Now Reading: Matthew Reilly, Moving Mt. Fuji

After a lot of selling from my quaddy Ashish, I finally decided to give Matthew Reilley a try. He's a big fan. I started on hte books in chronological order, and what can I say? I am hooked. I have always been a fan of good action writers with Alistair Maclean being one of my absolute all time favorites, however, Matthew Reilley is pretty good! The books are action packed, with never a dull page. The chapters seem to be in small bite sized pieces, but with so much action crammed into everything, you can never stop yourself at the end of a chapter alone!

To give you some idea, I went through his first 3 books in 4 days some weeks back (yes this blog post is, as always, overdue)! And especially considering that the only time you can get in ISB is against normal sleeptime, I didnt get a lot of that. So much so that I had to ask Ashish to keep the books away from me, till whenever I have enough time to sit and read one of those in a single sitting. :)

I am currently reading 'How would you move Mount Fuji?' by William Poundstone. A great book about puzzles, based on the kind initially popularised in the high-tech industry, this book was on my reading list for quite some time, till I saw it lying in the library. I am about halfway done, and it does have some very interesting puzzles that force you to look at problems from a number of different angles.

Now Playing: Call of Duty - Modern Warfare 2

With GPUs increasing in power with every generation, PC games are becoming more and more lifelike with each successive iteration. While the recession was not supposed to affect the gaming industry by much, PC game sales this year have been low, not because of the recession, but because there havent been many good games released this year. The only halfway decent ones this year were batman Arkham Asylum and Prototype.

Well, Call of Duty - Modern Warfare 2 is the latest game to join the pack, and will probably be the best selling game of the year (the just released Assassins Creed 2 is the only worthwhile challenger). Sequels generally rake in the big bucks in the games industry. The latest title in the CoD franchise was developed by the original game studio 'infinity Ward'.

The story of the game (yes, it actually has one) is in fact halfway decent with some great direction. It shows how newer games are becoming more and more like movies, with proper titles, storylines etc, quite unlike older games which were just run and gun with some country's uniforms and accents added for local color. The graphics as I mentioned for the latest generation CoD game are quite good so long as you have a graphics card which is relatively recent. My generation old 4850 was able to take the load pretty well. I guess th fact that I still play at 1440X900 helps :)

The storyline is workable, allowing you to play 2-3 different characters with some stunning visuals. The only fault I can find with the game is that the story is too short, actually feeling like a movie..... I would have loved to have gotten a longer game.

While the multi-player mode and a set of special times missions etc are there to give more value, I kind of prefer single player story oriented games (+ the fact that most ports here are blocked, so no online multiplayer), and the shorter storyline is my only complaint.

All in all, its an excellent game, and am actually thinking about playing it through once again just because of the nice visual effects and gameplay.

Gamespot has a great video and text review of the game up here.

PS: Next: Back to STALKER- Shadow of Chernobyl, an RPG (role playing game) + FPS (first person shooter) that I have been playing on and off for some time now. I will end up finishing it one day!

PS2: For those wondering how I manage to find time for games, you guessed it right, I get less sleep!

So much to do, so little time…Term 6

Ok, so this is going to be summary of the fast paced Term 6, simply because I don’t have much time to write a detailed post on each event. And that’s the whole point of this rant, time!

Term 6 started off pretty slowly with not much to do except all the events that we had this time. We had the Venture Capital Investment Competition, in association with the Kenan-Flagler Business School @ UNC. This was an internal round and the winner from ISB gets to participate in the Asia Round that we are organizing for the first time sometime in Feb. The winner of the Asia round then gets to goto UNC to participate in the finals with students from among the top B-Schools in the world. So this was kind of a trial run for us in preparation for organising the Asia round. I was handling all the logistics and I can tell you, it wasnt an easy job. It did go off without a hitch though, so no complaints.

VCIC Internal Round

Parallel to the VCIC, we also had the Energy Conclave organised by the Energy and Manufacturing Club on the same weekend!

Next, we had the RBI Governor, Dr. D Subbarao on campus to talk about the impact of the recent crisis on India and our future growth.

Dr. D Subbarao @ ISB

Then we had the ISB Leadership Summit, ISB’s flagship event with over 30 speakers coming over to speak on multiple panels, all on a single day. It was an interesting experience, with the sad part being the choices we needed to make on which discussion to attend. I settled for a very interesting panel discussion where Mr. B S Nagesh, the MD of Shopper’s Stop, spoke on his experience with Indian Retail and its growth over the years.

Mr. Nagesh on Indian Retail

Then of course, we also had ISB Day celebrations as ISB turned 8, with a cultural program over the weekend as well, with some great performances by students, staff, families, you name it!

ISB Day- The Acapella Band!

In between we also had the finals of iDiya, the social entrepreneurship competition, with teams of working professionals from all over India competing, and the top 6 teams attending mentoring workshops at ISB. One of the highlights of the competition was the session on Responsible Leadership by Rahul Bose, who besides being an actor, is involved in a lot of different things, from the Indian rugby team to his NGO.

In addition, pre-placement talks have started, with companies coming to campus almost everyday to deliver their pitches. There are some really interesting roles up for grabs, and resumes are being polished, and interviews being prepared for.

And last, but definitely NOT the least, we have Solstice 2009 this weekend. The biggest fun event of the year, when ISB alums from all over come back to school for 3 days of partying with the current batch.

WHEW! So much for being short, I am already out of breath.
Oh, and this is just a single term at ISB!

PS: Originally posted at http://isbweblog.com/2009/12/15/so-much-to-do-so-little-time-term-6/, and edited by Amit Goyal, our friendly ISB weblog admin.

Baraat @ ISB

Amid the chaos of life at ISB, you make friends in the short while who last for a lifetime. And there are occasions where you get a chance to celebrate with people who you share so much with in this one year. One of our batchmates, Nikhil, recently went off to get married during the 6th term. He plans to go off on exchange to New York, and apparently his parents decided the risk was too great and preponed his planned marriage ;)

Unfortunately, very few of us could make it to Indore for the marriage (during a term weekend). However, we did do the next best thing this weekend and celebrated Nikhil's marriage ISB style with a dunking (of course!). The slight addition: A proper Baraat at night with a horse, dhol, basically all the necessary ingredients for the marriage party of a dear friend. It was a fun night, maybe the best yet!

Though photos cant do it justice, the following Youtube clip has a compilation of pics showing the fun we had:

Heres to you Nikhil and Priyanka!

Related Post: http://isbweblog.com/2009/12/09/marriages-are-made-in-heaven/

Three parts to Life @ ISB

No, this is not the analysis of the different study terms we have here at ISB. What I am looking at is the three kinds of things we end up doing on any given day. The first thing you are warned about at ISB and you are expected to do is, well, study. Attend classes on the weekdays and try to finish assignments on the weekends. The weekdays actually end up being a lot more chill than the weekends, since we only have classes for 4 hours 4 days a week (in the core terms at least).

The weekends are much more hectic, with multiple assignments due early in the mornings. Most nights are spent completing the assignments, with scenes of people running all the way to the boxes placed in the atrium to submit them at the last minute, to people sitting on the submission box to stop anyone taking the box away till their group arrives after printing the assignment! Time, however, is snatched away for outings after a night-out or suddenly formed movie plans.

The second part of life here is the social part. This includes all the speaker sessions we keep having on campus, with a choice often required between multiple sessions going on simultaneously. That’s when you need to prioritise ruthlessly. Of course, then there are all the cultural events, weekend parties and short outings to just chill out and relax. And yes, we have a dedicated Student Life Council charged with organising such events, and they really do one helluva job!!

The third and equally important (Yeah, right!!) part of life here is…. sleep. Yes, something that we get precious little of much of the time. On an average, so long as you manage 5-6 hours you are good. This is also the most flexible component in the course, and the only place where you can compromise.

You can decide that you don’t care much about your grades, but that doesn’t mean you can just chill out. Attending classes is compulsory, and the same is the case with the assignments, unless, of course, you want to risk failing the course.

What invariably ends up happening is that sleep is usually the only thing you can be flexible on if you want to do everything else. For example, today there was an interactive session with Rahul Bose. So in addition to classes, studying/preparing reports and the session, if I want to write this post, that’s another half an hour of sleep sacrificed.

PS: Also posted on www.isbweblog.com, ISB's official student blog.

Contemplation....old friends and the world outside ISB

Theres nothing like sitting in front of the 24hr CCD (yes, we have one on campus...) in the cold, at 1AM at night, coffee in hand, doing nothing, but talking on the phone to a really really old friend. I know there are deadlines to meet, people to see, but theres nothing like talking to someone after such a long long time, someone whos not from ISB, someone not bothered about what assignment needs to be finished this week.

It makes one think about the world outside ISB, about old friendships/relationships, things to do that dont involve pre-reads/cases/assignments/speaker series/case competitions/resumes.

Yes, I know I am supposed to be busy, working away, but you know what, the one thing you can always adjust in ISB is time, with sleep the only thing thats going to take a hit, the only thing one can compromise on here in ISB in fact!

National Geographic's International Photography Contest

National Geographic hosts their international photography contest every year showcasing images submitted by readers from all over the world. The photographs are then voted on by readers and the top ones are selected.

25 images from among this year's entries are featured here: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/11/national_geographics_internati.html

Top Photos from previous years: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/photo-contest/past-winners?startgallery=1

Some great wallpapers from these photos: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/photo-contest/2009-wallpaper

Selected photo galleries: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/photo-contest/2009-galleries

If you are into photography, its a must view to get an idea on the different ways photographs can be taken at the most unlikely (and even the most beautiful) locations....

Employee Motivation and the 2-Factor Theory

One of the courses in Term 6 is the Managing Teams course taught by Prof. Henry Moon from the London Business School. While the course started later than the other courses (schedule/visa issues) and we are only 2 classes in, the course is a whole lot of fun and has the capacity to make one really think!

Employee motivation was today's topic and I really liked the way it went. One of the factors discussed really got me thinking and is the reason for this post. The Two Factor Theory or Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory essentially believes that factors that affect job satisfaction as well as factors that affect job dissatisfaction in the workplace are separate from each other. While this may not be directly obvious, what it believes is that factors like salary are the bare minimum you look for in your job. Having more of it does not really mean you have higher job satisfaction! Of course this will not hold true for everyone. Someone may of course be motivated solely by a monetary incentive, but you know what I am getting at.

While there has been some debate over the years on the exact validity of this theory (refer to Wiki links above), there is empirical evidence that shows the very same thing and is what got me interested in blogging about it.

Apologies for the black and white image, the ppt hasn't been uploaded yet, and I didn't want to wait. :)

This really is food for thought. What does it mean? That people are most easily dissatisfied by different kinds of company bureaucracy, something that I am sure the majority of us knew already, but the way the whole thing was explained .... lets say we can see why he teaches at LBS!

Inheritance Cycle: Check, and the urge to write

So like I mentioned in my previous post, I finally finished reading the third book in the Inheritance Trilogy nee 'Cycle' (refer to previous post) by Christopher Paolini. The book did leave me a bit underwhelmed actually. While I do realise that the writer says he could not see everything coming together in a third book to conclude the storyline as planned initially, the third book felt pretty weak overall. Of course, the fact that what was supposed to be the final book as now turned out to be another in the series could be a reason for my bias as well. It was still worth a read, if only to stay with the story while waiting for the next (and hopefully last!) book in the series.

While the student life @ ISB keeps us pretty busy and doesn’t give one much spare time, I keep getting the feeling of writing on some topic I read about, the only problem being that something or the other always comes up. There’s always an assignment or a speaker session to sidetrack the mind. I have a whole notebook kept aside now where I keep jotting down thoughts and stuff I need to write/blog on once I get time.

In better news, my persistence paid off and I finally got an article of mine published in a proper magazine last month and two more are coming this month :) At least I have some writing skills that someone else finally thinks are worth something! Usually it’s when I sit down to write that I realise how much I love writing. Once the flow of words starts, there no sense of time or page limits in my mind, and thoughts just form themselves into sentences as required.

I really do need to start writing properly more often, or at least blogging about all the many things I keep thinking about. Those who have seen my browser windows will know what I mean. At any given time I have 20 or more windows open just to track topics of interest that I want to read up on or write about somewhere.....

Here’s to more frequent writing. Maybe something like keeping 15 minutes aside each day will help!

As for the book to take up next, its a draw currently between writing more frequently, books on negotiation, or Mathew Riley...