Businesses That Do Well

 If you had to start a new business, these are pointers- I myself am into consulting, in case you are curious.

Do something that will let people

-gossip through ridiculous forwards - WhatsApp

-show off- Instagram, Facebook, etc.

-not do what they should be.. cleaning, cooking, going out.. all delivery businesses, in short.

-be couch potatoes- Netflix, Amazon Prime and the rest.. 

-not sure if physical dating is still required to get into relationships/marriage etc., so will add online dating and matrimony sites too.

What else? That covers most of it, I think.. anything that promotes laziness, in short.

If

 The word 'if' is magical. It lends itself to many unknown continuations, many possible endings. 

It's the beginning of imagination, in a way. And we all imagine the world, beginning with if..

If only, my last name was Ambani, or Biyani. I had a student, whose last name was Bihani, by the way..a narrow miss. Right now, Mallya is not a cool name to have, though it was, once.. in spite of the performance of his IPL team.

While growing up, we thought all Anglo-Indian names were cool. No idea why..now, a Nadkarni or Kulkarni looks cool to me. If only we had more sense then,..

If man had been vegetarian, would the Corona crisis have struck? Maybe not, but the plague could still have..rats spread it, I think..and rats and cockroaches are almost indestructible. So there's no escaping pandemics.. and wars are always a good substitute.

In my 60 years on the planet, there were many times I thought of the word if and sentences that started with that word, but now, I am beginning to believe that I really did not need the Ifs. I am quite happy with the way life turned out so far, and the lovely times I have had- even in the current lockdown, because of socialising virtually.

Remembering Good Times

 There were lots of them at Indore. Professionally, I got to teach some nice people (though I wish the classes could have been smaller). Some students I have met after they finished too, and remembered our good times. Sapna, Anam, Bhuvneet, Shatakshi, Harshad, Tamros, Ruminder, Arshia, are a few names that readily come to mind. 

I started with teaching Advertising, but moved on to Digital Marketing along with that staple, Marketing Research. Also added Tourism and Retailing for Ph.D. students. And co-taught a Seminar on Thought Leadership with Shweta Kushal, and one on Data Analysis for one-year EPGP. Last time around, also taught a Capstone module on Marketing. Interesting mix. Had many academic associates along the way, all very helpful. Saumya Sharma always remained in touch, even after going to work in M.R. companies.

Ph.D. students also I had many, and continue to be on the committees of a few. Co-wrote a case with Sanket. Also co-wrote a few papers with Srinivas Raghavan and Shweta Jha, and presented many more at conferences. Worked with students (Aradhya, Ayushi, Satchi, Juhi,..) of the 5-year IPM as well, on a few papers in independent study courses. Also came to meet a few talented IPMers like Avik, Sanjana Rao, Jasmine, Shrunga, Philip, during their play directed by Shweta. (My Kaur competence got a boost with Ruminder, Barleen, Harshdeep and Jasmine helping me build it). Later, Shreya too, who starred in The Merchant of Venice. And Prachi.

In my MDP Chairmanship, it was Pradeep Kerketta, Bhupendra initially, and Manas and Hemendra, along with Neha who worked hard behind the scenes. And the same during my tenure as a Dean, where the Director's office staff (Santhi in particular) and our secretaries (Abhishek, Arun) worked really hard to help the Deans. Prof. Ghosh was a great support, and so was Prof. Rishikesha Krishnan. Also the various program office staff (PGP and FPM in particular), some of whom also came to admision interviews at different cities with us.

There was a big conference by our area we did in 2017 and 2019, where the energy of Abhishek and Veenus (and Rajhans in edition 2) which saw us make it really international. I also visited a few in Bali, Beppu (Japan), Phnom Penh (Cambodia), and Hanoi (Vietnam) and Bangkok, and learnt a few things from interacting with global audiences.  

Not surprisingly, the marketing area faculty had a few parties, from the time Bhagyalakshmi was a part of IIMI, and a couple at Mashal after that. Will miss all that. Also enjoyed a couple of impromptu ones where we did a Singathon for IPM students with Pawan Singh, me, Shweta, Venkat etc.

Tried teaching Golf to some of my colleagues and one alum, Akash Gupta, on our cricket ground-some MDP participants too. Our admission yatras across India gave us a chance to catch up with alumni of Indore and other schools we'd been a part of. Teaching at the Mumbai campus, ditto.

The 4th edition of my Marketing Research text came out in 2019, and also a co-edited book of cases on Indian Digital Marketing cases that I am proud of. This also contains an award winning case (live) by a group of students. As usual, student-authored cases formed a part of my M.R. book too.

 

Moving On

 There are moments in life when one takes a call and moves jobs. I have had a few occasions to do so, sometimes across countries, but mostly within India. This is yet another such moment. After about seven years at IIM Indore, I have decided to pursue an exciting and different role, donning the administrative hat once more, and have chosen to get Bangalored once again. Having spent a few years there earlier (PES and IFIM were the most recent reasons), 2005-2009, I am not new to the city. But now, I have many more friends there who are alumni from either IMT or IIM Indore (my last two employers)- Anshita and Sreeram and Aashish and Ishita and Neha and Shatakshi, are you listening? And of course, a lot of buddies from my own MBA days at IIMB and colleagues from my earlier workplaces. So it should be interesting at NMIMS.

Every job I had, I grew as a person. Indore was no different. I had a lot of FPM (Ph.D.) classes here (just completed an online course with them), and a lot of Executive program students in Indore and Mumbai campuses, in addition to MBA students. I also co-taught a course in the IPM program, apart from working with youngsters on project courses. They have all taught me something I did not know. I am grateful for this opportunity. I joined late in 2013, and have worked with 3 directors, and several staff who were a great support. Will name a few- Manas, Pradeep, Hemendra, Bhupendra and Santhi, Radhakrishnan, and Arunendra while I was Dean. My thanks to all. Will continue with some more names another time.

On Turning Sixty

 I haven't yet, but will do so in a couple of months. My question to friends on facebook elicited interesting answers to the question about what they would do if they were about to turn 60. 

One said, stop thinking. I thought I had, sometime ago. One pointed out that I was about to become senile (in Hindi, known as sathiya jaana)..my response is, you don't need to be sixty to be senile, some people are able to fast-track the process.

Another said, expand the bucket list. Well, that may just leave you dissatisfied if you happen to kick it too fast, no? But another piece of advice was pretty good- travel. I have tried it, and if you can afford it, it generally works well for many. Problems with mobility can interfere with it after some time too, so maybe that old dream-state of being on a world cruise would work well, to avoid too much movement, and the possibility of being hit by a car.

One suggested running for Prime Minister, no doubt encouraged by Kamala Harris' acchhe din (good days). I think 60 is too young for that in our country, so I'd rather wait. Singing Main jab hoonga saath saal ka, aur tum hogi pachpan ki...a variation of a popular Hindi song, is eminently doable. I am already humming it.

Bryan Adams' 18 till I die was another recommendation. I think 16 is sweeter, but I don't mind 18. Thanks, everyone, for sharing your thoughts.

Decision making Conundrums

 There's a lot to decision-making. One, is the decision itself, about doing something. But there may be more- as you get older, you see these sides more clearly. For instance, a decision (personal) to marry someone, or the reverse, to break up with someone. To take up a job, or to leave one.

In many of these cases, one has to, apart from the main decision, decide WHEN to implement it, or how. Also, how to communicate it to the concerned parties. All these may determine the effectiveness of carrying it out. For instance, I am told, breakups happen on WhatsApp. I think that is gross. You do need to communicate, at least on the phone, because some conversation may be in order. Social media are good for many things, but this is not one of those things.

Coming back to the original point, though, there are decisions about decisions. It's true of communication too. What to communicate (content), as well as how you do it (the medium, the process) are quite important. That includes WHEN NOT to communicate, or remain silent as a strategy..If only some of us learnt this last lesson,...

My Students From 2019

 The reason for mentioning the year is that I won't be seeing too many physically in 2020, due to unforeseen viruses (not related to Mr. Virus of 3 Idiots' fame) that made offline classes impossible. I am glad we took some pics at the end of the classes.

Anyway, here are a few that I did teach last year - 

Anusha Soni- qualifies as a pal from Bhop-al (not another one?) who I first met online, and she had also won a couple of Nice DP awards, so I was able to recognise her when we met. Also from the rather unique IPM 5 year program which IIM Indore pioneered. She was a helpful class rep., along with Santushtie Mittal from the other class. We met at an alumni function too, where she was involved.

Sunil Patil. He was in the PGP MX class that Prof Jayasimha and I co-taught in Mumbai, and and was unique for his 10x class participation- he had an opinion on everything, sometimes to the amusement of his colleagues. The course was a Workshop on Tourism Marketing.

Juhi was another whiz kid from the same PGP MX course, and helped everyone with their technical difficulties in the course. It does take a magician to make some of the (unwilling/hostile) tech work for you, as I have discovered over the years. 

I also remember many of the students -Megha, Asmita, Anisha, Prerna, Mohona, from the last batch of PGP Mumbai that I taught Digital Marketing to. The small class size at Mumbai makes it easy to remember both names and faces, I think.

Franklin (unique hair style), Pooja Yadav (regular head-nodder) and Harapriya (for a joke on Stats) from my marketing research classes in Indore, and Sruthi Chandrasenan (Iceland visitor!) and Fatima from the Tourism course are some others that readily come to mind, along with Sambit Halder and Harshita Baid. Anuja Anand too. Though I have forgotten their names, I was surprised to find a lot of students from Kerala in my M.R. course.