ankur Warikoo

94%…yes you heard it right…94%…! Thats just 6% lower than a situation wherein a stressed-out parent enters the campus, approaches the reception and asks, “Madam (or sir…I dont mean to be sexist here!), I want to enroll my son for the engineering course.”

Figure this:

Out of 391 students in the IIMA Class of 2009-11:

# 369 are engineers

# 12 have a science background (which itself sounds so derogatory, as if engineering is some intellectual science and there is another field called science!)

# 9 have a commerce background

# 1 is from Arts background!!!

—

This basically means that in the 2 years that will follow, these 391 students will have diversity examples as follows

Professor: “Students, what is a code?”

Student 1 (Or rather Engineer 1): “Sir…code is what I wrote when I couldnt get girls, but a guy named Mark Zuckerberg offered free beer and I gave it to him”

Student 2 (Engineer 2): “Sir, code is what humans are made up of..the DNA code”

Student 3 (Engineer 3): “Sir, code is what I hate mode about software design”

Student 4 (Engineer 4): “Sir, code is a form of modulated wave whose amplitude is directly proportional to the wavelength when travelling at the speed of light”

Student 5 (Engineer 5): “Sir, code is a mathematical complexity that is so hard to comprehend that one can only hope of making a movie out of it and winning the oscar”

Student 6 (Commerce Student 1): “Sir, I am surely going to flunk this class”

Student 7 (Arts Student 1): “Sir, I think the commerce student and me are surely going to flunk the class”

—

This also means that irrespective of what students do in these 2 years, the one getting the most press coverage (and rest assured there WILL be a LOT of press coverage) will be the Arts student!

Oh..but there is more

Number of female candidates has dropped from 19% last year to 11% this year

WHATT??? Did the students know this, when they accepted the offer?

So let me get this straight, not only does the new IIMA Class of 2009-11 have more “super stud red underwear over pants” engineers, it has lesser of the “dumb good for nothing only know how to bitch and giggle” females!

AhA…now THAT is a perfect MBA CLASS! Undivided attention, no hormonal excitement at the age of 21, no world perspective from a lawyer or a doctor…but pure divine engineering based business education. Such joy!

But high WTFness emerges when you read such statements made by the Admissions Chairpersons

“We had a limited pool of candidates from arts and commerce backgrounds making it to the first round. On our part, we tried to include several combinations during the interview, but engineers scored well,”IIM-A admissions chairperson Diptesh Ghosh told ET

Aaah…that explains it. Its not their fault. We have just dumb Arts and Commerce students in this country! Engineers scored well!

Because hey, when we asked students what is the probability that you will take out a red ball from a box when you have thrown in 7 red balls in Box1 and 8 Black balls in Box2 and transferred 3 balls from Box1 to Box2 and then re-transfered 5 balls from Box2 to Box1, WE HONESTLY THOUGHT ARTS STUDENTS WILL GET IT!

—

Its a pity! Because the institute is one of the finest the country has. And yet, it remains blindly attached to fundamentals that fail to modify themselves as per the times. Students from IIMA perform well in life (statistically atleast) not because of the education they have received or the work-experience they come in with, rather the ability to work like crazy. They are fantastic when it comes to slogging and working hard and cracking the exams and the CATs of the world…but that doesn’t necessarily make them good business managers!

An MBA in India has been reduced to a “degree that will get you a job”, rather than a degree that will teach you business fundamentals. And admission processes that are skewed towards a certain section of society, especially in terms of numerical capability, defeat any attempt to change this attitude. You get number crunchers in your batch and give them sexy I-Bank/consulting roles at dollar figures…and the MBA dream just keeps getting bigger and bigger! Its another thing that the MBA itself did not do anything to that student, apart from making him/her marketable!

Tragic!

DNA: Engineer’s dominate IIMA’s new Post-graduate programme batch

Economic Times: It’s engineers galore at IIMA

Came back from ISB this weekend, after interviewing Round 2 candidates for the batch of 2011. Its funny (or is tragic the word) that inspite of the sheer amount of open source information available out there…courtesy Pagalguy (and the likes), more than 50% students dont come prepared, in the real sense!

One of my favorite ways to start an interview is with the following question – “How have you prepared for this interview?”. More often than not, the response will be pagalaguy, alum interaction, current batch friends etc etc.

The next question then is “Identify 5 questions that you have prepared for best, through all your sources”…and the great part is that most come up with the same 5 odd sections. But thats where it ends.

When told to come up with their responses to those 5 questions, the lack of preparation shows. Its not really lack of preparation because they say all the right things…walk the safe path. Its essentially lack of clarity.

At the very basic level, ISB is looking at 2 things

1. Why MBA?

2. What after MBA?

– Why MBA –

THIS is the most important section. It is NOT funny how many people want to do an MBA just because they are bored of what they are doing, feel they have to finish their education as early as possible or think of it as a magic wand that will allow you to shift from IT to Investment Banking!

DO NOT state rehearsed answers – “I want to acquire business skills” “I need an MBA to prepare a business plan” “An MBA will teach me leadership and management skills”!

Understand that an MBA will not do any of these. Thinking that an MBA makes you a leader is equivalent of thinking that a bat makes you tendulkar! An MBA is a tool…which will allow you to apply yourself and become what you have to.

There are no right answers to this, because everyone has their own right answer. So dont give answers that are socially desirable. Because we are not recruiting you to make please the world…we are recruiting you for you!

Also be practical. Consider one example – ISB is not a cheap school and if you take a full loan, the EMI comes to 35K or so! So when I hear a budding entrepreneur state that ISB will help him flesh out his business plan and then he will start right after, my first reaction is “and what if you plug this 20 lacs into your business”…”what’s plan B”…and thats where the discussion stops!

– What after MBA –

Oh cmon…how can you NOT know the answer to this! Worse still, how can you not know everything about what you wish to do. 300 students want to enter McKinsey, but do you know what it takes to get in! Get a reality check.

When we see an IT guy with 10 years of experience who wants to join marketing, or a sales guy with 4 years of experience who wants to enter corporate finance, the obvious question is…what will this 1 year offer you that you think this change is possible! And they have no clue! They just think that an MBA will do that automatically for them!

This question…the most fundamental one that everyone expects…is easily the worst answered in my experience. People havent thought through it…they are clueless…which would have been fine had you done your homework and figured out where people similar to your background eventually go and what they do! But not knowing it and sitting at an ISB interview is totally unacceptable.

Equally important is to have a Plan B. If you will not get the industry shift, then what? If your business will not materialize, then what? If you do not get a 12 lac job, then what?

How can students not have a Plan B. Ok…I exclude the tiny section that tends to balance itself on overconfidence, but for the remaining, the question is more of a “oh shit…i didnt think of it” reaction! CMON!

This year, I most likely will see 13 students join the next batch, interviewed by me! I make it a point to note their contacts and look them up the next year. And I wish the ones that we have rejected had a chance to sit through the interviews of these 13 individuals and realize what a big difference clarity in thought brings!

The punchline – Be extremely sure of what an ISB MBA will do for you…and why you need it in the first place!

All other questions can be omitted…they are simply fillers!

PS: I love helping out students who are preparing for ISB (selectively though), because for me the school’s future is decided by who goes in! If anyone out there feels I could be of help, please feel free to contact! I would be more than happy!

Or in other words…a tutorial on how not to spoil a classic by getting crass non-achievers, giving them more air-time than they ever got in their lifetime, and trying too hard to show that we have progressed!

Music sucks (what is it…an electronic house remix?)…the choice of individuals suck (sportspeople?? business guys??? the common man??) and its way too long to generate anything except revenue for the broadcaster!

Really badly done! And if you dont believe me…here is what you have to see! I kid you not…I had tears in my eyes when I saw the old one today…!

And here is the new one…!

Pretty Interesting…! But then…will only work once…you cant create businesses out of it…!

I have realized, that customers are (much) smarter than you think they are…(or you would want them to be!)! And that creates an impact…a big one…on businesses…especially the ones in the repeat business segment (almost everyone).

These guys can clearly not do a business of buying bicycles cheap and selling them for a profit creatively! Once…it works…twice rarely will. 

So value has to be created and it mostly always has to be either tangible or quantifiable. Cost and convenience are the biggest value creators…hands down. And the hardest to create…!

Reminds me of the kings, who long after their ‘kingdom’ had vanished, still insisted that they are kings and insisted on living that way!

Air India, yet again (but this time bigger and better!) posted losses, amounting to a shocking Rs 7,226 Crores in the last 2 fiscals! Ok…let me take that back. Its not shocking, more like expected!

But THIS is shocking

AI issued an order allowing chairman and managing director Arvind Jadhav and his spouse to travel first class on its flights, whether on work or leisure. The order also allows serving chief executive’s parents and children to travel in AI’s business class during vacation.

The mayhem continues

The diktat making it mandatory for senior officials to fly only economy class, part of AI’s much touted economy drive, has also been reversed in this latest order

And stamping it down is the addendum

AI and IA’s retired CMDs or MDs will be entitled to business class travel along with their spouses, parents and children. The same will apply to people who retired from the posts of DGM to corporate directors

Read the entire shit here…! And honestly, it is shit!

Everyone who has had the opportunity to work outside India almost always has to say one thing about it – Amazing work life balance!

I remember my days in the US when the office used to be empty by 6pm…or in Dubai when we (the Indian Team) used to be the only ones left behind after 5.30 pm (or 3.30pm during Ramzan) alongwith a few other guys from the client side, again all Indians!

I always wondered why is that the case, until I heard from some of my friends in China and Russia (they are from Kearney, so might not be a fair dataset!)

I think the reason has got to be the GDP growth rate of the country!

Indulge me…

If one were to really plot all the countries on a worklife balance scale, I think there will be a high (negative) correlation with the GDP growth of the country. The developed economies (with a low GDP growth rate) will typically have the best work-life balance. And vice versa.

The same can also apply to industries. The one with higher growth rates will typically have people with better work-life balance than the ones with lower growth rates, even within the same country!

And all this is because of the growth prospect.

Even if an american slogs his butt off and works like shit beyond office hours…how much more can he really make, financially and professionally?? Hardly anything.

But if an Indian slogs his butt off…he can easily emerge as the best in a lot of people who dont…which results in fantastic paycheck raises, bigger opportunities etc etc!

Emerging markets are growing so rapidly…and there is such lack of talent especially in the middle, that one can easily rise up provided they bring in quantifiable (or at times just visible) levels of extra output than the average. And this suddenly results in a ratrace, where everyone is trying to outdo the other by spending more and more hours at work…at times ostensibly!

Same goes for companies in general, which have a “bad” work-life culture! They know that if they get their people to work like donkeys, they can actually grow in double digits! Something that a US company cannot think of, even if it gets all its people to work 24 hrs!

This also reflects on why most Indian managers are not comfortable with the “working from home” concept! They need to SEE the output…they feel that the sheer back and forth will result in precious time lost that could bring in that additional 10 basis point of growth!

Naturally…the west is the opposite…and amazingly…working from home is turning out to be as productive as office, as this interesting piece suggests!

So…the next time your boss asks you to stay longer…blame it on the friggin 9% growth!

…i hope never…(or for that matter I hope someday!)…

But this is what Mr. Thackeray (no, the old almost dead one…not the young ‘always orgasming’ one!) believes Sachin has done by commenting that “Mumbai is part of India”

“There was no need for him to take a cheeky single by making such remarks,” Sena mouthpiece ‘Saamna’ quoted Thackeray as saying.

and hey…friggin entire India comes together…and this time not to simply light candles on India Gate (with all due respect…but really…candles…solidarity…??)…but barging full-on to face the Thackerays! Ofcourse they all know that no one will ever vandalise their house for doing so…since Tendulkar is god in India…and anyone even coming remotely close to branding him otherwise will only draw flak! Least…the political party will loose all voters..!

I dont get it…politics! What was the old man thinking…?? He knew this would become a national “breaking news”. And its not even something that will draw appreciation from some quarters of the society. Anyone who says anything against Sachin is bound to be either drugged, or made to confess so by Delhi Police…(or both..!). So whats the point…!

But maybe he has one…

On the other side…ofcourse a lot of people have found their moment of fame by coming up with their two pence on what they think about Sachin’s statement! HT covered some of them….one of which was a masterpiece

“Mumbai is the capital of Maharashtra, which is part of India. Mumbai is, therefore, an integral part of India”

Thanks Sherlock! Thats exactly what we had in mind when we asked you if you felt Mumbai was a part of India.

Then the Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa should thank you!

An RTI reply has revealed that Yeddyurappa has spent a staggering Rs 1.7 crore to renovate his bungalow, Rs 35 lakh of which went into redoing his bedroom.

Read the gory details here

On one hand, I find it amazing that such level of information can be procured in this country…andthe ones procuring it are people such as you and me – fed up of living in the “chalta hain” scheme of things!

And on the other, I find it unfortunate that this very chief minister will come back to power, if you will, because he will distribute rice at Rs 2 per kg!

——

I travel 38 kms one-way to work! And I am blessed because the road to office is awesome..and it hardly takes me 45 minutes to cover it. However, if a certain 7km stretch of the road (which I avoid…infact everyone except the trucks avoid) was to be repaired…the same distance would reduce to 32kms and under 40 mins.

Yah…its not a lot…6kms or 5mins…but if you cover this over the number of vehicles that travel this route everyday, you will wonder why no one bothers to just repair the road! A few lacs…and god knows how much will be saved in time, effort and money!

I did write to the Department of Roads, Haryana and was told that this road falls under the Highway department. I wrote to them…and never got a response!

And to think of it…I am friggin complaining about my life…when I am aware of several others who spend twice as much time on the road…covering half the distance I travel!

Am not surprised at this statistic…! Released by Comscore this Wednesday, the “Natural Born Clickers” research has some rather interesting revelations about the Internet and especially the clicks happening all across!

While the statistics are only regarding image ads (and not search ads, which will surely throw up numbers different, maybe drastically different), it still is fascinating to think how the industry today is so centered around clicks and you friggin find out that only 8% of the audience you are catering to, is doing most of the talking! As rightly questioned in the report too…what about the remaining audience, who rarely click, but are still surfing the net and spending a whole lot of time on it.

I realize that there will always be this section which somehow adjusts to the ads around them. They ‘zone off’ the ads! I belong to that category…as long as the ad is advertising for something else but ’showing’ something else (if you know what I mean!). But there will be a section of the population, and I reckon a good share, that will see the ad but never click…for whatever reason. But the ad has surely had some effect on them…however minuscule in nature! How do you quantify that!

Google ofcourse has a remedy, as is does for a whole lot of things in this world except for premature ejaculation! They recently released the “View Through” conversions on the Google Banner network (not yet for text ads). Basically works through a cookie for a period of 30 days…so if I have seen an ad and then ultimately do make a conversion sometime later within 30 days…its counted as happening because of the ad!

Not 100% perfect….one can guess multiple flaws in this metric…but a start nonetheless.

In the Internet space, unlike offline media, there is so much of stuff happening, fighting for the user attention. And the switching costs for the user are zero, almost always, unless playing Farmville on FB! So I always thought that clicks is a good way of measuring intent! Definitely better than impressions! But then if clicks are also not working (in the sense, you are eliminating a huge chunk of the audience), what would be a good way to measure ad effectiveness? And thereby cost it?

What would it be?

To whosoever it may concern at AI, (Bad start…because it really will not concern anyone at AI…it never will)

Recall the incident wherein one of your Airhostesses on the Sharjah-Lucknow flight had reportedly leveled molestation charges against two pilots. Today, you have gone ahead and chargesheeted her.

“Komal Singh has been chargesheeted for speaking to the media against company policies. She has also been accused of insubordination, disobeying seniors,” said a senior official working with the airline, wishing anonymity.

A lot of people are crying foul here and accusing you of gender-bias. But I don’t think you…I don’t think you guys even thought that this would amount to gender-bias, because quite frankly thinking that far requires brains. So no, its not gender-bias! I would be writing this letter even if the person levying the charges would have been a guy!

I simply have 2 questions:

1. Imagine that the undergoing case would actually have resulted in the charges being proven true. Would you still have gone ahead with the chargesheet?

2. Imagine that the air-hostess had not jumped up and down infront of the media and simply reported the matter to her seniors. Would you have still taken this charge as seriously?

—-

I have another question, this time for my lawyer friends. Can the public chargesheet Air India and Indian Airlines for running this setup the way it is run. Where money continues to be lost every year, and not because it is offering any ’social service’ to the nation by operating at subsidized rates, but simply because of the public sector hangover where accountability is not a standard to live up to. A company whose losses are being funded by the population! I think that crime enough for a chargesheet, no?

I have hated advertisers for the longest time ever…partly because I think they do a good job…and partly because they don’t (mostly) know when to stop! While the other has been (somewhat) taken care of by the “Do Not Disturb” act…its the first one that I speak about today.

You will rarely find people with a science (education) background in advertising. Before you jump onto why, I think the rationale is more fundamental (and nothing at all to do with capability, as you might have imagined!). The 2 fields are opposite to each other, in principle.

Science, as a concept, relies on the real world. Its premise is that value can only be created by ‘creating’ something. Actually building it. Something that requires raw materials, labor, operations etc.

Advertising on the other hand, relies on perception value. Its premise is that value can be created by simply altering perception. You can actually create something out of nothing.

And there is no better explanation for this statement, than the video below. Absolutely Brilliant!

Joke (as heard, when I was 12)

3 nations decide to build a rocket. USA, UK and India (dont ask me how they got together). And so they decide to contribute with what they feel they have best.

US – I will pump in the money to build in and also the infrastructure

UK – I will lend all the technology needed to build it.

Both them turned towards India…wondering whats left to be done.

India – I will get “Made in India” printed on it!

___

So yah…the joke might be bad and you have heard this before…but do you realize the undertone of the joke. Do you realize why this is a joke in the first place?

Somehow we Indians love to find ways to associate India with whatever is happening around the world. We get excited if Slumdog wins an oscar (which beyond Rahman is as much Indian as is Hamburger from Hamburg!), if Rushdie wins a booker (has he?), if Russell Peters wins the US Stand-Up Comedian Show (which he deserves to, if there is such a show) or if an 2nd-Gen US-Indian enters the final of the SpellingBee Contest.

Its as if “one of the fastest growing economies of the world” tag has brought with it a lot of performance pressure. We desperately need these achievements coming in! Western acknowledgement for us, is our “Boost is the secret of my energy” and I fail to understand why!

Instead of cherishing performance and achievement, we find it fashionable to display blinded patriotism!

Latest, in case is Venki Ramakrishnan. I love the fact that he has won the Nobel Chemistry prize 2009. Being a science student I somewhat understand his work (though most of it flew over the top). But suddenly the recognition has brought with it this Patriotic deluge that he cant handle! As a scientist who is not ( at all) used to such public attention, he quite innocently expressed disenchantment with people from India “bothering” him “clogging” up his email box and dubbed as “strange” their sudden urge to reach out to him.

Needless to say, the very same people who were reaching out to him now expressed anguish over his remarks. And in a wonderful admission of sorts, he writes in again today

The best way to take pleasure in someone’s achievement is to take an interest in their work and feel motivated to learn more about science.

…

Finally, there are many excellent scientists in India and elsewhere who will never win a Nobel prize. But their work is no less interesting and people should find out about what they do. My visits to India confirm that it has great potential and bright young students. A little less nationalistic hero worship will go a long way to fulfil that potential.

Read the entire entry here

I concur!

In the biggest WTF this year, Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.

ummm…WHAT…???

He has been in office for friggin 8 months…or 9…whatever…! Even more…he would have been in office around 2 weeks even the deadline (Feb 01) of the Nobel Prize closed. So basically, someone was so overwhelmed with the Obama “Yes We Can” that he went ahead and nominated him. And the committee too was so mesmerized that they friggin awarded him!

Dont get me wrong here…I like the guy…he seems nice and is trying to do stuff. But honestly, he speaks more than he delivers. We have seen enough instances of his reaching out to the masses like never before, ala Rahul gandhi, but cmon, with the shit that the US is going through he better be doing stuff too. To me this award is more of an appreciation of what he intends to do, than a reward for what he has done. And hey…thats not what the award is meant to be for!

In bigger WTF…did you know that some jackass nominated Hitler for the awards too!

its human tendency to consider things that are free, as fishy!

Consider yourself..in normal life. While almost all of us would jump in joy if someone offered their services free…would we also not have that edgy feeling “why would they do it for free…whats the fine print”. Cynicism is fundamental to the human nature

Yet…its fascinating how the same individual doesn’t blink an eyelid when services are offered for free on the Internet. Its the done thing…everything on the Internet is FREE. Google is…facebook is…twitter is (well almost!)…! People would much rather go for free services on the Internet than pay for stuff…! As if suddenly, FREE on the Internet is not fishy anymore.

They are not entirely wrong. There are several ‘brands’ that offer themselves free on the Internet. Brands that people would trust and have trusted. So if an NYTimes or a ToI offers its news for free…people dont consider it fishy. Its not as if ToI would give stale (or worse still, untrue) news for free members and the ‘real’ news for paid members. It cant.

But personally…I treat ‘Paid’ as a form of commitment. Think about it…SecondShaadi can also be a free service. But would it be a better one at that, if free? Leave aside the revenue problem…the bigger problem will be the nuisance that will get created because of this “free” service. Across fake profiles, spam profiles, spam forums and worse troubled genuine members.

So payments is a form of self selection. The system is selecting the genuine ones from the non-genuine ones. Not that all free members are not genuine…maybe some never really feel the need to pay because of several reasons (too expensive, no matching profiles etc). But the fact that you have paid…has to reflect genuineness.

Even that is not an easy step. Pricing the service too low can also mean the same problems as that of free services. But second guessing what’s the users threshold of “just perfectly priced that I can actually pay and yet not be genuine” is very tricky!

Only last week, we had a member pay up to upgrade her membership on SS. It became obvious in a day that she meant trouble. Spamming! So clearly even out highest priced product was worth it for her to upgrade and spam. She saw value even in that amount! Could we have guessed that..! No..!

Seth Godin has this excellent piece on the same issue. He suggests that money creates a sort of friction that is important for some services. Because it reflects commitment! Recommended read

This sums it up – Commitment slows things down in the short run, but ultimately aligns interests.

Cattle

1. Large rudimentary animal that are bred for slaughter and processed into food products
2. Short for ‘cattle class’ which pertains to flying economy class (or ‘coach’ in America) on a flight. It is called this mainly because many people are crammed into such a small space for an extended period of time and most of the time are treated like animals.

In other words, Cattle Class is not a reference to the people travelling in economy, rather a reflection of the apathy of the service provider towards such people! Which, if you really ask me, is true, especially of the Railways (and nowadays also of airlines!). We have all been a victim of stinking toilets, torn seats, dirty linen and kullad dahi

So I really fail to understand the big shit about Tharoor’s remarks on twitter. I might be conservative here, but I am on that side of the country today which suggests that Politicians need to be politically correct all the time! That by definition is a politician! He cant be insensitive to the masses.

But my contention here is that Tharoor wasnt! The friggin INC is suggesting that he was! No…wait…let me rephrase that…the INC is holding Tharoor by the throat, blocking his nose, opening his mouth…and making sure he gulps the fact that he was insensitive in his remarks! He WASNT!

And now….he goes to Soniaji to beg for mercy…amidst demands of his resignation! Holy friggin shit..! He has been told to be careful

Tharoor’s tweets from now on, will be such

cattle class in solidarity with all our holy cows

(Twitter HAS to be flexible enough to allow dashes in its tweets, from now on! Government can friggin fail)

What’s ironical is that all this tamasha could not have come at a better time! Duronto…madam mamta (not kulkarni) non-stop trains project…has reintroduced the 3-tier system (long disbanded) in the side berth!

INC – do you now understand who is being referred to..in “cattle class”

Well…atleast someone has a sense of humor in the party…!

What…he has been asked to resign…!!??? Had to be…!

I am a sucker for high quality customer service. And I am an Internet guy…! This combination makes me realize (not necessarily before anyone else) that in the world of Internet, customer service acquires a whole new meaning.

Recall the days when companies had a customer service number (not even toll-free) that was rarely attended to, or even if it was, would sound as if it was a favor? Remember how in those days one didn’t really have any outlet to crib about companies that were indifferent to their customers? Recall the times when you were put on an “your call is important to us. Please wait for the next 39 minutes because..really..do you have a choice?” hold!

Not anymore. The Internet has allowed people to come together, share their crib…and make companies respond to their customers in a never before manner. Yah…forget the fact that some companies still dont…and I honestly dont know what they are upto. But most discerning companies today are responding to customer grievances, which mostly get solved by a simple apology and the display of an effort not to repeat the situation again, with any other customer.

Which scares me…because I am now handling both sides of the coin. At one hand I continue to be a customer…and I cant even begin to recount how often I have written to the CEOs of corporates (and big ones huh…Jet, Maruti, Toshiba, Jumeirah, Starwood at last count!) and actually got them to move their ass…and on the other side…I am today a service provider too. Through Accentium, we are serving a large section of the Indian Internet population and there are bound to be mistakes we make. And there are bound to be grievances that customers raise.

I shudder to think of times when our customers get together and complain about our products. I hate to think of such a possibility…but I am guessing it happens. Which always keeps us on our toes. We, on a normal day, recieve anywhere between 5-10 customer emails about our services. Some are happy news (we received 2 success stories for SecondShaadi yesterday!!)…some are general emails (I need to change my listing. How do I do that)…and some are feedback mails…good rarely..bad mostly…(why is this not working…why are you sending me random profiles when I asked for only this this this)

All of this gives us immense insight into how our customers operate. And we make it a point to respond to all…without fail…such emails. Because we want them to know that we care…and while we have done what we thought was best for you all…but to really make us the best…we need your feedback. We need to know what are we doing wrong..more than the right.

I personally treasure these emails. Because I know that most customers are not even bothered about sending in an email. They will simply move on…most probably…to our competitor…and its scary to think how many would have. So such emails are a fantastic find..because they take the pains to give me feedback. And we try to hold on to them as much as we can.

And angry customers are really really bad people…! go to this site Consumer Complaints. It is nothing but thousands of customer complaining…! Nothing else..! There are no resolutions to these complaints in an official manner (the only way is if the companies are actually tracking the posts there…but are they)…! But look at its power. You search for “HDFC netbanking” and complaints from the site are there on Page1. Search for “Airtel Prepaid” and same result…search for “online sbi” and same result.

Thats the power of the site. Some..atleast some…potential customers when searching for these queries will catch the complaints too. Imagine…the corporate website is the first result and the complaints is right there on the same page! The company has friggin spent their life building that brand and a single customer’s complaint has now come at the same level. Thats the power of the Internet!

I love the openness of the Internet. I love the fact that it dissolves boundaries and it creates communities…where people can share! Ironically…these are the same things that makes me scared now.

Addition

Matt Cutts recently blogged about his bad experience with US Airways. Imagine how powerful that is. He could have simply written to the CEO of US Airways…am sure he can figure that much out. But he close to blog instead! Turning the entire world into a community…of people complaining about similar experience. You have to read the comments on the post…! Whats worse is that not even a single comment seems to be from someone at US Airways, trying to offer an apology…or atleast an explanation! Sad!

I COULDN’T AGREE MORE!

Last month I was invited for a guest lecture at MDI, Gurgaon. The audience was someone I had never dealt with…infact an audience that at some level scares me till date. I was to face a bunch of 40-odd NGO heads! Individuals running highly successful social enterprises who thought that i could be someone who could tell them how to use the Internet to their advantage.

I decided to begin the discussion with a digression…and the first thing I wrote on the board…which set the tone of the next hour…was the title of this post “the social responsibility of business is to make profits” (famously first discussed by Friedman in his pathbreaking 1970 article)

I was amazed at the fact that this concept struck a perfect chord with everyone (well, almost) present in the audience! maybe that why they were all successful NGOs. Because honestly, I find this NGO bit a little stupid. It always has that socialist, Nehru-era hangover which I totally abhor! what good is running an NGO when you are friggin bleeding money day-in and day-out…you cant get a competent team to work for you for a salary…and you rely on funds and grants but never really have a sustainable ‘business model’

i know…maybe THATS what an NGO is not supposed to be, but I definitely dont agree. Humans fundamentally are driven by their own needs…we are selfish beings! so dont expect someone to follow your path if he/she doesnt see convenience and comfort in doing so. So stop making all these NGOs that are urging people to go non-plastic and are urging people to adopt stray dogs! Its not going to work…and why would you want to force someone to do so anyways. why does it take an Einstein to realize that friggin removing plastic bags is not the solution, because the minute you do that, inconvenience creeps in…and no one will want to live with that.

Seth Godin fantastically summarizes my thoughts in a single line…and I love him for that

If your non-profit isn’t acting with as much energy and guts as it takes to get funded in Silicon Valley or featured on Digg, then you’re failing in your duty to make change

You have to read his entire post. Absolute Gem!

it was sometime in mid-2008 that we decided to enter the education vertical. the genesis was simple…education in India is HUGE…and i mean…friggin huge…and its poorly represented in the Internet space. which is surprising, because the target audience has possibly the highest share of online users amoungst all other segments. students comprise a massive share of internet users…and there didnt seem to be anything worth appreciating, to cater to them when we sat down to prepare the plan, there were 2 main planks (actually 3…but i wont count development…because we thought it would be just like our other websites) – content and design. we wanted the site to have the best content available in the Internet space…and we wanted it to have a young, fresh, clean look.

for inspiration, we turned to wikipedia for design. white space, boxed approach, elegant…and not cluttered. we couldnt find a similar inspiration for content. the present sites in india sucked…while some international ones came close…but not quite. we decided to handle it from scratch. along the way, we figured that development was the 3rd differentiating plank…predominantly due to that one single feature which i am proud of… after 9 months of work…across these 3 pillars, we launched studytimes…and i have reasons to believe why it will fare much better than the competition (which according to me doesnt extend beyond shiksha and studyplaces…there are some really good vertical sites there…pagalguy etc…but then we are broad based and they are not competition in that sense)

since the lauch of studytimes, people have come up with mostly good things to say…! most of them have come from the personal network, which is great cause they also tend to be the most critical. for instance, ruchi’s first reaction was…its cluttered. i then asked her to name one non-cluttered site according to her…she said rediff…and i knew not to consider her opinion anymore!! :) ofcourse i am a sucker for feedback…and there have been these emails about spelling mistakes, and bad links…thanks for them…! and then there has been this segment…which always exists..just like the people you see on the road when an accident has happened…! they feel its just a replica of existing sites…there is nothing fresh about the site…etc etc…! here is why they are wrong

why studytimes (now StudyNation) will fare better than competition

1. Superior Content

StudyTimes definitely has the best content in the country as of today. We have a database of over 25,000 colleges across India, USA, UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia…covering over 4,00,000 unique courses! The details are important too…we dont just have pages of random shit… One thing we did quite differently, is to classify the Indian colleges. call it a little liberty from our side, but we sensed that people searching for engineering in india should not always land up with the IITs and the NITs of India…what if i am a dude who knows that these are not my cup of tea…and want to see the Tier II colleges. so we have categorized our colleges in Top Ranked (a hand-picked selection of the top 700 colleges of India…across all fields…drawn from multiple sources such as rankings, affiliations, reviews etc), medium ranked (the fat belly of our databse, which are colleges that are for the average student)…and non-ranked (colleges that exist…and do just that…exist…they dont even have a website..which made us figure that hey are serving a very local audience…so lets not rank them at all)

so someone searching for engineering on StudyTimes will see the top ranked…yes ofcourse…but will also see the medium ranked (sorted by location..so someone sitting in delhi will see delhi colleges first etc) and the non-ranked…! And we have some terrific content on the top-ranked colleges, which will ofcourse spread all through the database in sometime…! check out ISB on StudyTimes…or say…Hindu College…this is what you call a friggin content-rich page. this is stuff that students will love…

2. Search

This was the 3rd plank that we realized down the road. Search on existing sites are crappy to say the least. Shiksha search is horrible and StudyPlaces doesnt even have a concept of search on the site…! we decided…(and it was largely the phenomenal work of Bharani and his team) that search will be one of the most important features on StudyTimes. and it is… its intuitive…it tries and understands the intent of the user. we built a logic of synonyms, exclusions and abbreviations on the site and have tried to come as close to the intent as possible. so if you search for Top Engineering Colleges, you WILL get the top engineering colleges, unlike the other sites. search for management and you get MBA colleges, not hotel management or sports management …so on and so forth.

The search is through all searchable sections of the site…namely the StudyTimes Forum, Events and Test Preparation

3. Study Abroad

Number of students going out to study is increasing and will continue to increase. we realized that early into the development of StudyTimes and decided to dedicate an entire microsite to it. So the Study Abroad section of StudyTimes is an independent site, for all technical purposes. It has its own forum, its own events section, its own colleges and courses list…etc…and yet…remains seamlessly integrated into the entire StudyTimes structure. its an exclusive space for students looking for International Education, but at any time if they wish to come back to good old India…its just a click away.

4. User Interface

i like the feel of the site. its easy on the eyes…and yet content rich at all times (i love the sheer amount of content on our student living section…and the way its presented…sample this). to me studyplaces is cluttered in the sense that content is all over…its not structured. Shiksha gives me a classifieds feel…though i like the fact that they have a lot of white space and it doesnt really look all that cluttered. we adopted the boxed approach. segregation of content so that the user can easily identify it and make use of it. he has to just scroll his eyes through the headlines and he knows where to go…

5. User Generated Content

am a sucker for UGC…and its possibly the hardest thing to figure out in the Internet space…and the most powerful. look at what wikipedia and youtube have accomplished…no single entity could have come even closer. we decided to have our own share of UGC on the site, to help generation of content, beyond facts and figures.

College Reviews – allows users to review colleges on key parameters. this is great (well..not right now cause we dont have a lot of them…but down the line)…cause a student researching will for the first time ever have reviews on the college. stuff that they usually reach out to, from alums, friends etc.

Forum – this is standard…no rocket science. but key to any site that aims to build UGC…! i dont claim we have done anything different…but this will definitely be another big source of information and content

Events – we have a section dedicated to capturing events. but we also users to suggest events, because we know that we cant do it all by ourselves. so finally…users can now promote and publish their events for free. IITD can submit the Rendezvous festival free on StudyTimes…and so can BITS for Oasis

6. Counselling

now now..we all know how confused we were when we were students. except for me..everyone had no shit clue of what they wanted to do in life. its another thing that i am no where close to what i wanted to do back then..! StudyTimes has a counselling section…wherein we capture a profession every week and speak about it. So one can figure out what is it really to be an Architect, be our guest. Our a Fashion Designer? no issues… But the best part is yet to come. we have tied with up one of India’s best career counselor (whose name shall be disclosed very soon) and she has very gracefully decided to move her amazing Career Choice Test online. so very shortly, users of StudyTimes will be able to take a simple 30 minute test online and get their aptitude mapped onto some 4,500 odd professions…so it will not just tell you that you are fit to be an engineer, it will tell you you are fit to be a mechanical engineer. its thats precise (and needless to say accurate) the first time this is being offered in India…

7. Test Preparation

test preparation is huge in India…i mean…friggin HUGE…! and we ofcourse wanted to be a part of it. we (atleast as of now) dont intend to step into online testing, so the best way for us was to engage the users through relationships with coaching institutes. So StudyTimes intends to tie up with coaching institutes and service our users, through the site. its not yet up…but will be soon… till then…content rocks…! we have detailed information about the top examinations of India…right from the format to the exam dates such as form submission, test date, exam results etc. basically the works…

i am not suggesting that StudyTimes is a product that is a google in the internet space. it isnt offering anything new…but it is definitely offering a newer way of doing the same thing…! people can compare us to our comeptition and say we are simply replicating…but i dont care about such crap..! eventually the user knows what he wants…and will go back to what he knows will deliver… Final test: Search for Fashion Design Delhi on the 3 sites…and here is what you get…

StudyTimes result shows NIFT as the first one, followed by Apeejay and the JD Institute…! All known for being the top fashion design institutes in Delhi.

Shiksha for the same query shows Senorita College of Fashion and Design followed by Delhi University International Institute of Fashion Design (which btw is not in Delhi, but Nagpur), followed by IMS-Design and Innovation Academy. Quick question – where are the hell are these colleges…!!!

StudyPlaces takes the cake. It shows some random DiA at the top…but then thats featured…so even though I dont like search results being corrupted…its ok…its business at the end of it…! But then the real search shows me IIFT, which I dont even know if it exists in delhi…(but definitely claims of being the biggest fashion institutes of Asia) followed by NIDD (NIDD what???) which amoungst other courses of fashion design also offers vaastu shastra courses…! And then Sikkim Manipal…which I am guessing is not in Delhi…but claims to be in Delhi by StudyPlaces!

what would you much rather see…???

THAT is the power of execution….! Which is why StudyTimes will fare better than its competition…

PS: we are in beta version right now…which basically helps us improve our offering to the last mile. but all of it cant happen without the feedback of the users. so please send in your feedback…improvements…suggestions…whatever…to feedback [at] studynation [dot] com

SRK and KJo can finally come out of the closet…! The judgement has been passed!

Honestly…i dont have a firm view on this…surprisingly all through my 2 years in the US i never had a gay friend…atleast no one who seemed obviously one…or said that he/she was one…! but i have interacted with them…and hv found them to be no different from anyone of us…

whats funny is how people start to brand things as natural/unnatural…as if they know what the base is supposed to be…! cmon…sometime back it was unnatural to speak about your GF/BF in front of your parents…it was unnatural for women to work…and it was unnatural for men to appear in beauty soap ads…! but things have changed….because the base keeps changing…we are not what we used to be…so dont expect the world to remain the same….

maybe the next generation wont even consider gay marriages as an issue…whats the big shit eh…?

as always…do spend sometime on the comments that follow the article above…! kickass…

Market drops 10%…relpet drops 13% to 159

Trading stalled

SEBI issues clarification on PN – it is not banned…just being controlled…!!

Market bound to bounce back now.

Buy 1,00,000 worth of relpet at 11.30am at 163 – under margin trading

Sell relpet at 179 at 2pm

10% gain in single day…!!

God bless the SEBI…

PS: not much work today…