Alumni from School in Parbhani

 This was my wife's school, in Pune. Their batchmates and spouses had a meet in Parbhani, in Maharashtra. My first visit to the town.

It was a great experience, with one NRI couple and many from Pune, Mumbai or nearby places like Aurangabad or Amravati participating.

There was a lot of reminiscing, leg-pulling, nostalgia and of course, singing and dancing. I was happy to meet a couple of professors, some agriculturists, and a few businesspeople and home-makers too. We had a few gender discourses and some party games organised by the Coconut Lagoon, a resort where we stayed. 

There was also a taste of Sindhi and Gujarati food, along with local specialities. Dal pakwan is one I remember. Also a Hurda party and green chick peas- harbara. Bullock cart and horse rides were available for interested people.

The weather was perfect, not too cold or warm. The conversations too.

Teaching Can be Fun

 Learning and teaching can both be fun, if the conditions are right, and the teachers are open-minded. What methods they use to impart learning makes a lot of difference.

Recently, I had occasion to handle a couple of Research Methods sections at Prestige University. The students did a group exercise for a project, choosing a brand that they would base some consumer research on.

Pics from that session. 

Studio UnGap

 This is a digital/social media marketing company that specialises in Instagram and LinkedIn as platforms or media. Stories/reels are their forte. Met with Natasha Kothari, the founder, recently at their office. We are writing up their story as a Case Study. Her lieutenants Riddhi and Vanita were also there for a long chat about how they grew as a company, and as a team which is physically dispersed across the country, but 30-strong. We spoke about their successes at getting and keeping clients, through sheer dint of hard work. More in the case study, which will be available for anyone to use in a classroom.

A pic to commemorate the meeting- 

Natasha also visited Prestige University Indore later for a guest lecture on Entrepreneurship. A couple of pics from her visit

What I Got From My Employers- 5

 Ok, Getting down to IIM Indore and the 7 years spent there. A beautiful campus, with a hill-top academic block inspired by Hindola Mahal at Mandu. And a nice Cricket ground that I used for Golf training and practice.

Did a few unique training programs, including some for the Tata Retail group, Whirlpool, and Hindustan Petroleum- both onsite and offsite.

Taught Digital Marketing for the first time, learning things as I went along. Wrote a couple of cases and co-edited a book on Digital Marketing cases.

Had a lot of good students- too many to remember- in my Marketing Research courses and Seminar on Tourism Marketing too, plus Digital Marketing. A group of students I mentored got the Asia Pacific title in GOMC, an online international marketing challenge that Google runs, in 2017. A group of six students worked for a client called Bhalaje Photographers.

Made many friends, across teaching areas. Attended conferences in Japan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and went to learn things in FDPs in NUS' summer school in Singapore-twice! I was the oldest participant by miles!

And met a lot of doctoral students who became good friends- from different academic areas too! Used the cricket ground to play and teach Golf to a few students, faculty and MDP participants.

What I Got From my Employers- 4

 IIM Kozhikode or Calicut was my second IIM as a workplace, and third overall- I was a student at one.

It is the prettiest campus of all campuses I have seen. It has greenery all around, and great views from offices of faculty, hostels and elsewhere- guest houses included.

I made some new friends there, like SSS Kumar, and renewed old ones - Uday and Suma, classmates from IIMB. The students were good, and I managed to write my second book- Services Marketing, while I worked there. We also did a couple of events- a Marketing Conference with NASMEI, and an FDP for faculty.

The beach was a novelty, in town. We also had visits from friends and alumni like Jogeswari (of KIAMS) and a few relatives while we lived there. The rains took some getting used to, but it was generally a nice experience. Also bought a small Maruti 800 while I was there.

Left for a leadership position at PES Bangalore, and also because daughters' (higher) education was an issue.

What I Got From my Employers-3

 I have worked at 3 different IIMs in the past 25 years. Let me try and expound on the first IIM I worked in, Lucknow, first.

Went there in 2001, stayed till 2003. I was slightly nonplussed by the unfamiliar weather pattern, but learnt to enjoy what I could. Had good friends, old and new. Prof. Akbar was one of the new ones I met, along with Bharat Bhasker (now heads IIM A), Shailendra Singh, Avinash Mulky, Vinay and Madhu Karmakar. Their wives too became family friends. BK Mohanty was a long-time friend from XIMB days-one of the reasons I applied to Lucknow. We were neighbours at Bhubaneswar.

Student quality was good. I remember among them was the daughter of a Cashew king of Goa (Zantye?) -Poonam, I think was her name. And a nephew of my BIL too. And Sameer Ghurye, grandson of my parents' contemporary from the company in Andhra Pradesh. Got along well with JK Das and others in my area- marketing. Neelam Kinra, Prem Purwar and Avinash Mulky were some of them. I also became area chair for a while.

I published my first book-Marketing Research, though it was mostly written at Kirloskar Institute. Tata McGraw- Hill was the publisher. Now in its fourth edition, the Third edition was a bestseller. Also attended a conference at MDI, and met a co-author, Gurvinder Shergill with whom I got a journal paper later in the Journal of Global Marketing. On Marketing Innovation.

Vivek Gupta was a great colleague, and we shared a large office space. He was an IT wizard, and taught me a few tricks on using computers.

The kababs and biryanis in Hazratganj and Ameenabad were out of the world. Not a bad 2 years at all!

What I Got From my Employers-2

 The second in the series in Kirloskar Institute, Harihar, known also as KIAMS. 

Great ambience, learning from working executives- we only did training programs initially. The 2 year MBA came later, in 1998.

Wonderful students, from batch 1 onwards. Still in touch with Savitha, Nidhi (found out they were roommates, recently!), Achint, and met a few more too along the way- Sunil Kataria, Shweta Agarwal, Dheeraj, Smita Mohan, Vidya TC, Swapna (both in Singapore last), Sharmishtha, and Sudeshna and Nishka (with Vikram, her hubby too), Jogeswari, Padmapriya, and long ago, Aditi Sood in Kolkata before she went abroad.

An 18-hole Golf course where Gaur, Dhanapal, Vijayakumar and I played, learning from Sadanand, and the Caddies who were experts on that course. Thankful for that experience which is worth millions!

A great library, with practitioner-oriented books. Cases from Harvard, some of which became my favourites for teaching B to B marketing. Videos on Benchmarking Business Process Re-engineering, Sales (Who Killed the Sale? was a good one), Globalization with Kenichi Ohmae were the highlights.

Wrote my first book- Marketing Research-while I was there.

Many friends from the staff- we partied regularly. Pavan, Rajesh, Yuvaraj, Karibasappa, Paramehwarappa, Umesh, ...

What I Got From my Employers-1

 This is likely to be a series. I may highlight some of my workplaces.

IMT Nagpur

Apart from Oranges in the city, I think I had the coolest bunch of students on campus. And some cool-headed faculty as well. I only taught one Seminar on Thought Leadership during my 3 and a half years there, but I interacted with a lot of students through their extra-curricular activities, and even faced a strike from some lovely guys/girls in my first year- they had a point!

No idea how that bond developed with so many students, but maybe alumni parties were one reason. We had 4-5 each year, and that was a great way to meet and keep in touch. Last week, I met an alumna in Mumbai- Sheetal Garg, and exchanged messages with another, Meenu Mynam who lives in the Gulf. I also keep meeting others- Kanika Mhendiratta, Surbhi Mehta Chadha, Abha Kulkarni, Ananya Nandi De, Shweta Sinha, Anupriya Pandit, Gowri, Sreeram, Anshita Chetty, Ishita Modi, Anurag Sikaria, Pallavi Bajpai, Shafique Gajdhar, Meghna Sinha, Swati Jain, Divya Singh, Vrinda Khanna, Keyur Bhalavat, Ishan Joshi, Ankita, Manjari Mundanad, Nikita Kumar/Ray, Shruti Sharma, Aditya Naag are some I have met at least once. Abhinav Kamal's company, Ten Motion Arts, I wrote a case on. He is into film-making now.

Faculty like Smita Dabholkar went out of their way to do book launches of my autobiography. Ravi Gadgil helped design a green for Golf at the campus. Vijayakumar and others helped bring up the research profile. TK Chatterjee and Harsh Halve did a great job with Placements. 

Support staff like Archana and Vinod and Snehal, and Madhuri Helchel all did their bit. Also, RAs helped us run a Case Conference at Goa for 3 years. Tripti Srivastava and Abhinav Chandel were among those. Rachana Mittal helped create a PPT on Leadership that I used in many MDPs.

One of my greatest workplaces- I learnt a lot, and continue to learn from alumni and some friends there.

Aerial shots

 I took a few photographs from a plane recently that were unique for the views. Some in Belgaum, and some in Mumbai. These are the shots. They can turn out well, or not. I think these did. They were from a small plane, an Embraer jet in the first pic.

Take off, at Mumbai

Landing, at Belgaum

Marketing a New Brand

 It's a tough job, and I am finding that out first hand. We have been doing promotions with a partner, MBA Connect, in a few cities across India. We have met a lot of enthusiastic students -undergrads- who want to do an MBA to further their career goals. We introduce them to Prestige University's MBA with a few USPs- like a 5-month internship, and great industry connect, apart from super specialisations offered in areas such as Food and Agribusiness Mgt., and Data Analytics, etc. Some pics from recent outings- in Coimbatore, Pune, Mumbai.

January 2024

 The month has ended, with a lot of happenings. Some I recounted earlier, but I also managed to travel for work to Coimbatore via Chennai, and met a couple of old friends and Golfers in both these places.

Below- the three of us on our last outing at Kodaikanal, in 2022 August.

I met both Dhanapal and Vijayakumar when working at Kirloskar Institute in Harihar. Along with a friend from Mysore Kirloskar company, YK Gaur, we formed a Golf team of sorts, and tried playing whenever we could- the Golf course was ours for the taking, just a 500 metre walk from our homes. 

We also had caddies who were part-time coaches, having lived and played there for many years. We also had Sadanand, a coach who visited us from Belgaum once in a while. We were there between 1995 and 2001, and played a lot of Golf.

Since then, we also played at Nagpur (Vijayakumar and I with Ravi Gadgil). And took a few Golf vacations to Kodaikanal and Wellington near Ooty, and once to Munnar.

Hope to get one more under the belt this year, maybe at Kodaikanal again.

Gifts and People

 

A sip of Mate, a drink popular in Argentina. Came from my friend Veronica, whom I met in Indore only a few months ago. It's a herb which you drink like you do green tea, in a specially crafted cup and a metal straw.

Greatest Gifts. Of course, people -friends, family who care- are the greatest gifts one can have. But has something gifted by somebody touched you? A book, a pen, a scarf? Or a Golf ball-ok, I have some memorable ones, like nice pics, cards, books, assorted sweets, golf balls and more than all these, great company at parties at home or outside- from several friends- among them, Anushka Mishra, Anusha Soni, Shantanu Verma, Nishka Rathi, Kedar Muley, Harshad Lunavat, Pallavi Bajpai, Abhinav Kamal, Padmapriya Janakiraman, Sunil Kataria, Abha Anagha Kulkarni, Tosha Dubey, Sheetal Garg, Meghana Khadilkar, Kanika Mhendiratta, Muthu Kumaran, Divya Singh, Ananya Nandi De, Bibhuti Dash, Veronica Thavonat (a beverage from Argentina, no less), Shatakshi Tripathi, Vandana Kumar, Prachi Jain, Siri Adi, Preeti Ravikiran, Shraddha Nigdikar, Smita Mohan, Jogeswari Peddi, Pratima Gaikwad, Prabhakar Valivati, Smita Singh Dabholkar, and so many more... also, because she complained about not being mentioned, Rimjhim Verma! Got a surprise message from Meenu Mynam too, whom I met a few months ago in Bangalore -she was visiting from the Gulf. That reminds me to to add Vidya TC and Swapna Gurijala who I met twice in Singapore in the last few years-both Kirloskar students of yore.