People in the management field, would have heard about CAPM model for securities and portfolio valuation and eventual selection.. I was just thinking about using the same idea in the HR function.. why not consider the individual skills required for a particular position as individual securities and then a set of skills as portfolio. Now take the entire industry as the reference and identify the identical positions in other firms..get the skill sets that are required for those positions. Calculate the importance of each of these skills in terms of percentage for these positions in each firm..arrive at an average.. this would be the equalent of the risk free rate in the CAPM model.. the best firm would be taking the maximum risk and hence would be having the maximum return and the poor firm would be taking least riak and hence least return. Now if a particular company has to excel in that particular position, it should be willing to take a risk that is more than that taken by the best firm. However, the risk or the importance that each firm gives it's identical position would differ and that makes the model difficult to adapt.. but if enough research is done, I think this model can be used... but HR purists would object to viewing people as portfolio..however, here you are viewing only the skills as portfolio and the humans has to be viewed as humans only.Assigning weightages for each skills based on the individual traits might be bit subjective..but then there would be a measure to more precise recruitment, as you would be in a position to identify scientifically the important skills required for a position.The Best Indian Business School Blog

Just out of the BrandScan 2004 meeting... this year is gonna be BIG.. its such an exhilirating feeling now in the entire college.. this year we decided to have 15 projects for BrandScan and last year at this time(20 days b4) we had 3 projects. Now we have all 15 projects and its apparent now that we had even rejected certain projects beacause they came too late in the day..
The line up of the companies for BrandScan 2004:
Marico
Adani Group
Titan Industries
Aditya Birla Group- Hindalco
Coats India
J Walter Thomson
Ayur
Perfetti
MRF Tyres
Cadburys
Godrej Saralee
Kopran
Cholamandalam MS
Henkel Spic
TATA Indicom
My project is from Titan Industries.. we are yet to speak to them..however, the project would be a great experience. Hoping for the best...The Best Indian Business School Blog

I had always enjoyed a ride in the window seat- whether it is in a car or a bus or Train, but for the shabby hair style that it invariably leaves after the ride... what with an ultra-thick and rough hair that I have, correcting it had always been a problem...but thinking a bit, it occurs to me that this exists because, the air enters the vehicle from the top portion of the window because, the window is being operated bottom-top... ie the window rises into the top from the bottom...so when you want to have the feel of air, then you invariably had to sacrifice your hair-stlye, but what if the window has to slide from top- bottom?... is it not possible to develop thin glasses that can be rolled into?... The glasses offer practically no other use except blocking sun and rain... this can be done with thin glass too..infact with ease..also, it can be a fibre glass with extra strength, so the safety of the passengers inside need not be compromised..I will enjoy the air with my hair-style intact..

Another problem that normal car users have is mist formation inside the car during driving at rainy season... why does mist form in the first place?.. coz the temperature inside the car and the temperature outside arent same and it is hot inside the car as compared to outside... then there can be two ways to correct it...either increase the outter temperature... or decrease the inner temperature..but decreasing the inner temperature isnt always possible...in the sense... would you like to have A/c in winter?... then increasing the outter temperature would be possible too...atleast near the surface of the glass... for this you can use the engine itself... have a small tank that is heated by the engine itself and a small( very low power rated motor) and pump the water to the top and make it flow across the glass, so that the external temperature increases, this would ideally get rid of the water vapour that settles inside.. this might be a costly proposition but I think worth a try.

How novel is this idea?..Here is a newspaper that praises China for preventing 300 births...Would the same paper approve of the methods used by the country in achieving this?.. Is the means not important as the ends?... As a regular reader of Hindu, I can very well imagine what their view would be:
It would depend on the Government in the Centre..
If it was Congress Government, then they would say how difficult it is in controlling the population in India and how the government is achieving its goals inspite of all these insurmountable difficulties.. and the note would end with a praise for the able and noble leadership of Sonia Gandhi and how her sacrifice has made India proud..
If the Government is BJP, then the story would go as to how great is China's achievement in the face of great difficulties and how the Chinese were able to pull it out with thorough planning and implementation and then it would have gone on to say how the plan was conceived in India and how to current government has gone awefully wrong in implementing it because of the influence of the saffron brigade and how the government is communally targeting minorities for selective implementation of family planning excercise and statistics reeling out how the population of minorities has decreased in terms of percentage of total population by incidences like the Gujarat and how the communal, facist and fundamentalist government is doing this.. sick!!!!The Best Indian Business School Blog

A nice article and a suggestion set for better Email etiquette. The suggestions given are pratical and would go a long way in atleast making some real sense in this age of information overload. On introspecting further, it is apparent that we get loaded with numerous mails everyday that need not necessarily be of any use to us, but merely to keep it going... can this too be called Spam. I have a bunch of friends, who keep sending Good-Morning mails...imagine a mail with nothing but pictures of some kid with a flower telling Good Morning....I personally feel this sort of mail is unnecessary and can be considered spamming, but then these are mails from my friends, and I cant classify them as spamsters. How can I possibly tell them not to send a harmless greeting card, as a token of friendship and affection. I value their friendship, but does that mean that I need to take on silly mails daily. I keep getting these sort of mails atleast five in a day and now-a-days, without even opening them, I know what would be in there for me.. I dont like this, but I cant tell them even, least they would take it as an offence,that I am insensitive to them.. this is all the more important because, we dont see physically each other and all our correspondence is through e-mails. I also feel that the basic purpose of email has lost its significance with the advent of these sort of mails and the spams..well the spams(real) are an altogether different issue. There are mails luring me to increase my size to attract women, to mails that shout from the roof top that their bank gives me home loan for virtually free, and wit a little bargain I can even get some money from the bank to take a loan...a credit card that would give me freedom to use it anywhere in the world...heck..i havent crossed further north of Mumbai... a south american or an african lady with huge wealth asking my favour to transfer her father's money to her name, and luring me to riches I can only see in Pictures of erstwhile Vittalachaariya.....Free from Spam has been the main reason for me to go for my second yahoo id in as many years...but god(rather the omnipotent spamster with the help of Bill Gates- with his wonderful software) has been less than kind...The Best Indian Business School Blog

It has been a bit long since I blogged last(serious Blog ofcourse)... It feels as if serious blogging is in and blogging for the heck of it is out...But I never wanted to be serious in my blogging...Many of my posts were the things that I came across in my daily life...but now I am wondering, whether there is no more interesting things in my life..why is it that Iam not blogging that regularly...my weekly average has come down to 7 from a peak of about 10 sometime back.. But the quality of my blog..well I dont know whether it has gone up or down or remained the same... But 1 thing is for sure, there has been many experiments with my writing style, my expressions, my way of thinking etc... Iam not complaining... may be my work is eating up my time..may be I have become too lazy to write... there might be numerous reasons... but the urge to produce a good piece of writing keeps coming and it makes me not to settle down for less...but what was my purpose to start a blog in the first place...I was not thinking of writting some serious stuff and give messages to the world...blogging started off as a hobby and I think only now Iam giving it the due respect...that of a hobby..only that much time... but still I do check out my blog daily...just to know who has come and what is going on...but for that my blogging spree has slowed...the real burst of blogging was there some 3 days back, when accidently, I discovered that the Google toolbar has a button for direct blogging..ie when you are going through a web page and you want to blog about it, yo need not open ur blog site and then type...there is this cute button there in the tool bar which lets you to blog directly from the same page...If you have the google toolbar do give a try..nice feature...

Just yesterday,we were witness to reports claiming that Russia would be leasing Nuclear Submarine to India on a 10 year lease...but today, we hear from the Russians that they wouldnt be supplying the Subs. This might be due to the pressure of US.. I beleive this is due to its pressure only...but then India has its own way of getting things done from Russia...Though Russia is badly in need of western support and Money, it also wants to maintain its super power status and a multi polar world...it understands that a stronger India would be in its interest and also would serve its strategic intend of staking a claim to be a pole in the multi-polar world..it knows that for all the noices that they make, Europeans wouldnt really afford to stand up to US, as it would be tougher now, with EU expanding and US has too large a swaying power with its doles to the lesser developed east European countries. However, India and China are the two countries that would not succumb to the American hegemony..these two are the countries , which are developing on their own and are able to spread their options both economically and militarily. These two nations would be of most importance to any of the future strategic dialogue, simply because of the size of their economy and their armies. Russia shouldnt lose sight in the long term objectives for short term gains.

A nice article, but the content isnt that we can be Proud of..not the least me... I sincerely beleive that the reasons asked in the first few lines of the article make sense.. had it been anyother minority, would any of these self-appointed protectors of the nation be quite still?...why is it that even after 50 years of self-rule, we are unable to solve this problem.. would the newspapers carried article after article had the same been the case with other minorities?...is there a day that passes without our media reporting about Palestain?...we can sympathise with someone who is no where connected to us, but we cant feel the pain of a fellow indian...I still remember the Gujarat incidence, and how media reacted to that...why is the same attitude absent with Kashmir Pandits?...

The real scenario thats gonna emerge would be something different according to an author (whose name I forgot) in his article in the Business World..He says this too would be of missed opportunity for India and we would loose out to China.. he gives the reasons as our concentration on the lower end of the value chain- while China manufactures Higher end suites, India is still in the Towel categories.. he also sites the pathetic state of Infrastructure in India and surprisingly I came across an article in Sify (without even the author's name) that says the "Golden Quadtrilateral" is a hell.. the article was full of criticism for the project on the grounds of pollution due to increased vehicle flow.. they want development without vehicles ie to say through waterways..I think the author has to be out of mental asylum...how can a country like India live with waterways..half of the country, there is no river with water and the remaining half has only shallow rivers... the natural environment has to be protected- no second thoughts about it..but what is the alternative?... it is easy to find fault with the current system, but it is very difficult to propose a new system.. one really ludicurous hypothesis in that article was that whenever there was mega road projects taken up in any part of the world, only the multi-national Oil companies have profited..this is an inevitable consequence... what will you do with 8 lane roads?.. drive bullock carts?

WOW!!!!. If this is true, then even I would wish to take up a mobile phone connection from BSNL today...the offer seems attractive...but will this be without any hidden charges?.. also the reason given for lowering the cost of ISDN lines seems to me as ludicurous. They are speaking of internet penetration, when the basic education penetration is absymally low and there are schools without teachers in many villages. The notion of Internet penetration would involve only the urban middle class...isnt it?because rural areas hardly have a proper functioning phone line..let alone ISDN lines and there arent enough people who knows how to operate the computers. I think these PSUs are still paying just a lip service for the "Societal Duty" stuff and they are as profit oriented as their Private counterparts. But true for the urban populace the reduction wouldnt have come at a better time... I would ask my father to seriously consider getting a Broadband connection at home..this seems a good proposition now...

This sort of American belligerent mood is something India has learned to live with and if necessary to bend and move around it. But what the recent issue points to is the weakening of even the Russian connection and the apparent problems that this would pose for India. Till now atleat we were sure of the Russian support in case of emergency. The fear expressed by the russian authorities that US may stop supplies mid sea is worrisome... add this with their support to Pakistan and their blind-eye to China's excesses, we have a potentially dangerous situation at our doors, that needs some immediate attention.. and our Netas are busy fighting petty battles.

Atlast this is what I would have prayed for..but yet the scars of the wound would always be there..till now the kid had studied along with others as a non-entity, but from tomorrow, when the kid enters school, will her friends not call her names and tease her for no mistake of hers? Can the media, which did the ugly act remedy this...irresponsible media is not required in this country. I would be blissfully happy in the absence of certain information. Who would have bothered about the kid if the media not spoken about this.. Media in India couldnt differentiate between news and entertainment.. for them every news is an entertainment and every bit has to be used to boost sales and increase the circulation. Irresponsible behaviour.. What would the future be for the kid..whose only fate was to have born for the bandit.. and there are section of people already claiming him to be innocent( what with the films that flocked the screen some years back)..these sort of self-apppointed enlighteners is as bad as self-annointed protectors of culture. The Media atleast after this should behave in a more responsible manner.. what exactly the reporter and the editor of the newspaper thought while publishing the matter?.. whom were they targeting with such a news?... The media owes an apology to the girl for making her life miserable..though this is completely legal to have published the news, is it moral and correct?

Here I am again in my rendezvous with Consultancy... another
assignment another pain you know where... here i am again grinding my a** in front of the computer monitor working on the assignment " Has the Objectivity of Consulting reduced due to the arrival of Company Specific Consultancy?"... here there are two imponderables....
1.How objective is objectivity?
2.Will the consulting companies come out and tell that they have recommended their own products to their clients?...
That is two incomes... one by consulting itself and the other by selling the products recommended.. will any client accept it?... ie first you go and tell that I will charge you for advice and the advice will be to take my own products? but this is exactly what the companies like Infosys and IBM are doing.. I dont know how many of their clients have got their own products as recommendations. Right now any way I am listening to Kaakha Kaakha "Ennaikonjum Maatri" and whinning through my assignment. I had to submit it by tomorrow.. It was given a week back and as always, I have postponed it till today and I cant do it any further. But this is a good business model... U get paid by the same guy twice for doing essentially doing the same thing... if you have two companies , then its even better, nobody will ever know, whose products you are recommending... how good...

Today for no probable attribbutable reason I was feeling so happy. When I feel happy the one thing that I like to do is to take a bike and go..drive, drive and drive till I return back to ground state. But today I cant afford to loose class, that too with a quiz scheduled. Cursing myself for having to go through this, I went to the class.
Thinking about it, I wonder, What makes you feel so good..ie, what is this feeling of "Feeling Good" all about?..For me, it's just a mood to do certain things that I wouldnt do otherwise, for I would feel extremely lazy to do it- to do something that would drain me off. Then I think my energy level is too high. I feel the rush of pumped up adrenaline. The worst part with all these sort of days is that at the end of the day I invariably feel completely drained out . All the energy that seemed to be with me in the morning would have vanished like thin air at the end of the day, leaving me spell bound on what has happened to me...
Along this, I am right now thinking, what has happened to my favourite pass times. Not long ago, it used to be Television. It has been yeons now I had watched the idiot box..even got near one. That place has been taken over by the Internet. Only thing is that I will not get streaming videos, yet its pretty decent. It makes my day. We also have an intranet message board, where there would be discussions ranging from "Is HR Gas?" to "Was the paratha today in the mess overfried?"...Lively message board I should say... There would be book reviews, Movie Posters, Party details etc., posted and its a real fun doing the rounds here, with both original names and anonymous log ins...real fun.. Of late downloaded Firefox and Opera. They are too hard to resist. Firefox I downloaded today and within a day, I had taken in atleast 7 themes and is constantly switching between themes. Nice and refreshing to see something different..not only the appearnace, but the performance too is quite good. For the first time got The Hindu opened without getting distrubed by the Pop-Ups..yeah installed Google toolbar and all , but even they pop-up to say that they have blocked a pop-up...Ironical. Opera is simply beyond comparison, but the banner irritates me beyond words. Firefox is cool....The themes and the extensions make it very pleasant to the eye...a welcome change to the IE...really fell in love at first sight(site)!!. No Pop-ups, no blocking, and new windows blocking my read...pretty decent download interface...really cool...

Bharathiyaar- I think it would take anyone more than a life time to completely savour him. More than everyone, he has really sung for the "Significant other". In his "Kannamma en Kaadhali", he sings,

"Vaai urraikka varughuthillai vaazhi nindran maenmai ellam,
Thooya sudar vaan oliyae! soorai amudhae! Kannamma!"

and

"Maanudaiya Paerarasae! Vaazhvu Nilayae! Kannamma!"

In such a conservative society, to praise your wife( or Lover for that matter)as something like "Vaazhu Nilayae", he should have got loads of gutts and more than gutts, he should have got such a foresight and conviction to accord them their place in the world and scheme of things.But, it is unfortunate that the Kannamma of his dreams, remained just that- "Dreams"- she never had a chance to come in his real life. All his Kannamma poems indeed ended as dreams only. May be because he was so engrosed in his poems, he forgot the family and that burden came upon his wife...Chellammal..I salute that lady for not being his wife, but being the lady she is...She run the family(at that time, when ladies would not come out of house even) and would anyone with such a burden be anywhere romantic?
All said, the one poem I like the most and my all time favourites is...

"Is there a Sound
In the forest
When a tree crashes
And there is no one to hear it?"
Profound statement- by an unknown Zen of yesteryears. I have two parallel thoughts running across on this issue..
How does it matter whether there is anyone to hear? There are numerous (in fact Infinite) things, more around in this world, that raises an eye brow. My presence or absence in a particular system, need not necessarily define it. Even without anybody there, those things would keep happening.
The second thought goes something like this:
When you tell this, it is just that “Sound” has been defined by men. The action “Occurs” only, when it is sensed to have happened or is happening, else do we really know what happens in far-off stars? – No without knowing, what has happened there, every opinion about that place would just be a speculation. The same logic applies here too. Only when there is a receiver to record the occurrence of an event, we can tell that the event has occurred. This also follows my earlier thought “All that is sensed need not necessarily be understood, But all that is understood must have been sensed”
Moving on to a different plane, I was reading some excerpts of the forthcoming book of Mr. Arun Maira (Chairman BCG India) – Remaking India- One Country, One Destiny”. Certain wonderful thoughts there, were the answers to some of the questions that I had in my mind. The most intriguing question of them, goes like this: How can you make the net, more truth based? Now with the advent of Internet, Police Departments and increasingly militant and terrorist organizations are using the medium to reach more people and to spread their ideology. Ofcourse I cannot pass a value judgment on this because every one would have a view of their own and all their actions would be justifiable with their logic. With the explosion of Internet, I have an array of sites to choose to source my information. However, not all sites give me completely fair, Objective and impartial or neutral information. This might lead to me getting attracted towards those sites that would suit my prejudices or notions or perceptions. These sources would do nothing to expand my horizon but rather they would narrow me down by reinforcing my thoughts many times. I might get hardened in my beliefs (though not necessarily right).There would form special interest groups and further their own cause. How will I then can claim to have really used the Internet when all that I have done is to narrow down my perspective and in the process lost the use of vast information on the net. This is paradox that has to be answered in India, what with already existing factions all in the name of religion, caste, language creed, economic strata, simply anything under the sun. India though politically has matured as a democracy, socially it is still a feudal system, with caste creed and the above mentioned factors ruling the roost. With this sort of unique situation, it becomes all the more important for us Indians to devise methods by which there would be self-censor or self restriction (Morally as well as a social responsibility). Will that happen and how long would it take?

I dont think a collection of words make a poem..and thats why i didnt venture into poetry till now. But somehow the following collection of words(that too rhythemically) had got into my mind today and with due apologies to the true poets there...here I go..

Is there a road
beneath the ocean floor
that woudl lead to rome
which houses his ancestoral home
will there be a moon
that would be cool
to take his frown
as if in a pool
will there be a star
to show him the report card
that would give him pride
and then would take him for a ride
there would be none
for, then why so hot is the sun
oh god! get him a moon and star
then he would have got
a family to settle at the end!!!!

Now that doesnt make a poem by any account..but it still is my own creation isnt?

Books, Books and more books..These days I clamour, yearn, beg or even steal for books. There are some books that make your day Lighter, some make it heavier and a few make the day Brighter. They make you think, they give you questions to answer, issues to ponder, while steering clear of prescribing anything. I prefer the later sort of books, that make you think, that give you issues to ponder, that throw more questions than they answer. I dream of getting immersed in a ocean of such books, eating, drinking and sleeping pages and pages of books. Is a book just a collection of pages? For me, when I read a book, the author speaks with me. I imagine him/her in person to speak with me, to tell me what he thinks of that particular topic. I imagine him to tell me his/her thoughts, to answer all my doubts, to preempt all my questions. One such book is the “Age of Paradox”by Charles Handy- a truly marvelous book. He gives you a set of 9 paradoxes- of Intelligence, Work, Productivity, Time, Riches, Organizations, Aging and Justice. The lat one of paradox- the paradox of Justice is extremely thought provoking. The book was written in 1994 and hence, all the other paradoxes had already become the part of today’s life. The paradoxical nature of the other issues are not as striking as the paradox of justice- which I as a child had grown believing is not a paradox. For me Justice had been ultimate with no grey area in between. I have grown believing Justice is universal. But now I think the paradox of justice would be an Eternal Paradox. Consider this: The justice can be both” Giving it, that is deserved” or “Giving it that is needed”. These two dictums, though seemingly obvious, are unfortunately not mutually exclusive. Had they been so, they wouldn’t have become paradox. Just because there can be a clash of two seemingly justifiable arguments, the decision of which one to choose would be morally taxing. For ex: Capitalism’s main dictate is to give what is deserved. This is a justice in that I get what I deserved. But does this mean that I shouldn’t get what I need but that I couldn’t deserve because of my inability to pursue? Does this mean that the needs are different for different people? But nature hasn’t made men like that. Fortunately or Unfortunately, all men has same needs(only our wants change). How will you reconcile between this two notions? Which one would be the justice to you? I am still pondering over it….

Today we had a presentation on implementing Dabbawallah system in Chennai...went on very well..had got an A grade..but the matter of contention is this...
our strategy for transporting the lunch carriers to the nearest Railway station is through Bicycles, and the people who do this would be house maids in the particular locality, say for example for customers in Tambharam , the pereson in charge of that area would be a women who works as house maids in that area..thus she would know the area very well and would be having good contacts also.
Now there was a issue with women having to pedal a cycle with weight at the back...people in the class felt that women cannot pedal with heavy weight at the back. Actually, even if you assume that the tiffin boxes are going to weigh a Kg, then even with the target of 20 boxes per women, it would amount to just 20 Kgs.I felt that there shouldnot be difficulty pedaling 20 Kgs weight. Most people would have pedalled with their freinds, who would weigh around 50 Kgs.But the issue according to them was that there is difference in the effort required to pedal a human and a material of equal weight. This point I didnt agree...there can be no difference in effort when you have the same weight at the back.If at all, this can be the riders illusion and nothing else...now how does that sound?

I had always thought why in earth should consultants be looked at with disdain(remember all the Dilberts). Now I think I know the answer. We have a motley couple of people now in our college, calling themselves IT consultants, searching for ways to improve the IT infrastructure for the past three months..they tell that all the traffic in the systems are to be monitored and they would decide which site is healthy and which not...to my horror they deciphered that the Blogspot sites are not healthy and they are threat to the information security in the institute...I have already lived with this crap for the past five months and just last Sunday, when I was browsing the net I accidentally bumped upon another blospot site, then I realised the official insecurities have been answered..I went on a rampage to all the blogspot ids I know, the ones which I had never known and left a comment or two on all the posts I could possibly see. I also left a comment on Mottaiboss's blog and other Blogspot sites that they can expect my torture now more regularly...but man proposes- the Consultants disposes...for they had thought my exuberance is unwarranted for and it is a mockery of the powers they wield...I had really miscalculated the resolve these guys have in their ability to clearly find which site is a security risk and which not...after a day of baby's day out, now they tell it was a test run...morons...now I know for sure why Consultants are the most unwelcome species around anywhere..they think they know everything about something, but the sad part is whatever they know would be of no relevance to whatever they ought to know...and worse of it all..they think nobody else knows anything....how mean...these guys do nothing except starring at their laptops for hours together...I dont know what is there in the laptop...then the other day there was this book-"Network Security"-oops are these guys just now studying what is N/W security..then OMG- I should have to forget getting the blogspot sites up and running from the institute for ever...atleast the company for which these guys work doesnt file bankruptcy..which would never happen till our institute is there paying these guys...they are such a waste of time and energy..to find the traffic on the network..why should you need a consultant...you can very well get that just by looking at the log sheets in the server...U pay to get censored...once again...my attitude towards consultants have only gotten clearer but certainly not positive towards consulants...

After a long drawn out battle, got the solution. We were able to convince our network admin that blogs are not a "Security Threat" after all..that too only Blogspot sites are deemed to be a security issue...I cant understand the rationality of these bunch of people...but all said and done, now I can rest in total peace and enjoy my blogging...atleast I need not log in and preview my own blog...things are shaping up in a very hectic pace...quite on the heels of Industry Interface, there would be our Alumni Homecoming tomorrow..but alas, I cannot attend it...I have classes(Four guest lectures)....suckers...then there will be Brandscan, Atharva,and then the quintessenial Placement week...that sums it all....my two years of Management Education...Life seems to have been cut short with a huge scissor...that too a pretty big cut in that and it all seems a cloud of smog that has just whowed pass u....jus in a matter of say three months....90 days...I will be outta this place and into another habitat...people say it to be much more terrible...but to me it doesnt make sense...if this place doesnt feel terrible, then other places too shouldnt...coz these are the same people who will be out there, with different name and different color and different voice..nothing else changes...if I was able to find great friends out of people I hardly know two years back, I can very well find friends in other places too. comin back to the topic of the post, jus took a test, that proclaimed me to be this:

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Hilarious...but still feels good...