Later on Sunday, we had an RCB class. The fest coordinators for Iris, i5Summit, Udaan and Utsaha were announced at different points through the day.
In the night, Team Airlift announced permanent delivery services- they’d done a trial run with the roses and cards before Valentine’s Day- they’ll now be delivering food from the night mess, through the night. It’s funny watching the 4-member team, in the night mess all night- taking orders, placing orders, collecting them and then coordinating the deliveries. Let’s see how this pans out.
22nd morning began with a Finance class and then an SM one. The HRM quiz papers were shown in the afternoon, after much confusion about the time and venue.
Meanwhile, CCTV cameras have been successfully installed at both Gate 1 and Gate 2. The next target is apparently the boys’ hostels- there’s a certain privacy issue with the girls’ hostels so that’s a long way off.
At 5:30 p.m., we headed up to the Old Audi to hear a guest lecture by Dr. Sam Pitroda- he spoke about his journey, spearheading the telecom revolution in India (beginning in 1989), and the future of our lives in the face of rapidly changing technology. His closing message was simple- Be innovative; think out of the box; move out of your comfort zone and go, get things done! This talk raised a lot of important questions including whether we ought to first increase the effectiveness of the internet technology where it is already available or if the focus should first be to increase reach. Dr. Pitroda believes that more 60% of the job titles that we’ll hold in the next 10 years haven’t even been coined yet- that really is an interesting thought- and we’ll really have to wait and watch!
The Semi-finals of the Cricket League began at 6:30 p.m. The top two teams from each pool played the semi-final; somehow, both the pool winners lost their semi-finals and the other two teams were to play the final.
We had 2 SDM classes on the 23rd i.e. Tuesday where we moved to the second part of the course- from discussing distribution channels to discussing the levers in the sales process namely Skill, Structure, Process and Compensation- each of the levers would be dealt with using a case. The case at hand dealt with the skill involved, using the example of a Software Services company.
In the run-up to their farewell, the seniors had group photographs through the afternoon. They’d all dressed up in suits and this activity carried on well into the evening.
At midnight, the final of the Cricket League was held. With that coming to a close, a Football League was immediately announced. There’ll be a bidding before the matches start on the 25th.
24th morning began with a Finance class followed by an SM class- the timetable has been scheduled to run section-wise classes on one day and then the electives on the next day, in alternation.
Later in the evening, I headed up to SR02 with the IRIS Vertical Handover form, to confirm my appointment as the coordinator of the Media Vertical for this year.
There were then two pre-processes to be sent in- one for the Media vertical of Utsaha and another for the Media Vertical of the i5Summit. I drew up a detailed, week-by-week media strategy for both.
Close to 11 p.m., I headed up to SR09 to help with some farewell-related activities- the Cultural Committee puts in a lot of work at this time of the year and they’d called for volunteers to help with the distribution of mementos to the senior batch; food coupons for the farewell were also to be handed out.
The mementos were personalized- an etching of the main entrance of IIM-Indore on a metal plate that was mounted on clear glass, supported by a wooden base and a second metal plate that had the person’s name and said ‘Class of 2016’ in large font. The mementos looked impressive- they were in large cartons, sorted by hostel blocks; we headed over to SR04 to begin distributing the mementos to the ladies there. It took about two hours to hand them all out and personally invite everyone to be a part of the farewell activities on 27th and 28th.
Meanwhile, Team Airlift sent out an email announcing a discount to people who could correctly guess a hidden clue in their email- apparently, they’re going to begin using drones to deliver the food, in the near future. Some enquiry revealed that this near future is somewhere next term- they’ve been working on a couple of models for a while now and hence the name.
The bidding for the Football League was held at midnight, in Mess 1. There were players waiting to be sold, the captains ready to bid for their choice of players and the Sports Committee to carry out the process. Some 8 teams including a team of exchange students were put together. The matches began on 25th evening.
25th morning saw two SDM classes where we discussed a case involving a jewellery company that employed the direct-selling method through a network of sales representatives.
At around 1:30 p.m., interviews for the Utsaha Media team were held; my interview was the last one post which I spent over an hour discussing everything from the clubs on campus to the US presidential election with the outgoing boss. He shared his views on our batch, noting that their batch had been a lot more enthusiastic about the fests and events on campus than either our batch or their senior batch- let’s hope that his fears of the events not being bigger and better are not realised!
I then spent some time calling up some PGP2’s to request for pictures to be sent in for the yearbook- pictures of winning teams at various competitions were to be collected. We’d collected these pictures earlier in the month but someone had managed to delete the entire folder of pictures from the drive resulting in this chaos. Luckily, most of the seniors were understanding (perhaps eager to receive their yearbooks) and we got a decent bunch of pictures.
Meanwhile, the points that we’d put together as part of our Sustainability assignment on Evaluating Social Capital at IIM-Indore were heard at the Hostel EC meeting. They explained some of the staff concerns and promised to look into some of the suggestions. It’s nice to contribute to anything positive!
In the evening, we headed out for the Media Comm farewell party. We headed to Mama Loca to get some good food at a place with some nice ambience to add to the delight of the evening. We got back to campus around 11 p.m. and then got around to clicking some group pictures- perhaps the last of the Media Comm group pictures before the senior team leave campus after their farewell.
26th morning began with an 8:45 a.m. class where we urged the professor to shift our remaining classes to the 10:15 slot. We’ll see how that goes. We discussed Blue Ocean strategies in the SM class- it’s when a company moves beyond the boundaries of an existing industry into creating a new industry altogether. It chooses not to compete in the Red Ocean which is the existing industry but instead to carve this whole new existence.
After class I got back to my room and slept through the afternoon and most of the evening. At around 7 p.m., I headed to give an interview for the i5Summit media team and then went out for dinner.
At 10:30 p.m., everyone headed to the Old Audi for a Master Class session organized by Mercur-I, the marketing club. The theme for the talk was ‘Baton to Competitions’- expert advice on the best strategy to employ in order to win various case competitions through the year was shared by seniors who’d won a bunch of National-level events through their second year.
27th morning began with two SDM classes- one right before lunch and one right after, where we discussed revising the compensation structure for sales reps in order to drive desired sales behaviour and volumes.
I headed upstairs in the evening, to try and find something to eat- I succeeded in getting myself some oranges and then I stopped by SR08 to sign the handover form for Usaha media coordinator. Some dinner in the mess later, we headed to the football field for Day 1 of the two-day farewell event- Au Revoir.
The evening began with a bunch of performances by Harmon-I (and, by evening I mean that the first performance began a little after 10 p.m.). Soon, nostalgic PGP2’s were taking over the stage, singing songs in varied languages. A cake cutting ceremony followed. The evening was brought to a close around 12:30 a.m. with the lighting of sky lanterns. Most attempts at getting the lanterns successfully lit ended in disaster; a few lanterns out of the hundreds made it into the sky, soaring up, up and away into the distant night sky- a seemingly fit representation of time flying by, with everything that’s happened in that time fading into the distance, to remain as only vague, delightful memories in people’s minds and hearts.
We then had a leadership session where we spoke of successful crisis management by corporates and discussed historical examples of good leadership. Some food in the night mess later, it was time to get writing since there’ll be so much more to write about tomorrow, after the final day of the farewell.
No comments:
Post a Comment