I had an interesting experience today in my Marketing Strategy class that reminded me of the movie Ajnabee in which Akshay Kumar makes well calculated moves, and bases everything on perfect logic but still losses out to Bobby Deol who bases his moves on sheer “Itefaq” in win-loose game. We were asked by our professor to play a game. The rules of the game were that each person has to write a number on the paper between 0-100. Anyone who writes a number equivalent to 0.7 of the class average will win the game.
Did you catch the caveat! You know that everyone else is trying to win and hence try to put across a number that is 0.7 time of what other will think will the winning number. The concept the Prof was trying to push across was to think the rationality of the competition and understand the level to which we should try to go before killing each other. Imagine this number was your profit margin and with this win-loose situation whole industry is going to crash. Anyways, back to the game. I applied my rationality that most people will think till three steps – 0.7 * 0.7 * 0.7 * 100 ~35 (we were to write in whole numbers). I decided to go one step deeper to win and came up with 25. I wasn’t still convinced as I thought i can’t win at 25. First because many people will write 25 and second, some people will be just 2 steps deeper and some will be 4. I trusted my class to be more rational than me and decided to push my no: from 25 to 27 to accommodate the increase in average the 2-level-deep rational people will cause. I applied my logic and was eagerly waiting for results. Results were announced & class average was 26. I missed by a whisker.
A quite shy guy, Manoj, sitting next to me emerged as the winner. He was the only one to write 26 in the whole class. Wow, I thought my logic was pretty close but he did better. I was fairly satisfied though until I happened to talk to Manoj how exactly he came up with 26 and here’s what he said that left me dumb-folded. “My b’day is on 13th and its extremely lucky for me. I submitted my ISB application on 13th, interviewed on 13th as well. Numerous times, it has paid off to me. So, I was sure that I will be putting any number as a multiple of 13. 13, 26 & 39 were the only options since I know people here will go for a kill. I choose the middle one and it worked. That’s it”. As simple as that and he defeated me!
I may sound too committed to win above. The story is just a little anecdote but think of other issues we face. We put across our best foot forward to learn & win something but things work out in favor of someone who’s thought process was completely radical. Logic vs. Luck - isn’t it. I realize that we may complicate ourselves as much as we can but the true beauty of life lies in simplicity. Many times things are not in our control beyond a limit, and it’s best to leave those elements at the fence and move forward. Accepting and consciously living this fact that luck has a role to play in our lives makes life lot easy to understand, live, and love.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Term 2 --- What a fun!!
Term 2 started with interesting set of subjects and lot of twists to the cliché of assignment, quiz, and exam followed across all subjects. We are breaking heads with Marketing Strategy, Competitive Strategy, Macro Economics, and DMOP this time.
Unarguably, the sheer amount of coursework and difficult level of courses such as DMOP has truly tested the mettle of the student. Mark Strategy is an addictive, time sucking, and most interesting game ever made in this world, Comp Strategy never stops surprising you with tougher and tougher cases, Macro Economics every time makes me think how much information I used to miss while reading all those Economic Times articles, and last perhaps most importantly, DMOP – a subject that has made all non-engineers give up and all engineers, increasingly hide their identity as “so-called-comfortable-with-number” fellows. A quant oriented subject, DMOP has continued to give night mares to everyone at campus.
I will be writing more about the current terms, especially on MarkStrat in the posts to follow!
Unarguably, the sheer amount of coursework and difficult level of courses such as DMOP has truly tested the mettle of the student. Mark Strategy is an addictive, time sucking, and most interesting game ever made in this world, Comp Strategy never stops surprising you with tougher and tougher cases, Macro Economics every time makes me think how much information I used to miss while reading all those Economic Times articles, and last perhaps most importantly, DMOP – a subject that has made all non-engineers give up and all engineers, increasingly hide their identity as “so-called-comfortable-with-number” fellows. A quant oriented subject, DMOP has continued to give night mares to everyone at campus.
I will be writing more about the current terms, especially on MarkStrat in the posts to follow!
ISB Updates - Term 1
Terrible. That’s the word. That’s simply the perfect word that truly resonates with my bloging, about my performance in terms of my ISB life updated. It’s not the case that I didn’t want to write. I am tempted to think that I couldn’t write because of time crunch although I am not totally convinced. One thing ISB has clearly taught me is that there is always time for what you want to do. The bigger challenge is to identify the same, and devote your time to “important” and not “urgent” things. I think I have failed to do so, atleast as far as bloging is concerned.
There is so much to write and say about my life at ISB. I see my last post around a month back and world has literally turned around in these 30 days. As I believe that fun of writing is to cover it while fresh and virgin, I wouldn’t be able to delve much in past.
Some quick updates:
Term 1 ended: I was a proud 12.5% MBA as Term1 ended with a bang. Term 1 was pretty relaxed (Relatively) and we touched upon the Micro Economics, Finance, Marketing, and Statistical subjects. Each subject at that time seemed to be independent of each other but with wider subjects such as Competitive Strategy picking up in this term, it is beginning to make sense.
Term Break: Hell broke loose at campus as soon as Term 1 got over. Parties, Music, booze, food, and energy flew across the campus. There were back to back night long parties, numerous club events, etc. A perfect time to catch up on sleep, to just hang around, and have a good time!!
So much other things have passed by. GSB core team was formed and all Club core teams have been formed. I have picked up a position in General Management Club to handle Alumni Affairs. More importantly, I am going to join Dance classes by “Shiamak Davars Dance Academy”. Really excited about it!! I am getting good at Squash, and also hope to learn something about Spanish and French culture from International Club at ISB. Over past 1 month, our section has put in a lot of effort to stick together and we have had some wonderful parties at Class of ’08 lounge, Pot lock parties etc. The informal small group of HKP@ISB that composes of 12-15 most notorious people around the campus is getting tightly bonded and with the pace we are going, there will be a hell lot to write about the same in future.
That’s all for now!! I know time is going conspire against me to take me away from my bloging. But I am determined to conquer the devil this time. I have used technology as a tool, my calendar to remind me of bloging twice a week. I am definite to make this change this time and live these wonderful moments at ISB forever via my posts.
There is so much to write and say about my life at ISB. I see my last post around a month back and world has literally turned around in these 30 days. As I believe that fun of writing is to cover it while fresh and virgin, I wouldn’t be able to delve much in past.
Some quick updates:
Term 1 ended: I was a proud 12.5% MBA as Term1 ended with a bang. Term 1 was pretty relaxed (Relatively) and we touched upon the Micro Economics, Finance, Marketing, and Statistical subjects. Each subject at that time seemed to be independent of each other but with wider subjects such as Competitive Strategy picking up in this term, it is beginning to make sense.
Term Break: Hell broke loose at campus as soon as Term 1 got over. Parties, Music, booze, food, and energy flew across the campus. There were back to back night long parties, numerous club events, etc. A perfect time to catch up on sleep, to just hang around, and have a good time!!
So much other things have passed by. GSB core team was formed and all Club core teams have been formed. I have picked up a position in General Management Club to handle Alumni Affairs. More importantly, I am going to join Dance classes by “Shiamak Davars Dance Academy”. Really excited about it!! I am getting good at Squash, and also hope to learn something about Spanish and French culture from International Club at ISB. Over past 1 month, our section has put in a lot of effort to stick together and we have had some wonderful parties at Class of ’08 lounge, Pot lock parties etc. The informal small group of HKP@ISB that composes of 12-15 most notorious people around the campus is getting tightly bonded and with the pace we are going, there will be a hell lot to write about the same in future.
That’s all for now!! I know time is going conspire against me to take me away from my bloging. But I am determined to conquer the devil this time. I have used technology as a tool, my calendar to remind me of bloging twice a week. I am definite to make this change this time and live these wonderful moments at ISB forever via my posts.
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