Madras University Exams

I have heard a lot of University of Madras engineering students claiming that the semester exam correction is totally random and you could do really well and still get only a 45 on 100 or you could do really badly and still manage an eighty or a ninety.

Actually thinking carefully, that’s not true in most cases. Over the years, the people you expect to do well – do well, and the people you expect to just pass – just pass. So, what’s the problem with the grading? Of course, some mistakes do happen and that’s solely because of an insanely large number of students appearing for these exams every time.

Maybe its just fashion to complain about the grading system, maybe its just like how people keep saying that the world’s largest software company Microsoft creates stupid products (then why does everybody buy them), maybe it spices up conversations, maybe the person who is talking has been affected by it (that’s acceptable, in that case, according to me, the CBSE grading sucks), I don’t know.

But the point is: There’s not much that is wrong with the grading in Madras University. Guess, it’s easier to make this statement once you know for sure, you are never going back to that place again! If I knew that there’s the minutest of chances that I’ll go back to Madras University, I would never make this statement, and that’s what is wrong with the grading! The way they conduct things, it doesn’t give you the confidence that they are doing things right.

Innovation ?

I am certainly not an expert in innovation or startegy and all that good stuff, but one observation I have made over the last few years of following a bunch of american and indian firms is that .... Innovation is not necessarily about creating new things and generating new ideas, but more about using some existing ideas in various contexts and creating things which appear to be new as far as the target audience is concerned.

Sony Entertainment India didn't take too long to figure out that the Indian counter part of American Idol will definitely be extremely sucessful in India. They quickly signed some agreements with the creaters of American Idol, and stole the idea into Indian homes. Today , Indian Idol is second only to Kaun Banega Crorepathi (which has its roots in one more american TV show) in TRP ratings.

Jim Cramer called rediff.com the Indian Google. Rediff is trying to do exactly that and they are doing pretty well. They have the "rediff sponsored links" , the "rediff news hound" , all aping various concepts google came up with.

Google themselves have created finance.google.com which makes some minor but effective modifications to finance.yahoo.com. Google, now synonymous with internet search, actually came into the search engine business after yahoo and maybe even msn did , but just did it better.

We can, quite easily, pick umpteen other cases of "innovative ideas" which are actually just a modified version of what someone else has already done. The key, obviously is to make sure that the customer group that you are targeting finds it as innovative as you do. With the world economy doing quite well recently, we might actually see a lot more cash-rich companies comming out with some interesting products based on already existing products. It might not be long before IBM "innovates" with a next-generation mp3 player thats better than ipod or Taj Indian hotels comes up with a "Idly-Vada-Tikka" chain that competes with Mcdonalds.

Talking Smack about Management - A Fashion among hardcore techies.

“We are getting dangerously close to management”- says a researcher at a technology company about tech guys making power-point presentations.

“You put it on power-point and those guys will justtttttt nod their head”- says a member of technical staff about convincing the management to accept a proposal.

Hardcore techies always have a problem with management folks. They have a feeling that “those marketing and sales guys” don’t do “high level” work but still make a lot of money, in most cases more than an equivalent tech guy and get much more credit that what they deserve and stuff like that.

Actually, it’s not too difficult to understand why these techies think so. Management is something that sounds pretty “easy-to-do” from outside, and you get the feeling that “all he does is make some slides and present them to a customer” and he gets all the money and credit for just that.

BUT, what these guys don’t understand is this. Though management and various aspects of it including sales, marketing and finance sound pretty “straight-forward” from outside they become quite complicated once you get into it. You need to actually be a marketing manager or a sales manager to understand how difficult it is. Marketing managers need to understand the product and figure out which group of customers they should target. Marketing is a like the back-end of sales, and you need to develop strategies to use the money you have appropriately, figure out which products should be targeted at which markets, analyze the size of your sales force, think about advertising ideas and overall build a brand that will sell. Sales, on the other hand, is the front-end. It’s the last step before which money is generated and sales teams work by numbers. You sell more and the company makes more money. Both these roles, requires a lot of creative energy and skills that are not necessarily picked up in the class room. AND, the only way to find out if these people are successful is the company’s revenues. Unlike tech guys, they don’t have the tools that’ll help them check if they are doing things right.

Engineering and Technology is pretty complicated too, especially in the current state of affairs, things seem to be changing everyday that we constantly need to re-learn and keep ourselves up-to-date on all the new stuff that’s coming up. But the reason why management folks don’t talk smack about techies is that its sounds pretty “complex” from outside.

In short, both technical roles and managerial roles require a set of skills that ensure that you do well in your job. These skills are a combination of some skills that come with experience and some that you have picked up in school. But unless you actually work in either of these roles you don’t understand what goes into actually being successful in whatever you do.

Who is India’s smartest person?

3 blog postings, all 3 saying Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is not the best, now its time to talk about people I think are smart, intelligent and among the most enterprising.

I have been publishing like crazy, people who read this (is there anyone?) might start thinking I am jobless. If you thought so, you are totally wrong. I write more when I have more work, because I take more breaks in between working, and when I take a break, I blog. You get it?

Anyway, getting back to our question, who is India’s smartest person?

The Nominees are (in no particular order)
1) Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar
2) Dhirubhai H. Ambani
3) Jamshedji Tata
4) Mahatma Gandhi
5) Azim Premji

According to me, being smart is all about being rich and famous, and maybe a few other minor things. 4 of the 5 people above are definitely rich, and famous, and they have made a difference to the lives of hazaar people. Mahatma Gandhi is the "FOT" nation, so he's in.

But who has made the biggest difference. I think its Jamshedji Tata. 91 operating companies across some 10 sectors, employing about 220K people, and supporting another 200K, a shareholder base of 2 million people and contributing to about 3 % of the country’s GDP. And all this, has played a key role in building a nation-India.

Sachin falls out of contention because he hasn’t contributed to the wealth of the country. Mahatma Gandhi is a tough call. But you can never tell for sure what would have happened if he wasn’t there during independence. There’s too much unproven information about the Mahatma, and It’ll be an interesting thing to find out, what would have happened if there was no Mahatma Gandhi during independence. Azim Premji is India’s richest right now, he’s famous, he employs close to 300K people, maybe more, but he didn’t build his wealth from scratch. Ambani and Jamshedji did. It’s not Premji’s mistake though.

Dhirubhai Ambani is my No.2, typical rags to riches story, and he can boast of the same contribution to India’s wealth and GDP, but Jamshedji won because he has contributed more to the fundamental growth of a nation.