Last presentation @ Great Lakes

07 April 07

Today we had an early morning class. 8:00 – Prof. V K Murti & Subject : Small Business Marketing. Arun,Ashok, Rajesh & Myself were part of the group. Our topic was “Mercedes”. We made a good presentation.

Evening Kamal & myself watched “American History X”. I liked the movie very much. “Life is too short to be pissed off with everything” is the punch dialogue said by Edward Norton’s brother in the movie. Really gripping movie. Liked it !!



21st April 2007

Memorable day in my life !! This day was my last day at Great Lakes. We had a day long workshop on Market Research & Integrated Marketing Communications. Faculty was Mr. Aditya Kaushik . He is IIT Madras & IIMC guy. Ex P&G. Lives in Toronto & runs a BPO called Red Tree. Red Tree is into Analytical Marketing Research.

The first session of the workshop was on focus groups. The next session was on Information Pump. IP is a variant of a focus group which in quality discussions carry incentives. After that he gave us a case on “Nintendo’s Game Boy Color Launch” at 11:30 & asked us to present the solutions by 13:15 hrs. The case was a tough read. Also as we were not familiar with the gaming industry in USA, it took us some time to understand the context.



Arun & myself presented the case. The prof appreciated the clarity of the presentation. We had recommended that Nintendo must target only kids, should not decrease the price & remove the old B&W game boy. Most of our predictions were true & we were happy to close the life at Great Lakes on a personal high.

22nd April 07

Sriram Iyer of Pioneer batch & myself were in the airport waiting for Uncle Bala. Today happens to be our convocation & that is the reason why uncle is in town. Also with us were Praveen, Keshav of JP, Sahoo of JC, Jagan, Vikranth & Bala Pradeep of our batch.

We saw Kalanidhi & Dayanidhi Maran at the airport. Uncle was full of energy & told about how he happened to interact with TN Governor Dr. Surjit Singh Barnala, who is the chief guest at our convocation.

Expect interesting posts after convocation !!

Learnings from my travelling experiences !!

Dear All

My experience in Bombay local trains has been a great learning.

I will tell you some stats about the trains in Mumbai. every train is designed to carry 1000 passengers. But in reality each train carries around 5000 passengers. Frequency is 3 minutes.

First thing that I have gained from travelling in electric trains is punctuality. If you are late by a minute you will miss your train. I used to take the 7:20 local from vashi to VT. This train starts from Vashi, so I will get a place to sit. If I am late & miss the 7:20 local, then I need to take the next train at 7:30. In this train I won't get a place to sit, because it starts from Panvel. It comes jampacked. Suppose you miss the 7:20 train, then you are in for hardships the whole journey. You will be made to bend in all possible degrees.You will get free massages in all parts of your body. people will walk on your shoes as though that is their birthright. Most difficult part is you need to protect your mobile phone & purse from pick pocketers. One my friends has lost his mobile phone in a train.In crowded staions like Kurla & Dadar, if you by chance get into the way of the crowd that is getting down , they will ensure that you also get down at Dadar along with them. Young slum children throw stones at trains. So if you stand on the entrances then you might get hurt by the stones. The whole compartment will be smelling like rot because there is no air circulation , as people get only one feet across one feet to stand.

After such a wonderful journey you will finally get down at VT. For a moment you will not recognise yourself!! Your shoe would have changed its colour. You actually should be happy if you were wearing the shoe in the firstplace. Your trousers & shirts will all be totally crippled. To add to that you will be profusely sweating & your shirt will be totally sticky.

While walking into office, your receptionist will give you a laughing look & will ask why you had missed the regular train.Then you will think all this because of you not being punctual.

Bombay locals make you disciplined !!

My other travelling experience...

Nagarajan & myself were travelling in Dadar Chennai after we finished our training. My friend had come earlier to the station. He had come around 6:00 PM for the 9:00 PM train. He was sitting alone & at that time a stranger had started talking to him. The stranger introduced himself as Sundar, a Film Director & son of famous film director S P Muthuraman. Moreover he said that he had come to Mumbai to book Ayesha Takia as the heroine for his forthcoming film. He told that he lost his money (Rs 25 lacs) , laoptop & mobile phone & train ticket in the taxi. So he did not have any money to board the train. He told that however he had booked the ticket in III AC. He asked for Rs 2000 from my friend. He told this amount will help him to pay the fine the TT will levy for ticketless travel. The guy was speaking to my firend for around two hours regarding various cine actors & actresses. My friend completely believed that he indeed was son of SP Muthuraman & handed over Rs 2000.00 to him. The train started. I told my friend you should not have paid the amount. He told me that this guy was genuine & will give back his money the moment train reaches Chennai. My friend went to the III AC compartment , to chat with him. He returned back taking all bad words against him. I could understand what had went wrong. The guy was missing. There was some other SUndar in that berth. He had escaped with 2000. Hehad planned the whole operation very meticulously to an extent that he had first found the name of a passenger travellin in III AC & then used that as his name & cheated my friend.


To sum it up....

The two main points I wish to state is that one needs to be punctual when commuting in Mumbai & when travelling to a new city it is better not to trust strangers.

C U all !!


LIFELESS TALK

LIFELESS TALK

LIFELESS TALK