrepreneurial Research Program; Barbara Kahn, vice dean of the Wharton undergraduate division; Robert E. Mittelstaedt, Jr., vice dean and director of the Aresty Institute of Executive Education; and Mukul Pandya, editor/director of Knowledge@Wharton.



Learning from Leaders

In addition to identifying these individuals as influential leaders, the Wharton judges discussed aspects of their character that contributed to their success. Understanding what made these people stand out, the judges reasoned, could help others to become better leaders in their own organizations. In Grove's case, for example, his ability to be open to unconventional ideas was a critical factor. In his or her own way, however, each of these leaders has traits from which others could learn.



Consider Warren Buffett, whom Michael Useem describes as "a man for all seasons." According to Useem, not only is Buffett "an investor extraordinaire" who has delivered enormous returns to investors in Berkshire Hathaway, but he was also highly successful as the hands-on CEO of Salomon Brothers, helping restore confidence in the Wall Street firm when it faced a severe management crisis. These days "Buffett has become the conscience of the Street, offering great wisdom on contentious topics like expensing stock options," Useem says. In other words, in addition to his genius at spotting good investment opportunities, Buffett's influence derives from his moral stature and integrity. In the aftermath of scandals that have rocked U.S. companies in the past few years, it is difficult to overemphasize the importance of ethics as a factor in leadership.



Bogle, like Buffett, owes his influence to having delivered great value to investors -- though his approach was strikingly different. The former CEO of the Vanguard Group has long argued that "owning the entire stock market at very low cost is the ultimate investment strategy." This belief led him to launch the Vanguard Group in 1975. Bogle was a pioneer in introducing and helping popularize index funds -- which kept fees extremely low for investors. Says Peter Cappelli: "One of the reasons why Bogle is on this list is because of the enormous impact he had on the average person."



Sam Walton's approach to Wal-Mart's customers was similar, according to Robert E. Mittelstaedt, Jr. The goal of making a wide range of products available to average people at the lowest possible price enabled him to take the retail company from a single store to a megacorp that is now ranked No. 1 on the Fortune 500. "Walton's legacy is that a single person can make a huge difference in an industry. It doesn't happen overnight, especially in an industry like retail, but it can happen over a period of years. Walton believed in delivering great value at low prices to his customers."



Welch's leadership, in contrast, delivered great value to GE's shareholders. One measure, according to Useem, is that Welch took GE from being a "$13 billion company in 1981 to a $550 billion company in 2001 in terms of market capitalization." GE's stock price saw a 40-fold increase during Welch's tenure, consistently outpacing the S&P 500. But Welch's greatest strength, says Useem, was spotting and nurturing other leaders. "Welch has written the textbook on leadership. He has often said that he doesn't know how to make jet engines or produce Tuesday night television shows at NBC, the GE subsidiary. But he does know how to pick people with leadership potential, give them the resources to meet their goals, and get rid of them if they cannot. As a result, Welch has built one of the best leadership teams anywhere."



Mittelstaedt notes that team-building also counts among Bill Gates's strengths as a leader. Like Grove, Gates saw the potential of the PC to transform the world, and he built Microsoft into a software powerhouse. In addition, though, he is among those rare entrepreneurs whose abilities have expanded to keep pace with the growth of his enterprise. "Very few successful people who have started as entrepreneurs have led their companies until they grew to a very big size." In Gates's case, says Mittelstaedt, he has had the vision to bring in people and then let them serve the company. "Gates has done this in a way that most entrepreneurs are not capable of doing."



Each leader on the list offers similar leadership lessons. While most of them are recognizable names, a few are less well known or are simply no longer in the public eye. James Burke, for example, was J&J's CEO when the company faced its well-known Tylenol crisis in 1982. Seven people died after taking the pain-killer, and it turned out that someone had introduced cyanide in the pills as an act of sabotage. Burke's handling of that has become a textbook case for companies facing crises for more than two decades. Bill George, the former CEO of Medtronic, has recently written a book about Authentic Leadership drawing upon his experiences. Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, has been a pioneer in the field of micro-finance, providing loans as small as $10 to impoverished people. His great innovation was to recognize that lending could be separated from collateral -- and still be the basis for operating a sound financing business. Micro-lending programs modeled after Grameen's have now spread to more than 100 countries.



If there is one trait that each of these leaders shares, it is tenacity. Unlike so-called serial entrepreneurs who cash out of their companies after a few years and move on to their next venture, these leaders have had a long-term vision. They have been willing to ride out the lows with the highs. This willingness to slog it out and stay in the game for the long haul has been reflected as much in the success of their enterprises as in the endurance of their own influence as leaders. Asked why he never left Intel to start another company, Grove recently replied: "Intel is like a river. It changes every day and behind every bend there is a new start, a new challenge. I cannot think of any place where I would rather have worked."

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I crossed the first hurdle....thank u god

ABC calls are out!

in case anyone wants to check


IIMA
IIMB
IIMC


Hell i am damn happy!!
got GD\PI calls from IIM ABC till now...
man i am so happy..
i remember when i was in 12th i wrote the JEE and got a rank of 1912...was being offered a lowly Civil engg at IITD...chucked it for NSIT-ECE...
now i feel i did the right thing...
mebbe i'll make it to the IIM(fingers,legs,hair, all crossed!)
thank you god..
all i asked for what i deserve...you gave me even more
thank you!
adios

YAAAAAHHHHHOOOOOOOOO!

CAT results just out

i got 99.74
am hapiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii......so hapyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!
my dream(sic)hass a real chance of coming true now...
too happy to spend time on the PC
time for daruuuuuuu....
ciao
enjoiiiiiiiiii!

Sufiana Sounds

I dont know how many of you have heard this new artist called "Rabbi"...but i heard him once on the TV and cudnt stop myself from downloading his song called "Bulla ki Jana".
Though i have tended to listen to mainly Metal and a bit of Hindi songs in the past 2-3 years, i gotta say this is one helluva song.So, before you give it a pass and call it just another "Punjabi Pooper"...give it a try..it'll leave you mesmerised.
You can download it from here

You can also read about it here

A Preview:

His music owes its feel as much to Bob Dylan as to the Ragis of Punjab. And with Amitabh Bachchan on his list of fans, Rabbi Shergill and his brand of Sufiana have finally arrived.

Enjoy!

Oh happiness! Where art thou?

I have been wondering about whether I should write on a particular topic that has been bothering me for some while now. Finally, I decided that better to get my thoughts out of my system rather than letting them linger behind.

Alright, here is a question for anyone who is reading this blog

“WHAT WOULD YOU DO WHEN YOU HAVE ALL THE MONEY YOU COULD SPEND, ALL THE POWER YOU COULD NEED AND ALL THE MATERIAL COMFORTS YOU COULD EVER DREAM OF? “

Some days ago a friend of mine asked me this question and it left me dumbstruck. I was amazed at the fact that I did not have a clue about what I would do. While I consider myself to a very practical and goal oriented person, it came as a shock to me that all my goals were material in nature. It left me really confused about what I want to do in life. Do I really want to pursue and MBA or do I want to work in a company or do something that I really want to. Irony is that I don’t have clue about what I want to do!

This particular dilemma has its roots set in another particularly peculiar problem. In the last one year I have talked to many of my friends about what would it take for them to be happy? While most answers seemed to be about money, success, traveling abroad or climbing the corporate ladder, I could not find one answer that seemed convincing enough and one which would really provide a person with long lasting happiness. It is not surprising then that most ppl in the S\W industry (i.e. where engineers end up)even after earning lotta money, traveling abroad and doing all sortsa stuff still think that their lives are shit!

I used to think that doing an MBA and then having a career in marketing would make me happy. I can’t believe that I ever believed that BS that I had cooked up for myself. I for one feel rather stupid now when I think about the fact that I am running like crazy after an MBA when I for one don’t have a clue why I want to do an MBA. How long can a person keep on doing things simply for the sake of money?

The damned problem doesn’t end there. The friggin shit drives me crazy when I find something that interests me but I cant pursue it ‘coz I dun have the balls to opt for something that puts the security of my future in danger. So I stick to the traditional Engg.\MBA career and keep on cribbing about the fact that I don’t have an iota of interest in this particular field.

So all in all I am confused!!!
I know that tomorrow when I wake up , I will still be running like crazy after that IIM MBA and my goals will be just the same as they are today, mebbe one day I’ll find the courage to conquer my fears and find a real source of happiness and have the balls to go for it.

Till then, its IIM Zindabad!

Boooored to death!

Man! Life is gettin real boring.With nuthin to do, just waiting for the CAT results to be out,i am getting pissed with the amt of time and lack of things to do.Books,Movies,Hangin out...nuthin seems to be interestin nemore.

The worst part is that the pessimist in me will never lemme prepare for GD\PI before i get calls...aaaaarghhhhhhh....why the hell is it taking so long for the f***in results to be declared...man tis hard to wait for something you want soooooooo badly....just hope that when the results come out, i don't end up disappointed.

Anywayz,since i am getting bored, only one thing left to do....blog a lil more...
Spent the last one hour reading posts on PG, picked up arbit threads and found one interesting post from a dood in IIMB, this relating their summers
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This is the official web release of IIMB's summer placements (for the Batch of 2004), which concluded on Saturday.

Overview
IIMB’s Summer Placements this year broke all records, wrapping up in less than three days flat with forty-one lucrative foreign offers to its batch of 187 students. It is the fastest ever process at the IIMs and at any Indian b-school with a batch of comparable size.

Investment Banks from abroad, multinationals and the best Indian corporates came, saw and picked up like never before.

Snapshot
Total no. of companies scheduled for Summer Placements: 120
Total no. of recruiting companies: 74
No. of students in the batch: 187
Total no. of offers: 255
Total no. of acceptances: 183
Total no. of international offers: 41, twice the number last year
Number of slots: 3

Slot Zero
Locations of Foreign Offers : New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, Singapore

Sectors: Mainly Investment Banking
No. of Slot Zero international offers: 41

Companies and no. of offers by them: Goldman Sachs Lehman Brothers New York Lehman Brothers Asia, for Tokyo and Hong Kong , HSBC London , Deutsche Bank , Barclays Capital , JP Morgan Securities London, Deutsche post Worldwide, Barclays Capital and Technofast Consulting , ICICI Bank International banking

This is possibly the highest % of a single batch going abroad for summers in any B-School this year. Speaks a lot about the calibre of this year's batch in IIMB


Last year’s Slot Zero recruitment: 9 offers last time from 3 companies.

Slot One
Sectors: All streams, including Consulting

Companies: IBM (1, ICICI (16), Hindustan Lever (10), Cognizant (9), Times Group (9), Tata Admistrative Services (7), Citibank (6), ICICI Prudential (6), Procter & Gamble (5)
Among the new companies on slot one were KPMG, Accenture Consulting, Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers. 13 consulting offers were made during Slot One. International recruiters on day one were National Kidney Foundation Singapore, Procter & Gamble Singapore and Olam International.
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Man! those are some awesome stats...41 international offers outta 183...phew!The number of stud companies is awesome....and this is w\o taking into acc the awesome companies in India i.e. Mck..etc.
The diff b\w an engg summers and MBA summers is like crazy..i am supposedly doin my trainin right now( get that smirk off ur face!)...thats right..sittin at home..and will get a certi in the end frm some company...can't wait to get into an MBA course and then do a real summers!
Anywayz, thats enuff for one post,time to watch a movie :D
adios
rohit

The new Buzz in town

Just read about a new marketing concept called “Buzz Marketing”. While it is well known that the most powerful mode of marketing is word-of-mouth, this technique takes it a little further. The probability, that a consumer is going to buy your product, increases greatly if another person gives a favorable review of the product. So we have Companies now hiring people to go out in the supermarkets to whisper into your ear that so and so product is the right choice baby! These people are the breed that are generally looked up to as trend setters, the people who set the fashion for tomorrow, the people who decide what is in and what is out.

So what gave birth to the new concept? Look at a few facts that I found in the article

“more than half of the ads for cars, credit cards and pet-related products are ignored by television viewers. In addition, 42% of ads about home products are ignored, as are 45% of fast food advertisements. The numbers are far worse in the case of viewers with personal video recorders such as TiVo For that group, 95% of fast food ads were skipped, as were 68% of car ads, 80% of pet product ads, and 94% of financial product advertisements”


It is clear that traditional marketing techniques have taken a beating and some innovative thinking needs to be done.While Buzz Marketing is just and extension of an existing concept, marketing experts warn that unless it is used judiciously, it will become just another pain in the ass like pop up ads on the internet, or telemarketers who just wont quit calling. Call me skeptical but I don’t think that companies will be able to make good use of this tactic simply b’coz all of them will get excited all at once and in the end we’ll have a lot of “Buzz” but will start sounding more like noise to the average Joe.

There is an interesting ethical debate associated with this concept. The conflict is that it is not right to send marketers disguised as normal folks and try to deceive the consumer. It is a known psychological fact that if a person does not know that he is being convinced, it is easier to convince them as opposed to if they know that they are being persuaded. This kind of marketing is being seen as the last step in the ultimate intrusion of privacy by marketing firms.

Anyways, all said and done in the end the product needs to carry off the hype that is generated thru any kind of marketing that has been done to support it,’coz a bad product will bomb at the market, with or without a “Buzzing“ marketing campaign!

Whats' on TV, Honey !

I was just watching the news and i noticed a common ring to all of the stories.Each of them seemed to have something or the other to do with sex.

"SEX", its a funny lil word that can make a lotta indians uncomfortable.While we are the most proficiently expanding nation in the world (numerically), the word sex is still considered taboo. Weird lil hypocricy,isnt it ?

Anywayz, i'm digressing from the topic i wanted to talk about. So i'm watching the news and all i see is SEX SEX SEX everywhere.I mean for gawd sakes who gives a shit if kareena kapoor and shahid khan were taped kissing , or if a 12 class chick and her bf decided to tape an act that most kids in school are doing anywayz.Why is there this obsession with SEX?

The media is supposed to be an indicator of the level of maturity that a society has reached.If we go by the kind of reports on TV, then i gotta say , we all must be just a bunch of sex starved perverts who would shag the next thing that we see moving!!

But we do know that our society has matured as time has gone on and sex is slowly coming out of the clauset, so in effect we should have more mature instruments of mass media, shouldn't we? Sadly enuff, we don't.The reason? Simple, SEX SELLS!Thats right , at any point of time more ppl will watch a hot chick running around naked than a documentary about global warming!

So we come to the question of the role of the media.Is it supposed to follow the simple laws of economics and supply what is in demand or should the media focus on reports that are more substantial in nature ?

Hmmm, hard task answering that question....anyways, I still think that good hard hitting journalism can make ratings go as high or even higher than some sleazy story.If we look at ppl like christianne amanpour(CNN) or Tim Sebastian(BBC) we can see that some journalists have delivered mind blowing performances in creating awareness about prudent issues and these reports have delivered awesome ratings too.So it can be done! Its just a matter of the indian media waking up and realizing that there is more to report than sex,violence and gore!

Words-Worth

Holidayz have just started but i already have an inkling that this is not going to be the joyride i thot it was going to be.While books make for good company i still feel that it will get real boring reeeeel soon.

Anywayz, am getting bored so will blog some more.so get ready for a pile of BS that i am going throw at u.

I was thinking about the kind of lingo that we in college use and then realized that the way i talk now is completely different from when i entered this college.While there has alwayz been a heavy mix of abuses while i talk to my friends but recently in college some rather fascinating words have come up.

A few of them that are at the top of my mind right now would be

Thassa: this is the most excessively used word in the NSIT campus."Thassa " means BS.Thats right it means pure unadulterated bull shit.Be it someone trying to fool a teacher who is keen on knowing the number of butterflies in an 8 pt DFT or be it a guy trying to explain it to his gf why he cudnt talk last night while he was boozing like crazy in the hostel, thassa is the word u use.

Arbit: quite obviously a short form for "arbitrary".The word has encompassed all spheres of NSIT life and is now used freely even in places where a sane man would question its presence.It refers to anything that is out of the scope of undersatnding of an engineer, whatever cannot be comprehended will be termed as "Arbit".

Max: derived from "maximum". it is not used like its ancestor "maximum", main use include prefixing senteces with maxx to emphasize on a particular object.
examples include "max phat gayi","max hot chick","max mazaa aaa gaya","kal humne hostel mein max daru pi"

Ghissu : "bookworm".Used by ppl like me to refer to ppl those who do well in sem exams.

Fun: while traditionally associated with activities, NSITians have taken the use of this word to another level.A hot chick, or a crazy idea or a nice brand of vodka can be "FUN".

Unfun:The previous word has given rise to this.An example would be a faadu subject like digi. comm. which wud be termed as "unfun".

Suppli: A demon that i have stayed away from ,till now.Refers to a failed subject.

Chicklet: this has been coined by none other than our drummin friend "Kaushal".Refers to a gurl who makes ur body do funny things.

Admin: the portion of NSIT campus where ppl are paid for sitting on their asses and not doing anything.

Well those are some of the words, i am sure that there are more but cant quite recall them.

adios amigos

rohit

The Unbearable Lightness of Being: Milan Kundera

OK, I'm done with the novel,here is a small preview of what lies within those 305 pages.

Set against the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, the story evolves around different fictional topics but could just as well be the story of real people. A man torn between thought and emotion, between love and lust. A woman who lives for rebellion. Tomas, the male protagonist, falls in love with Teresa and marries her, while still having many one-night stands in an attempt to give weight (meaning) to his life. Moreover, he maintains a love-affair with Sabina.

Teresa is aware of Tomas' adulteries and cannot bear the situation, which manifests itself in numerous detailed nightmares illustrating the realities of life. For Teresa, love and sex go together, whereas Tomas believes that having sex without love is possible. The female protagonist therefore suffers from the heaviness of life, while her male counterpart feels the unbearable lightness of being. Teresa later tries to gain this lightness for herself. Most of us carry the heavy and the light, the expression of either part depending on our character and circumstances. For that reason, one can identify with Teresa as well as Tomas and Sabina too.


He talks about opposites: life and death, heaviness and lightness throughout his story. You can try to decide which life is happier: the light or the dark? What is "The Unbearable Lightness of Being?" It is the realization that, with no hope of knowing the right path from the wrong, there can be no wrong path. One is necessarily absolved of mistakes. The search for meaning in life leans towards the necessity of significance, which comes from a sense of weight. Are events forgiven in advance because they happen only once? But, is it also not unbearable that events only occur once as we can never go back and rectify our mistakes? Everyone wishes they could replay a past error; a lost opportunity, a lost love, a relationship that should not be. Is this not unbearable?! Is this not a weight we feel pressing down on us every day?

The novel is an attempt to identify what makes us need companionship in life so badly, trying to understand the relationships between the conflicting desires that humans possess and act upon. What makes a man leave the woman that he loves and is perfectly happy with and seek something intangible in the arms of a mistress? Why does the same man sacrifice everything he has - freedom, social status, and his life's work - only to go back to the same woman he absolutely had to leave before? Is the absence of any responsibilities and ties in life really a "lightness"? Could this absolute lightness turn into absolute emptiness and thus become unbearable at some point - a burden pulling us to the ground? It shows how vulnerable we are, and how miserable we can be made by our contradictory desires, aspirations and impulses.

Here is one line that struck me->>
"How can life ever be a good teacher if there is only one of them to be lived? How can one perform life when the dress rehearsal for life is life?"

Anywayz, i would recommend this book and say that all in all twas a good experience.

ciao
rohit
P.S: Next book is "Power Shift: Alvin Toffler"

CAT ki kahani

Yeah thats right, i am one of the 1.6 lac junta that wrote the CAT this year and am eagerly awaiting the results.But with this wait comes the awful run of rumours.Every other day one hears about this result and that result and then u get all nervour and with trmbling hands you type out the URL and it all turns out to be nuthing but a big hoax.Anywayz,its going to be another week and i am sure that the results will be out by then.I am keeping all possible organs crossed till then!


A lot of shit has been happening in our batch in college, some immature ppl have created a lot of bad faith in the class.Although ours was never the "Dream" batch but still twas a good motley crowd . Sadly enough ,some ppl will just never learn to grow up and think beyond petty issues.Will write some more on this when everything become clear.

Am currently reading a book calles "The Unbearable lightness of being" by Milan Kundera.Nice book ,have read only half of it till now seems set for a good end. Will write a nice lil review when i get finished with it.

Chalo its time i got back to my book

Movies lined up for tonite: The Incredibles,The Princess Bride.
Current Song : Yun Hi Chala Chal - Swades

Movies Masti Magic

Exams ended on 11th and now i have some grand plans for the holidays.
I have a host of activities lined up but the one that is exciting me the most at this point of time is the movies that i will be watching.
I got a hard disk frm hostel wid 17GB of movies and already i am having a ball.
Went to priya yesterday, watched Oceans' Twelve.I had heard some bad reviews about the movie but i found it awesome.I especially liked Rusty's(Brad pitt) character.While in the prequel he was the perfect criminal, no feeling or anything like that but this time he had a lil soft spot for Zeta Jones and of course the dialogue delivery by almost all the characters was mindblowing.
After i came back, watched 3 more movies-IQ-Under the tuscan sun-White chicks.Slept at 6 in the morn.Man i love these holidays!!
Anywayz, the silence of the lambs and godfather 2 lined up for today.
Will be talking bout some serious stuff on the blog soon,Stuff that has been troubling me for a while.
anywayz,for now,its movie time
adios

I'm back

wow! tis been a long time since i wrote anything on the blog...
When i had started this blog( after being inspired by a guy in IIML ) i had thot that this wud be one place i wud pour all my thots into everyday..but alas! as with all my plans ..this wun cud just not be.
Nevertheless, now i have all the time in the world to write as much as i want on my blog.
anywayz,had my last prac today( lol...i can't believe twas an exam worth 2 credits)
this is what happened when i went inside:
Me:may i come in sir
Bheeku: haan haan beta, aao beta,baitho beta,beta,beta.....
MG:what kind uv certi is this...Paaaah--meeeeddd services, how cud u do yr trainin here?
ME: mam, tis a comp. that manufactures MRI machines,X-ray...blah blah...
MG: ok
LIC external: MRI? how does this MRI work?
Me: (almost jumping, this was the only answer i knew) Sir there is a tube, magnetic field...arbit thassa.....
LIC external: ohoh.....gd gd

some 2 minutes more of this and the discussion finally ended with this question "who is the head of the dept in ur brothers hospital"..lol gimme a break ...r u really askin me that?

Can't beleive this was a viva,altho i didnt really work in my training or nething, i just presented this as an example of the farce that is called"Bachelor of Engineering"
newayz that shud be enuff for today,
ciao
rohit